This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, May 20th, 2009. I'm

Kaye Brown. James Bartholomew argues that the welfare state in Britain has

resulted in a generation of badly educated independent citizens,

leading to lives of deprivation for thousands and undermining the original intent behind

its creation in the 1940s. We talked about his book, The Welfare State

we're in on Monday. One of the points brought up by one of the questioners at

the forum today was that there is an essential difference between

welfare benefits that are provided privately through charity and benefits that are provided through the government.

Based on your experience, what is the difference between the two?

Well, I can't say it's based on my experience, but based on my knowledge, there is an enormous difference.

Benefits that were provided charitably were such that would usually come from a friendly society.

Now the existence of friendly societies is largely forgotten.

It actually appears very little in any history books you might read on the subject,

but six out of seven million

industrial workers in Britain used to be members of friendly societies. They were

enormous and what happened was if you say you'd lost your job and you couldn't get another one,

you would ask your friendly society for money.

People from your branch, because they were all divided into local branches would come around and visit you.

They would tell pretty quickly and they'd know you.

They would pretty quickly whether or not you were a genuine case.

If they were you would get your money, which you

were entitled to under the terms of your agreement because you've been subscribing to the

...