Prevent or delay the welfare state in your birth country

You know what I mean: no Social Security, Medicaid/are, or any state expansion beyond what was present in WWI. Bonus if you prevent the pre-WWI things as well, namely the Liberal reforms in the UK and TR's in the US respectively.
 
RogueBeaver, there's a certain award named after a certain Transylvanian tyrant with your name on it. It will arrive in the mail in 7-10 business days. Enjoy
 
Fascism comes to power... oh wait, no, because the welfare state still expanded dramatically under Mussolini & Hitler's Fascist/Nazi states.

Even under monarchies, either absolute or constitutional, welfare states flourished.

Honestly, the only way to prevent the welfare state, AFAIK, would be to prevent the Industrial Revolution. The social strain caused by industrialization is too much; either the state gives in and offers some protections (welfare state), or some sort of revolution takes places and new protections are put into place (welfare state).

Delay though, well, that's another story.. but certainly not prevent.
 
For me it's easy as well: Just keep everything as per OTL, and voila, America is definitely not a welfare state.

So you live in an ATL? What's it like there?

Seriously, look at the back of the manual explaining how to fill out your 1040. It typically shows a pie chart of what government expenditures go to. Social Security, by itself, costs nearly as much as the DoD. Add in Medicare and such and it is far more. That doesn't count food stamps, unemployment... we're talking roughly 40% of ALL Federal expenditures.
 
Harding doesn't die, but then the Teapot Dome scandal comes out earlier. People like the Republicans' policies just like OTL, but they see Harding as corrupt. He narrowly loses to a progressive Democrat in 1924. Probably Al Smith. Smith begins gradually implementing some of OTL FDR's New Deal programs. He gets re-elected over Hoover in 1928. When the Depression hits in 1929, the Dems are caught holding the bag instead of Republicans. The whole thing is blamed on Smith's policies, which are labelled as big government socialism. A conservative Republican wins a landslide in 1932 and starts repealing most of Smith's programs. For the next several decades, Republicans counter every single liberal economic argument by pointing at Al Smith and blaming his policies for the depression, much like Democrats did with Hoover in OTL. I'm sure the pendulum would eventually swing back and we'd get a liberal resurgence sometime between the 60s and the 80s, much like Reagan's conservative revolution in OTL. However when that does occur the welfare state would be much less extensive than OTL. So there, I delayed it and shrunk it.
 
Impossible. You'd have to stop Bismarck from being Bismarck. Germany was the first country IN THE WORLD to institute a system of social security, it was done under Bismarck, he hoped to combat Socialism (or rather Social Democracy) by reconciling the working class with the monarchist state by instituting just that.

Even alternate German unifications hardly work. Hell, Karl Marx was from Germany, damnit. It's almost a natural law that we came up with that stuff in the first place.
 

Spengler

Banned
get rid of the industrial revolution or insure every industrical baron ever had a heart of gold both of which are asb.

You do understand that there was a reason for the reforms right? That they didn't come about because of some grand conspiracy but because of inequalities that existed at the time that outstripped the abilities of private charities to compensate for the poverty and misery.

Seven legged the united states wouldn't last through 1938 in such a situation.

Oh I forgot make it so people are able to just not have a drive to improve their economic livelihood.
 
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Somehow butterflying away the NHS would be a start. Where to go from there is a different question, because it's a pretty big change.
 
I'd go as far as saying that you'd have to butterfly away religion as well as 'being kinder to your fellow man' forms a large part of their teachings as well. In fact in the UK it was the church caring for the poor and 'dole-ing' out the money to them in times of need that inspired a lot of what the welfare state does today.
 
get rid of the industrial revolution or insure every industrical baron ever had a heart of gold both of which are asb.

You do understand that there was a reason for the reforms right? That they didn't come about because of some grand conspiracy but because of inequalities that existed at the time that outstripped the abilities of private charities to compensate for the poverty and misery.

Seven legged the united states wouldn't last through 1938 in such a situation.

Oh I forgot make it so people are able to just not have a drive to improve their economic livelihood.

In case you weren't paying attention the point of the thread is to speculate about a different course of history and not to rant about the evils of socialism.

Moving right along...

What about no Great Depression? Wouldn't that forestall it until post-war?
 
I'd go as far as saying that you'd have to butterfly away religion as well as 'being kinder to your fellow man' forms a large part of their teachings as well. In fact in the UK it was the church caring for the poor and 'dole-ing' out the money to them in times of need that inspired a lot of what the welfare state does today.

Nah, if there was no religion then welfare would come sooner because without religious charity, people would be even more dependent on government help.
 
In Britain, a 1945 Conservative victory would certainly set back the NHS and many of the other pillars of the Welfare State, but they would probably arrive eventually, perhaps in the early 1950s after Labour win a landslide in 1950 instead or something. I think you'd need ASBs (or just a succession of scummy, David Owen-standard Labour leading figures) to keep anything like the Welfare State emerging until Thatcher comes along and shifts the consensus away from it.

That being said, having no welfare state would probably butterfly Thatcher and Thatcherism beyond recognition.
 
Best way to do this would probably to just get big business into government and have it refuse to make any concessions to anyone.

Blaine becomes President instead of Grover Cleveland; he is deeply in the pocket of major corporations. Big Business has simple ideas for what they want: No Unions, no wasteful taxes on helping the less fortunately, no government aid for disasters, High Tariffs and nearly total isolation from the world at large.

Government takes a turn away from popular rule towards oligophy. Hired Guns, like the Pinkertons, simply have open license to gun down strikers in the streets. This arrangement is unstable, and so corporations simply co-operate to ensure that they will hang together, or they will surely hang apart.

There's no reason to ensure that people hurt on the job get any kind of medical care. Screw them. No reason that factories can't hire "jolly elves" to work in their factories--can't their parent's have more children?

After Blaine, people like Roscoe Conkling and perhaps even CEOs themselves can take up the mantle. President J.P. Morgan, President Henry Ford. Each one more of the same, as democracy dies to the face of endless money and control.

The Proletariat would be impoverished, hungry, and left entirely powerless. The US Chamber of Commerce, the true nexus of American Power for well over a century, cares nothing for human rights abuses or environmental destruction. Why worry that Baltimore or Detroit is an unlivable hell-hole? Most of the important people of the United States live far away from those places where those simian workers live, therefore its cheaper not to care.

The idea of even providing basic aid to the needy falls to equally hard hearted religious institutions, which stress the Gospel of Wealth as a founding credo. Giving people access to basic medicine and sanitation would probably increase their lifespans and quality of life, but that would cost precious tax dollars that would reduce profits.

Banning Child Labor, Abortion and Infanticide, and proposing basic education for men (not for women) is beyond the scope of this one party system. The idea that the less fortunate might actually need help as opposed to conveniently dying and being replaced by someone cheaper is taboo in Washington, itself free of the intense smog, acid rain and trash that wreck much of the country. Social Security? This USA has privatized the post office...
 
Best way to do this would probably to just get big business into government and have it refuse to make any concessions to anyone.

Blaine becomes President instead of Grover Cleveland; he is deeply in the pocket of major corporations. Big Business has simple ideas for what they want: No Unions, no wasteful taxes on helping the less fortunately, no government aid for disasters, High Tariffs and nearly total isolation from the world at large.

Government takes a turn away from popular rule towards oligophy. Hired Guns, like the Pinkertons, simply have open license to gun down strikers in the streets. This arrangement is unstable, and so corporations simply co-operate to ensure that they will hang together, or they will surely hang apart.

There's no reason to ensure that people hurt on the job get any kind of medical care. Screw them. No reason that factories can't hire "jolly elves" to work in their factories--can't their parent's have more children?

After Blaine, people like Roscoe Conkling and perhaps even CEOs themselves can take up the mantle. President J.P. Morgan, President Henry Ford. Each one more of the same, as democracy dies to the face of endless money and control.

The Proletariat would be impoverished, hungry, and left entirely powerless. The US Chamber of Commerce, the true nexus of American Power for well over a century, cares nothing for human rights abuses or environmental destruction. Why worry that Baltimore or Detroit is an unlivable hell-hole? Most of the important people of the United States live far away from those places where those simian workers live, therefore its cheaper not to care.

The idea of even providing basic aid to the needy falls to equally hard hearted religious institutions, which stress the Gospel of Wealth as a founding credo. Giving people access to basic medicine and sanitation would probably increase their lifespans and quality of life, but that would cost precious tax dollars that would reduce profits.

Banning Child Labor, Abortion and Infanticide, and proposing basic education for men (not for women) is beyond the scope of this one party system. The idea that the less fortunate might actually need help as opposed to conveniently dying and being replaced by someone cheaper is taboo in Washington, itself free of the intense smog, acid rain and trash that wreck much of the country. Social Security? This USA has privatized the post office...

You do realize that eventually Americans are going to revolt over that? Eventually, things will probably change in the direction towards a social safety net.
 
Best way to do this would probably to just get big business into government and have it refuse to make any concessions to anyone.

Blaine becomes President instead of Grover Cleveland; he is deeply in the pocket of major corporations. Big Business has simple ideas for what they want: No Unions, no wasteful taxes on helping the less fortunately, no government aid for disasters, High Tariffs and nearly total isolation from the world at large.

Government takes a turn away from popular rule towards oligophy. Hired Guns, like the Pinkertons, simply have open license to gun down strikers in the streets. This arrangement is unstable, and so corporations simply co-operate to ensure that they will hang together, or they will surely hang apart.

There's no reason to ensure that people hurt on the job get any kind of medical care. Screw them. No reason that factories can't hire "jolly elves" to work in their factories--can't their parent's have more children?

After Blaine, people like Roscoe Conkling and perhaps even CEOs themselves can take up the mantle. President J.P. Morgan, President Henry Ford. Each one more of the same, as democracy dies to the face of endless money and control.

The Proletariat would be impoverished, hungry, and left entirely powerless. The US Chamber of Commerce, the true nexus of American Power for well over a century, cares nothing for human rights abuses or environmental destruction. Why worry that Baltimore or Detroit is an unlivable hell-hole? Most of the important people of the United States live far away from those places where those simian workers live, therefore its cheaper not to care.

The idea of even providing basic aid to the needy falls to equally hard hearted religious institutions, which stress the Gospel of Wealth as a founding credo. Giving people access to basic medicine and sanitation would probably increase their lifespans and quality of life, but that would cost precious tax dollars that would reduce profits.

Banning Child Labor, Abortion and Infanticide, and proposing basic education for men (not for women) is beyond the scope of this one party system. The idea that the less fortunate might actually need help as opposed to conveniently dying and being replaced by someone cheaper is taboo in Washington, itself free of the intense smog, acid rain and trash that wreck much of the country. Social Security? This USA has privatized the post office...

That can't last forever, there would be virtual armed revolution and the US would end up becoming the forefront of progressive ideals in the West.
 
Isn't that exactly what Marx "predicted"? Increased inequality and social unrest turns the class struggle into a civil war (aka revolution and counter revolution) and once the proletariat wins, they impose the "proletariat" dictatorship.
Social reforms diluted the conflict and avoided said civil wars.
 
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