#Vulnerable

Social welfare is the public heart pump that circulates the blood of taxes. It is also a ritual of staged kindness, performed reluctantly in crowded offices as officials remember the needy. The benefits bestowed under the banner of compassion often morph into traps of 'personal responsibility'. It disappears in times of prosperity and reappears as a masked savior when crises strike. At its best, it is a theatre of mercy; at its worst, a bureaucratic alibi.