Hokahey wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 4:49 pm
Hype wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 3:21 pm
Social services.
Are you arguing that social services will stimulate the economy?
Yes. It's too easy to get hung up on government spending as somehow "taking people's money", while forgetting that it's a highly complex system that has systemic benefits that are not easy to see at a glance. It's worth remembering that governments, especially federal governments (but also state and local), can operate financially (and in terms of mobilization) in ways that no private business or individual can because they have access to financial resources and tools that only exist at that level (and also the backing of literally the entire taxpayer base of the country/jurisdiction).
So, yes, on the one hand social services (by which I mean government aid programs writ large) require the government to spend money now. But that money doesn't disappear into the ether. It goes to citizens. The benefits are manifold: ensuring that people are able to continue paying rent, mortgages, food, etc., now means that we don't face mass homelessness, starvation, hospitalization, criminality etc., later. The costs of not spending now are often far greater than spending now. What's more, public works projects and social investments often produce permanent value far in excess of the original costs.
There's a ton of literature on this, focusing broadly and narrowly. But here's some:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... 2397.00180
As a result of the efforts of neo-liberal economists,economic issues are given more prominence in social policy debates today than ever before. While social policy has historically been viewed as a means of meeting social needs and promoting human well-being, its goals are increasingly subsumed under cost containment and efficiency considerations. The now widely accepted neo-liberal argument that social spending harms the economy and that global competitiveness requires reductions in social expenditures has also gained currency. The increasing emphasis on economic considerations has been accompanied by the growing acceptance of the commercialisation and marketisation of the social services. As economic issues have come to dominate social policy debates, social policy’s traditional commitments to altruism, social care and welfare rights have been relegated. Although advocates of state welfare bemoan this trend, they have offered few realistic proposals for countering neo-liberalism’s current hegemony. The notion of developmental social welfare challenges the neo-liberal claim that social welfare is incompatible with economic development. It also offers an opportunity to integrate economic andsocial policy considerations in ways that reassert social policy’s traditional commitments.
These strategies may be augmented by other programmes that invest in people and communities, and enhance their participation in the productive economy. However, all involve a major shift in conventional social-policy thinking from the provision of consumption and maintenance-oriented services to interventions that enhance capabilities, invest in people, facilitate economic involvement and contribute positively to economic development.
Although the strategies described earlier have focused on social-service clients, it is important to emphasise once again that social investment is not only concerned with the welfare system but requires a commitment to a wider, comprehensive economic development approach that addresses issues of growth, employment, incomes and standards of living in society as a whole. Social development is ultimately concerned with the well-being of all members of society. It is within this broader framework that developmental welfare and its emphasis on productivism and social investments is best able to address the needs of welfare clients, the poor and needy and the members of deprived, low-income communities.
Here's a more specific case:
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=521656
The financial and economic crisis which originated in 2008 has had a severe impact on the population of the Southern European countries. The economic policies of austerity and public deficit control, as well as the neo-liberal and conservative social policies are redefining the public social protection systems, in particular the Social Services. In order to get to understand the current situation, we shall explain how the Social Services were developed in Spain and analyse the causes and consequences of the economic crisis. The working hypothesis is that the greater the increase on the population’s needs, the more developed the Social Services should be. We carried out a descriptive analysis of the situation as far as the social impacts of the crisis per region are concerned. We tested the hypothesis through a parametric model of analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) triangulating with the non-parametric Kruscal-Wallis test. The working hypothesis failed. The regions with better developed Social Services show a lower level of poverty and social exclusion. The challenges that the public Social Services system faces in times of crisis is three-fold: 1) re-modelling of local administration and transferring of the municipal Social Services responsibilities to the regional administration; 2) an increase of the population at risk of poverty and social exclusion 3) impact on social policies.