Neoliberal economists saw the family as a privatized insurance that welfare destroyed

Evidence

Much like Friedman, Gary Becker credits AFDC (along with social insurance programs and public services such as state education) with weakening the bonds of familial obligation. For Becker, the family in its equilibrium state or free market state could be understood as serving a kind of natural insurance function that was fatally disturbed when the welfare state socialized insurance. Writing in the early 1980s, Becker credits the postwar welfare state with destroying the natural altruism of the family, but surmises that the decline in welfare initiated by Reagan will ultimately compel the poor to restore the bonds of kinship as a source of privatized welfare. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 239

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s map of internal neoliberal varieties — this Chicago-school framing of welfare destroying familial altruism links to Becker’s human capital work and Friedman. — connects to: American neoliberals saw family altruism as a substitute for the welfare state — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 213; Neoliberals monetized family practice by treating welfare as perverse incentive. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 236; Neoliberals attacked welfare as a threat to family, race, and dignity — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 178 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals attacked welfare as a threat to family, race, and dignity #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 178
• Neoliberalism paired deregulation with social conservatism to shift welfare onto families #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 37
• Neoliberal welfare attacks racialized dependency and framed the family as women’s natural sphere #expands (0.82) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 175
• American welfare opponents framed socialized risk as a threat to family morality #corroborates (0.80)
• Becker saw welfare as destroying the family’s natural insurance function #expands (0.78)
• Family loyalty is central, not marginal, to American neoliberal welfare theory #expands (0.77) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 213
• Decades of neoliberal reform reinstated the family as first-line welfare provider #qualifies (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 260
• Neoliberals opposed no-fault divorce to force families to absorb social costs #exemplifies (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 241