Welfare recipients were deemed to forfeit freedom and independence by drawing on state aid.

Evidence

Locke, who is today considered among the great liberals, saw no contradiction between advocating freedom and rights and arguing that children older than three whose families were unable to feed them should be sent to work. The paternalism of contemporary neoliberal welfare systems is rooted in the same contention that those who draw on state assistance forfeit their independence and renounce a freedom that is inseparable from submission to the verdict of the market, and from personal responsibility for risk. The Chicago School’s Milton Friedman inherited aspects of this earlier neoliberal tradition. ‘Freedom is a tenable objective only for responsible individuals’, he contended. ‘Paternalism is inescapable for those whom we designate as not responsible.’ — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 219

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in how poverty management and ‘personal responsibility’ discourse recur across early liberalism and modern austerity regimes. — connects to: Freedom and measured welfare failure are two sides of one policy dial. — Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas, Welfare for Markets: A Global History…, 121
• QUESTION: Locke’s three-year-old child labor claim is a striking citation worth verifying against the primary source and exploring its reception.