G'day again :-)

Just to clarify to all.

> Number of welfare recipients in Australia: about 5.4 million, or about the entire population of Melbourne.

That's the number of unique Australians who get any form of income support at least once in a full reporting year, and there are a number of one off and short term payment types.

It includes many people who are working, a number on pensions, likely children (I haven't dug deep, etc), students, and others.

It's not the case that there are 5 million dole bludgers spending the year on the piss at the TAB, pulling bongs on the couch, etc.

There's quite the list of support types here: https://www.dss.gov.au/income-support-payments

It includes assistance for real Job seekers and helps keep them from being a greater problem, assistence with starting small businesses, etc.

>Democracy can last only up to that point the majority realise they can vote themselves largess from the public purse.

You wish people would go back to forming loving families, but you believe people will naturally leave others to die in poverty and sickness once their eyes open.

Which one is it, nandomrumber?

You didn’t really answer GP’s point, though. What if a big, strong family is struck by disaster (multiple earners lose jobs or die, or one member develops, say, an illness or huge debt which consumes the entire family’s resources)?

Those kind of scenarios aren’t that rare even in places with very family-first social safety nets (which, incidentally, are often places with high poverty and low standard of living).

Who is "we"?

The big welfare state was born in the post-war boom, a period of big, strong families that believed in the future.

The dismantling of the Family and of the Welfare State, and of Unions, and of any kind of support and collaboration between salaried people go hand-in-hand. Late stage capitalism needs to extract everything from everyone, without opposition. Having people desperate for a job at any cost because they don't a a support network is the ideal state for our managers and bosses.

Welcome to the anti-neoliberalism camp :)

> The number of elderly Australians who live alone with no family, or no family nearby, is truely disappointing.

That's a thing across all Western societies, and we got unchecked rabid capitalism and a complete lack of industry structural politics to thank for that one. Young people not living in an urban area have little choice but to leave there to find employment and higher level education.