The problem of looking at the issue of unemployment purely in terms of personal financial inducements and penalties fails to see the holistic issue of people caught in a trap of unmarketable skills, low self esteem and depression to the point that they generally don't come accross well in interview. Just how do you deal with that?
Stressing that seeking and doing work is only a question of individual responsibility and personal morality is in my view a pious myth that fails to see the problem in the context of:
A) isolation: the loss of local social networks and the complete erosion of communities that used to support and motivate each other in the pursuit of the kind of values of diligence thrift work and community mindedness. People learn and grow in mutually supportive environments. Once you suggest as free market economics does, that people are just self-seeking monadic entities; individuals with only their own set of personal goals unrelated to anyone else is not only a misreading of human nature but an inducement to the very kind of debased and selfish behaviour you're talking about.

B) an economic system that looks at employment as a cost to be minimized as much as possible. Capitalists and companies are not social workers. They will with complete impunity, brutally outsource to other countries with zero worker human rights if necessary and claim that it's not their problem. We are facing a complete breakdown of a social contract here between the owners of companies and the social environment in which they began. Under capitalism work has become mererly a means to an end and not an end in itself. Its no use expecting people in without work to be high minded about the value of work if the very companies that offer it are doing their best to either debase it and render it expendable as they are now.

The other side of the issue is of course the abuse of the system at the upper echelons where jobs become temporary and subject to companies receiving tax and breaks, grants and other handouts from government. This isnt diligence or social responsibility by any stretch of the imaginaton and they care even less than beaurocracies. The entire system has become an outsourcing of what were once core government responsibilities to greedy and exploitative companies at massive expense to the public purse and with zero accountability. Thats what happened in New Orleans and its whats happening at every level of government now. So what price now of encouraging diligence? whay do you only focus on those most badly let down by the system and not those with the power to do something about it?

This is where I depart from a philosophical system based only on the privitisation of morality and moral absolutes. This comes squarely out of a historical tradition of the individualisation of religion, the puritan notion of the personal relationship with God and personal redemption theology. It would be better to look at positive ideas in religion as addressing us all collectively as its too easy and convenient to see successful self-centred individualism as a spiritual reward of good faith rather than something that has both good and bad sides. And of course the obverse is true of those who don't fare well in an individualistic society. Is it always the case that it is down to a failure to uphold moral standards, or is it an all too understandable failure of nerve in the face of overwhelming odds?. Its no use using the example of the few that transcend this fate as a stick to beat the many that don't. if we really want a return to better values it's time now to look at the current social/economic structure and the questionable and dubious values on which its based.


Regards


Alan