Workfare–Warfare: Neoliberalism, “Active” Welfare and the New American Way of War

Abstract

In recent decades, welfare reform in the USA has increasingly been based on a political imperative to reduce the number of people on welfare. This has in large part taken place through the establishment of a "workfare" state, in which the receipt of state benefits requires a paid labor input. Designed to reduce expenditure on civil social services, welfare-to-work programs have been introduced. At the same time, the restructuring of US defense provision has seen the "military-industrial complex" emerge as a key beneficiary of state expenditure. Both of these trends can be characterized, this paper argues, as manifestations of neoliberal thinkingwhether in the form of the "workfarism" that is undertaken to bolster the US economy, or the "defense transformation" that has been intended to enhance US war-making capacity. While these two aspects have been analyzed in detail independently, the aim of this paper is to probe the similarities, connections and overlaps between the workfare state and the recent American emphasis on high-technology warfare-the so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs"-and "defense transformation". There are, the paper argues, strong homologies to be drawn between the restructuring of the American defense and welfare infrastructures. Furthermore there are also instances where warfare and welfare are being melded together into a hybrid form "workfare-warfare", in which military service is increasingly positioned as a means of gaining welfare and, conversely, traditionally military industries are becoming involved in the area of welfare provision. The result, it is argued, is an emergent form of workfare-warfare state in the USA.

Decoding Youth and Neo-Liberalism: Pupils, Precarity, and Punishment

“…But this neoliberal moment is marked by the withering of the welfare state as well as an augmentation of the national defense sector (a military Keynesianism that subtracts workers from an already bloated civilian workforce and leads to more demands for military products and services). The result for some youth is that the military appeals to them because of its potential to offer a higher standard of welfare (e.g., housing, educational attainment, health care) than normal welfare provisions, while being devoid of the stigma that comes with traditional welfare (Gifford, 2006;MacLeavy & Peoples, 2009). As Cowen (2008) argues, "social entitlements have in a sense been 'shrunk back' into the military, suggesting that the military is once again emerging as a form of work and citizenship for the deserving poor" (p. 19).…”

Beyond Jobs vs Environment: On the Potential of Universal Basic Income to Reconfigure Environmental Politics

“…However, labour markets often poorly compensate people for such activity. And the benefits of labouring for an exploitative employer or engaging various forms of non‐contributory labour—including those Graeber () refers to as “bullshit jobs” and many of those created through state workfare—are far from clear (see Weeks ; for a longer critique, see Lawhon et al ; on neoliberalism and workfare, see MacLeavy and Peoples ; Peck ; and on dissatisfaction with labour conditions more broadly, see Foster ; Strauss ).…”

Children, military families and soldier citizenship

“…Rather than duty, the need to access social rights is often a motivation to enrol (Cowen, 2008); something that has also prompted soldiers to enlist into the armed forces of states other than their own (Ware 2012). This service is rewarded with forms of military workfare and public goods such as housing, health-care, pensions and recreation (Cowen, 2005) that become particularly attractive in times of austerity (MacLeavy and Peoples, 2009;Gifford, 2006). The 'heroic soldier myth' (Millar and Tidy 2017), 1 Unless noted, we use the term soldier to refer to the men and women that serve in all branches of the armed forces.…”