El desafío de anticipar el futuro

actually put you through a job seminar and you will have to speak to a job broker and they will assess you before you are even eligible to go on the benefit. And I think that is for every benefit not just the dole. Even the DPB. It is ridiculous. Because I am already on a benefit I still have to justify that, I have to go in and fill in forms I have to make all sorts of promises to say that yes I do need this. Even if you were really, really, needy there is no guarantee that you will get a benefit or you will get extra assistance.

The following quote conjures up images of a stage show where the welfare system is seen as simply operating as an administrative event but does not work to help a beneficiary move on; it keeps them feeling trapped and worthless. Form filling and case manager

interviews are viewed here as being part of a “circus”:

I would be tempted to simplify it. I think that they waste an awful lot of money on what seems like unnecessary things. The forms you have got to fill in and the people you have got to see. I mean it is an absolute circus if you ever go to WINZ. And if you are going there because you are unemployed you might as well give up any self-esteem and idea of a job - the minute you walk in the door you feel like you are not worth anything.

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Thus when drawing on a discursive resource that construes the welfare system as containing and controlling a participant would argue that it does very little to empower people. People are contained and controlled as a combination of a lack of access to resources and disempowering WINZ practices forces hasty decisions rather than well considered choices:

The benefit doesn’t help you. The benefit holds you back. It is the way

the benefit is implemented to me; it doesn’t make you feel good about

who you are as a person. It locks you down, it puts you in a cell, and it makes you decide “Well I need milk so I won’t get the bus. I will have to

walk an hour to Manukau to pay that bill, so I won’t pay that bill because

I will need to catch that bus and I need milk. So I need milk more than I need to catch the bus to pay the bill”. So you end up falling behind on your accounts for instance.

Conclusion

As Foucault formulated the concept of “governmentality” he spoke of its “essential technical means apparatuses of security” (such as our social security system) as being one

of the key components (Foucault, 1978:102). As evidenced by the attention given to the social welfare system in the interview conversations, a discussion about poverty and the poor of New Zealand is inseparable from debating how well that system is functioning to manage or prevent situations of poverty. Central to discussions was the underlying question of whether WINZ is an overbearing or an empowering form of government, whether it is governing too much or not enough. Foucault’s articulation of government reason places the debates about the relationship between state governance and governing of the self in the context of the liberal critique of government. Liberalism, as analysed by Foucault, addresses a concern that government is governing too much and it (liberalism) thereby rationalises the principle of the self-limitation of governmental reason and the practice of limiting forms of government action (Foucault, 2004). Therefore a social

welfare system said to be operating in an environment of “advanced liberalism” will place emphasis on the desirability of encouraging self-governing behaviour in the beneficiary population (Dean, 2002).

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The interview conversations highlighted an understanding of a contrast between the systems that those who are wealthy interact with and the systems that those on a social welfare benefit find themselves in. Evidence of this contrast was seen as participants described how the wealthy and the poor are living in different worlds and interacting with different systems. In general the wealthy were seen to operate in a system that has little micro management of their activities; they have freedom from having to make a lot of difficult choices with better access to education and health services in particular. Participants remarked on how the wealthy often appear to be over compensated for their

contribution to society because as they “work the system” it is sanctioned and hidden in

accepted economic and legal practices. In contrast beneficiaries were well understood to be a poor sector of the population and their management of life while living under the umbrella of the welfare system was discussed at some length throughout the interviews. This involved discussing how beneficiaries should learn better self-management skills as well as offering an opinion on how the state should be offering either more or less management of those beneficiaries.

Power, as seen by Foucault, is both a productive and constraining force (Foucault, 1980). As previously highlighted in chapter two, as well as being used to control, power is also productive as it produces knowledge that frames institutional and social practice. From the interview conversations a number of institutional governing practices at WINZ were highlighted; these could be construed as either “helpful and enabling” or“controlling and disempowering”. Practices included form filling, job seminars and curriculum vitae presentation as well as the deployment of discretionary powers for the case managers involved in the delivery of services. It was argued that how welfare services were delivered had some bearing on whether a beneficiary who was able to take up and use the welfare system gained a sense of “empowerment” or was to be left feeling trapped in poverty. As a participant discussed the social welfare system as being enabling and empowering s/he also identified beneficiaries as being capable and self-reliant. Here beneficiaries were framed as people well able to manage the life they were living - whether they chose to stay on a welfare benefit or move into the paid workforce. Thus, when drawing on this discursive resource the phrase “working the system” often generated a sense of agency and resilience as a beneficiary was presented as an individual operating to make the most of their situation. A contrasting way of discussing the social welfare system as being there to contain and control often had the effect of identifying

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beneficiaries as being incapable, poor money managers, who were not able or willing to help themselves. When drawing on this discursive resource the notion of “working the

system” generated a sense of resistance to the power relations involved in governing processes by presenting beneficiaries as being anxious and careful to avoid excessive monitoring of their activities by vigilant and condescending case managers. At times this also worked to frame beneficiaries as being exploitative and abusive of the help they were seeking from the state.

Despite diverging opinion in the interviews over how well the welfare system is functioning, there was evidence to suggest that the forms of discipline found in the social welfare system were normalised and were accepted by most participants as necessary forms of governing when it comes to the poor. Whether the welfare system was perceived as helpful and enabling or restrictive and controlling, the basic underlying assumption was that those who are reliant on this system will require some form of institutional guidance. As Dean (2002) argues, in an state of advanced liberalism those who are

reliant on welfare are subjected to forms of governance that invite them to “free”

themselves from dependence on the welfare system but simultaneously impose restrictions that force them to act on themselves in a certain way. Thus the “conduct of conduct” for social welfare beneficiaries involves various institutionalised forms of constraint and facilitation. In contrast, evidence from the interview conversations suggests that those who are wealthy are perceived as being able (through their own efforts) to escape many of these institutionalised technologies of management and are therefore assumed as more likely to have the ability to self-manage. Chapter ten will address some of the ramifications of having disciplinary forms of governance for the poor in more detail. The following chapter, chapter nine, presents participants’ perceptions on social mobility and the redistribution of wealth and highlights how wider social constraints form social identities and shape conduct.

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Chapter Nine