Whatever happened to the human altruism gene? A service user’s view of the Welfare Reform Bill

Abstract

This article draws on the relationship between the scientific development of social biology and the political development of the British welfare system. It concludes that although the present Welfare Reform Bill is beginning to move to a state of ‘conditional altruism’, social biology has shown, mathematically, that within nature the ‘selfish gene’ can pursue its own interest through acts of true ‘unconditional altruism’. The author concludes that by concentrating on ‘the cost’ of welfare, rather than its ‘value’, the present Welfare Reform Bill has confined the British welfare state to the time frame of 19th century Utilitarianism; and treated disabled people as mere commodities of a system akin to the Poor Law. True altruism allows society to see both the intrinsic and extrinsic value of others which through cooperation and deferment enables society to develop and survive.

Keywords:

• welfare reform
• social biology
• altruism
• cost
• value