William Voegeli and Peter W. Schramm on the Welfare State and Barack Obama

Peter Schramm has been having quite a few Claremont McKenna professors and scholars on his "You America" podcasts over at the Ashbrook Center. 

Schramm brought Professors Busch and Kesler to talk about the election and Barack Obama, respectively and now William Voegeli, author of the forthcoming, "So, What Would Be Enough?" which examines the welfare state in modern, post-industrial societies. It examines the so-called libertarian paradox. Voegeli serves as a scholar at Claremont McKenna's Henry Salvatori Center. Here is the podcast of their conversation.

I found the most fascinating part of the discussion on the differences between the European and American welfare state. What follows are some brief notes I have from listening to the audio. "In one respect, there's a similarity. Voegeli looked at about a dozen countries in which you see two things going on -- economic growth happening across the board, relentless, in every country. What you also start to see is that portion of GDP that gets allocated to welfare state programs also steadily increases and if you sit back and think about it, it's sort of a paradox. You would think that as societies get richer over time, the number of people who need support would go down as their needs would become less acute. 

What it means to be poor changes as societies become richer. Now there's a scary topic!