INTERVIEW / maurizio MOTOLESE SPEAKS

WELFARE CAN NEVER
REPLACE SOLIDARITY
Europe wants to import a welfare model based on food vouchers.
It’s efficient but inadequate. Why? “It eliminates human relationships,” explains an economist from Catholic University of Milan

by Paolo Perego

It’s a well-known fact that Italian families are increasingly suffering from “fourth week” syndrome–and now the third week is affected as well. Alarm over families’ difficulties in making their money last until the end of the month was clear to local support centers, such as parishes and solidarity associations, even before the statistical office made this announcement. “This is significant. The first to notice the difficulties facing families were the organizations people trusted most, the relationship they knew they could count on.” The speaker is Maurizio Motolese, who teaches Political Economy at Catholic University in Milan and collaborates with Stanford University in California. “We need to understand the true nature of two different types of aid to families, welfare and solidarity, and the responses they offer to those in difficulty.”
If we want to understand the problem, a good starting point is the United States, where state welfare programs and forms of social solidarity coexist, and 28 million people live on subsidies. But they represent only 50% of those with a right to “food welfare.”
“America has a highly structured and diversified system of state food help. Among the main programs, the one closest to the idea for food vouchers contained in the Petition to the European Union is the food stamp. This is a plastic card which enables its possessors to buy food.”
So what’s the problem? How can we explain the fact that participation is so low?

Public and private
“One possible explanation is the inability of food stamps to deal adequately, precisely, and fully with the problem of obtaining information about the real needs of the indigent. People in need avoid asking for help because they feel embarrassed and ashamed. In short, welfare is inadequate because it is based on incomplete information.”
Alongside state-run provision of food, the United States also has a system which is far more widespread that are the Food Banks – a combination of public and private initiative, which works well. Why is private action so successful? It is capable of acting more precisely and therefore more effectively, because it makes direct contact with the disadvantaged and develops a relationship based on confidence and trust. This makes it easier to solve the problem of discovering real needs.
“What’s the point of this example? It represents the alternatives facing the European Union today: to find a way to sustain existing initiatives, ones that really work and guarantee purposeful action that is effective in getting food to those in need (as has been done to date with the Food Banks), or else to adopt a form of food welfare on a large scale.” Now a petition has been launched in Europe, to discover the opinion of citizens regarding the possibility that foodstuffs will no longer be available for distribution. This is because of the new European agricultural policy, which plans production on the basis of market demand, not real needs. So we need to understand what instrument will be most effective, given the food emergency which has become more acute in recent years.

Who to turn to?
Take America again. “We can look at the example of an American who loses his job: he has to find money for his mortgage, his children’s schooling… Financial difficulties soon lead to problems in paying the supermarket bill. Who will he turn to?” It will be easier to accept help from someone he has a relationship of trust with, someone he knows. “This relationship is essential. True, the American support program is complex and well structured. It can cope with a wide range of social problems, including emergencies like Hurricane Katrina. But there also exists a subsidiary parallel structure: the Food Banks. These are private, ‘bottom up’ initiatives, which use the market to find foodstuffs and distribute them.”
But why two parallel systems? Wouldn’t properly structured public intervention be sufficient? “A welfare system is not capable of meeting people’s true needs, when more than just food is involved. And it will never be able to cope with what is technically called ‘information asymmetry.’ It will always suffer from a shortage of information about the real wants of the needy, who are more likely to express them in a personal relationship.”
Fr. Mauro Inzoli, President of the Italian Food Bank, in a recent interview (see ilsussidiario.net) spoke of the strength of this subsidiary approach. He pointed out that it “consists of spreading the culture of giving, of sharing, favoring the one true response to the needs of man: friendship, companionship, someone with whom to share the sense of life.”

The advantages to society
That this approach comes close to those in need seems to be a widely shared opinion. But what are the advantages to society? “The fact is that it is better in human terms, as reflected in society, the community, the country,” says Motolese. “And this is actually one of the objectives of the Banks. Not just to provide food but to ensure that people emerge from the sense of failure. If that happens, they are more motivated to look for work and take risks, and hence to be more productive. If help reaches them in a context that continually enhances the person, they will feel more stimulated and realize it is possible to do better. A friendly relationship with the people who deliver the food parcels rekindles hope.”
What is the driving force behind this extraordinary effort?
“These organizations have grown out of religious experiences, predominantly Christian, and their great strength is that they deal with the whole person. This is their value. Providing food does not solve the problem of life. We need to be able to look at man in this way, not just by solving the problem of life but helping confront it. Only those who are enamored of the challenge of life can do this.”
This is something a welfare system will never achieve...
“No, not in the least, no matter how efficient and well structured it is. Take Sweden: it has a highly organized welfare system. And yet it has a very high level of individual disquiet, as shown by the elevated number of suicides.”
We can return to the alternatives facing the European Union. “Today, a possible solution is to allow the Food Banks to enter the markets, as in the USA. And in dealing with the new problems that are emerging, it not only remains important “to provide food.” We are also beginning to examine the issue of “what food to give”. The nutritional issue, bound up with health, is fundamental. With food stamps, the same sum will buy 20 hamburgers rather than three steaks. That means more food but it’s not healthy–and this happens in a country like the U.S., which suffers from the scourge of obesity. The Banks, by contrast, are beginning to work with nutritionists, conscious that an education in diet is essential. As a number of surveys have shown, poor nutrition in the early years has a permanent effect on later development.”