RE: uk-policy Third way - Aspiration: too little or too much?

Mike Bracken (mikebr@internet.emap.com)
Tue, 19 May 1998 14:09:11 +0100

> expected to take paid work. The two-income model has driven the prices
> of decent-sized houses in some parts of the country (particularly, the
> home counties) beyond any but two-income professional couples - not a
> recipe for inclusion of the remainder - and it also impacts on the
> informal, unpaid family carers who in the past took care of a large
> proportion of the elderly and also looked after children to assist
> their parents.

True. We should welcome the government's moves in the last budget to
redistribute from single people to married couples with children,

[Mike Bracken] Errmm, no we shouldn't.

Not without asking 'which single people'
AFAICS, the redistribution of income from one group to another is one of
the key jobs of governments, but at some point we have to recognise changes
in the demographics of society and adapt to them. IMO, the paternalistic
view that the family is the rock on which an economic model is built is
economically myopic and, to some, patronising. I'd ask if there really is
too much difference between lecturing about 'family values' and portraying
the symbolic (and outdated) image of the family as the 'norm.' And for a
'third way' debate, isn't this dependence on family roles a little too
conventional?

m

Mike Bracken
Deputy Editor
Internet Magazine
Priory Court
30-32 Farringdon Lane
London EC1R 3AU
(t) 44 171 309 2783
(m) 0411 581719

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