Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!
(For previous parts in this series, see here)
One tricky dilemma that progressives have had to face about the welfare state has been the contradiction between our desire to provide universal protection against the great social ills (poverty, disease, lack of education, poor housing, and unemployment), which tends to be broadly supported by society, and society's resistance to violations of the social norm of reciprocity. The easiest attack on welfare has always been to assert that other people are getting something for nothing and thus divide society between the payer and payee.
While progressives ran headlong into the brick wall of social resistance in the welfare politics of the 1970s, it's not foreordained that all forms of social welfare have to meet the same fate. It is possible to be both right and smart - and learn to tack into the wind of public opinion.
Looking at the IHSS model gives us one possible solution for how to do just that.