DGrant Gibson

“David Cameron today announced the most ambitious change to the welfare system since it began, promising to re-introduce a culture of responsibility that he said had been lost.

The Welfare Reform Bill will replace the complex array of benefits with a single Universal Credit, strip benefits from those who repeatedly turn down job offers and introduce new health check-ups for those who claim a disability stops them working.

Speaking in east London alongside the architect of the reforms, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, the Prime Minister said: ‘Never again will work be the wrong financial choice. Never again will we waste opportunity. “

This is an excerpt from an article written in the Daily Mail about the massive changes taking place in the UK. This new normal I believe will usher in and become the economic standard round the world to aid in the correction of countries stretched to the breaking point in their local economies.
Most people live in what is being considered the “new middle”, that is, the movement of the center of the middle class to a much lower standard of living. Living with higher food prices, high health care, daycare costs, high credit card debt, lines of credit, heavily mortgaged homes, long work travel hours, etc., has got people learning how to live with less and less.
What struck me is that this reform bill inserts “rules” to reinforce his new culture of responsibility, becoming a form of forced compliance to this new normal. The stress people are under in the “new middle” make them susceptible to “fall in line” to this new “Culture of responsibility”. I am not taking sides on whether this is right or wrong, just considering why we as a nation ‘wait’ for our government leaders to initiate what we should be doing our self, that is, be the architect of our own design. One with self-responsibility through self initiated leadership by decision making, self wealth creation, attending to one’s excellent health, and being socially responsible to the greater good for all. A new sort of social entrepreneurship. Out of this new paradigm of thinking and living actions would come abundance, better local community design which would reach like a wave out into the entire world eventually.
Why don’t we all stand together to create this new culture of responsibility, and rename it “The Culture of Self-Responsibility”. Impossible? I think not. Today’s access to the internet to aid this culture, and opportunities readily available for relationship marketing makes this open for everyone, anyone, including you and me…
Until the next WebLog, GG