One of the main flaws of the welfare state is its inability to motivate either positively or negatively. Those who are in the traps of the welfare state have little impetus toward fear or freedom. Dr. Theodore Dalrymple states it well in his book Life at the Bottom:
A system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in allocating economic rewards promotes anti-social egotism…The wealth that enables everyone effortlessly to have enough food should be liberating, not imprisoning. Instead it has created a large caste of people for whom life is, in effect, a limbo in which they have nothing to hope for and nothing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It is a life emptied of meaning. (pg. 142)
Mind you, Dr. Dalrymple worked as a clinical psychiatrist in a poverty stricken area of England for over 40 years. His book is extremely insightful. Furthermore, the poverty demographic in Britain is completely different than that in America but sees exactly the same problems that America does.
Food for though!
Michael