WELFARE FIFTY YEARS HENCE

Abstract

After opening with a discussion of statistical projections and of the human ability to trace trends into the future, the author envisages the future Canadian welfare system evolving in a direction opposite to trends usually predicted. He predicts that, in exchange for growing taxation and eventually absolute taxation, the government will continue to take over areas of life, especially child rearing, in which it was not previously involved. With the government’s growing authority over the individual and the growing importance of status, choices will disappear, and the author predicts that Canadians will return to a society where status is of greater importance than freely negotiated relationships. He applies the pendulum principle to trends in human affairs, focusing on physical adornment and personal morality to illustrate how it works before arguing that attitudes toward health, welfare and education will likely follow the principle as well. He predicts that controls will come from individual restraint rather than the imposition of public laws. Finally, a section is devoted to schools, health care and welfare systems of the future.