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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.