American exceptionalism would have to be awfully exceptional to suffer a similar expansion of government and not witness, in enough of the populace, the same descent into dependency and depravity. As the United Kingdom demonstrates, a determined state can change the character of a people in the space of a generation or two. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want,” to be accomplished by “cooperation between the State and the individual.”38 In attempting to insulate the citizenry from the vicissitudes of fate, Sir William succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity. “Cooperation” between the State and the individual has resulted in a huge expansion of the former and the ceaseless withering of the latter.
For its worshippers, Big Government becomes a kind of religion: the church as state. After the London Tube bombings, Gordon Brown began mulling over the creation of what he called a “British equivalent of the U.S. Fourth of July,” a new national holiday to bolster British identity.39 The Labour Party think-tank, the Fabian Society, proposed that the new “British Day” should be July 5, the day the National Health Service was created.40 Because the essence of contemporary British identity is waiting two years for a hip operation. So fireworks every Glorious Fifth! They should call it Dependence Day.
One-fifth of British children are raised in homes in which no adult works.41 Just under 900,000 people have been off sick for over a decade, claiming “sick benefits,” week in, week out for ten years and counting.42
“Indolence,” as Machiavelli understood, is the greatest enemy of a society, but rarely has any state embraced indolence with such paradoxical gusto as Britain. There is almost nothing you can’t get the government to pay for.
Plucked at random from the
Why not? His social worker says sex is a “human right” and that his client, being a virgin, is entitled to the support of the state in claiming said right.
Fortunately, a £520 million program was set up by Her Majesty’s Government to “empower those with disabilities.” “He’s planning to do more than just have his end away,” explained the social worker. “Refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights.”
Of course. And so a Dutch prostitute is able to boast that among her clients is the British Government. Talk about outsourcing: given the reputation of English womanhood, you’d have thought this would be the one job that wouldn’t have to be shipped overseas. But, as Amsterdam hookers no doubt say, lie back and think of England—and the check they’ll be mailing you.
To a visitor, one of the most telling features of contemporary London are the signs pleading with you not to beat up public employees. The United Kingdom seems to be evolving from a nanny state into a kind of giant remedial institution for elderly juvenile delinquents. At bus stops in London, there are posters warning, “DON’T TAKE IT OUT ON US.” At the Underground stations, you see the slogan “IF YOU ABUSE OUR STAFF, LONDON SUFFERS” above a poster of Harold Beck’s iconic Tube map rendered as a giant bruise—as if some Cockney yob has just punched London in the kisser and beaten it Northern Line black and Piccadilly Line blue, with other parts of the pulverized skin turning Circle Line yellow and even Central Line livid red. I found this one of the bleakest comments on modern Britain: all the award-winning wit and style of the London advertising world deployed in service of a devastating acknowledgment of civic decay.
But why wouldn’t you take it out on the state? In much of Britain, what else is there? In Wales, Northern Ireland, and parts of northern England, the state accounts for between 73 and 78 percent of the economy, which is about the best Big Government can hope to achieve without full-scale Sovietization.44 In such a world, if something’s bugging you enough to want to kick someone’s head in, there’s a three-in-four chance it’s the state’s fault.
