The Reagan-Thatcher critique of the welfare state argued that people should be held responsible for their own well-being, and that the community owed help only to those whose misfortune was not their own fault. “We will never abandon those who, through no fault of their own, must have our help,” Reagan declared in a State of the Union address. “But let us work to see how many can be freed from the dependency of welfare and made self-supporting.”4 “Through no fault of their own” is a revealing phrase. It begins as a trope of generosity; those who are needy “through no fault of their own” have a
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