This is how society dies

[Oexmelin]

How so?

I don't understand the question.

How is it an aspect of virtue?

[Admiral Yi]

How is it an aspect of virtue?

Because fulfilling one's responsibilities leads to positive outcomes.

[Oexmelin]

I don't follow.

Are you talking about duty (I have a responsibility towards my children, my hierarchy, my students) or are we talking responsibility as in, I am responsible for my fate?

[Josquius]

. In the UK the coalition decided to cut local government spending hugely, on average by 20%. But they did in a way that was meant to be "fair" but actually cut budgets for poor council areas a lot more. So on average it's 20% but there's a lot of variation. Basically it was a political play - austerity by stealth because they'd just be cutting the local government budget, it would be up to all of those councils to make the difficult choices.

And get all the blame.
It's truly insane how much shit gets thrown at councils for everything that's wrong. This was one of the major factors in labours fall at the last election, along with Corbyn the major factor.
It really has me considering whether the smart thing is  to vote tory at the local elections. If they run a Council then at least then the blame would go towards the right party. Though their taking control would probably coincidentally align with an uptick in funding. Sigh.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't follow.

Are you talking about duty (I have a responsibility towards my children, my hierarchy, my students) or are we talking responsibility as in, I am responsible for my fate?

The former, though one could argue the latter is a subset of the former.

[Malthus]

Sure, but that's not quite what I mean and it can be misleading - the US government spends more on healthcare than the UK government does. Also, obviously, a large and increasing chunk of "social spending" is pensions. So to take the UK examples there's a triple lock on state pensions - they will increase annual by the highest of: inflation, wage growth or 2%. There are also other benefits for the elderly which tend not to be means tested (free TV licence, fuel etc).

In the UK the coalition decided to cut local government spending hugely, on average by 20%. But they did in a way that was meant to be "fair" but actually cut budgets for poor council areas a lot more. So on average it's 20% but there's a lot of variation. Basically it was a political play - austerity by stealth because they'd just be cutting the local government budget, it would be up to all of those councils to make the difficult choices.

Councils in the UK mainly spend money on education, roads, social care (adults and children), environment, public health, housing, plus culture (typically libraries, parks, playgrounds etc) - most of this is for services they are legally required to provide, but that central government isn't legally required to fund. Because they've had their budget cut so much councils used up their reserves pretty quick and had to make fairly deep cuts. Generally they understandably chose to protect children's social care, but every other category has been cut on average from about 10% (adult social care) to over 50% of the budget. And these cuts are affecting things that people think are really basic government services: collecting the bins, maintaining the roads, environmental stuff (like street cleaning, preventing fly-tipping), providing shelters for rough sleepers (which has increased by over 150% since 2010).

When those sort of basic universal services fray I think that has an impact on social cohesion, which is distinct from overal social spending which tends to be far more noticed by affected people.

Again, it is also important to look at overall facts. Fortunately this site breaks these down somewhat.

Pension spending:

https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/pension-spending.htm#indicator-chart

UK is below the OECD average (remember that as a total of spending, it was average). The nations truly hammered by pension spending are Greece and Italy.

Social spending:

https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm#indicator-chart

UK is slightly above OECD average.

No doubt you are correct and the devil is in the details of how these pies are sliced as between various layers of government ... but these facts do not support the thesis in the OP, namely that the Anglo nations are uniquely cruel in terms of overall social assistance.

Again, in my opinion, the true problem lies elsewhere: in stagnation of social mobility, in the upper class seizing almost all of the increase in wealth, etc.

[The Minsky Moment]

The article is also a bit too harsh on the USSR.  Soviet citizens didn't have access to lots of consumer choices and snazzy brands but it did a pretty good job of supplying basics like shelter, food, public transport. The USSR did have problems with scarcity of goods and rationing by queuing but the postwar state avoided actual famines.  Life expectancy did dip slightly in the late 70s but it was trending back up under Gorby before taking a nose dive after the collapse.  The USSR even displayed some institutional flexibility with two major political transitions in 40 years - first from the Stalinist terror state to the Brezhnevian bureaucratic state and then again with the Gorbachev reforms, although the latter ultimately resulted in the system's dissolution.

[crazy canuck]

I think the opposite though in terms of urban/rural. I think there's far less sense of rugged individualism in a city. There may be less individual philanthropy/charitable efforts to help people in cities (though that might be wrong), but I think cities tend to support (and pay for) government providing basic services, the more rural a community the more likely they are to oppose (and rely on) those basic services.

Interesting point.  We don't see that effect as much here because much of what is done at the local level in the UK is the responsibility of the Provinces in Canada.

[Oexmelin]

The former, though one could argue the latter is a subset of the former.

Both seem to bleed into one another quite a bit, which is, I suppose, why this notion to me is highly problematic. The reason I ask is because ascribing responsibility to one's isolated success seems a fraught proposition; but associating such responsibility to virtue allows one to feel either smug about one's own chance, or to be indifferent to the suffering of others.

[crazy canuck]

The former, though one could argue the latter is a subset of the former.

Both seem to bleed into one another quite a bit, which is, I suppose, why this notion to me is highly problematic. The reason I ask is because ascribing responsibility to one's isolated success seems a fraught proposition; but associating such responsibility to virtue allows one to feel either smug about one's own chance, or to be indifferent to the suffering of others.

One needs to be have an extreme egocentric view of the world to ascribe their success entirely to themselves - unless they live alone, on an island, without any contact with anyone, from birth.

[Oexmelin]

One needs to be have an extreme egocentric view of the world to ascribe their success entirely to themselves - unless they live alone, on an island, without any contact with anyone, from birth.

Indeed, but it seems a core tenet in certain political outlooks.

[Admiral Yi]

Both seem to bleed into one another quite a bit, which is, I suppose, why this notion to me is highly problematic. The reason I ask is because ascribing responsibility to one's isolated success seems a fraught proposition; but associating such responsibility to virtue allows one to feel either smug about one's own chance, or to be indifferent to the suffering of others.

Ascribing responsibility to one's isolated success may indeed be a fraught proposition but I'm very unsure of how you got there from what I said.

[Oexmelin]

Ascribing responsibility to one's isolated success may indeed be a fraught proposition but I'm very unsure of how you got there from what I said.

If it's someone else's responsibility to make sure you achieve it seems like that eliminates the meaning of achievement, the pride of accomplishment.

It seems as if it's very important that the responsibility to one's success be correctly ascribed, lest it eliminates the meaning of achievement, the pride of accomplishment. Or that someone' failures becomes your cross to bear - you failed in your duty. Thus, it seems a lot hinges upon the notion of responsibility - despite the fact that it appears quite difficult to ascribe properly.

EDIT: Just to make it clear, my comment is not simply directed at you. I agree with you: my responsibility - my duty - to my students, is to teach them, at the best of my ability. Their success is out of my hands - because some of it is in theirs. But some of it lies in all sorts of other circumstances upon which they have no control, some quite favorable (born in affluent families), some over which they have some measure of control (prepare for a stupid certification exam). In these circumstances, ascribing responsibility may be an interesting exercise, and one that social scientists do all the time ("society" vs "individual"), but it's become more than an interesting exercise: it's become a core tenet of political ideology, one that determines how resources are distributed, and in which what remains quite uncertain, and philosophically delicate, has become expressed with the language of self-evident certainty.   

[Admiral Yi]

Sure, people can commit the error of being born on third base and thinking they hit a home run, but that's not intrinsic to the belief that people should fulfill  their responsibilities.  And the possibility that people will commit this error has to be weighed against the pathology of thinking that everything is someone else's fault.

[grumbler]

Both seem to bleed into one another quite a bit, which is, I suppose, why this notion to me is highly problematic. The reason I ask is because ascribing responsibility to one's isolated success seems a fraught proposition; but associating such responsibility to virtue allows one to feel either smug about one's own chance, or to be indifferent to the suffering of others.

It may well be that an individual has no responsibility for their own success, whether assisted or not, but it is human nature to ascribe more virtue to the individual who succeeds in a given situation than one who fails in the same position.  The kid from the slums who gets the Harvard scholarship and earns a law degree is generally considered, for better or worse, more virtuous than her identical twin who gets the same scholarship, fails to work as hard, and flunks out.

It certainly speaks well for your egalitarianism that you would disassociate virtue from effort and accomplishment, but I think you are rowing against the tide on that one.