The modern welfare state has long been sold as a noble endeavour, an institution that seeks to uplift the poor, safeguard the vulnerable, and ensure that no one is left behind. However, beneath this altruistic veneer lies a well-calculated strategy of exploitation, one that has been in motion for decades. The Cloward-Piven strategy, conceived in the 1960s, is not merely an academic curiosity but a guiding principle for modern leftist activism. By engineering economic and social crises, activists force government expansion, embedding dependency, and ensuring political control.
But these activists do not act alone. The vast network of NGOs, bureaucrats, and intergovernmental agencies, often posing as neutral or benevolent entities, actively profit from the suffering of the disadvantaged. These actors manufacture, exacerbate, and manipulate crises to justify their existence and demand ever-expanding funding. Meanwhile, the productive class, the entrepreneurs, job creators, and taxpayers, are burdened with financing this self-perpetuating cycle of dysfunction.
The fundamental premise of the Cloward-Piven strategy is simple: overload public systems to create crises that necessitate radical government intervention. The original proposal was to flood welfare offices with claims, overwhelming the system to the point of collapse, thereby forcing the implementation of a guaranteed income. This was the calculated plan to implement a universal basic income (UBI) the lovechild of romantic communists, without the obvious flair of mass murder that always followed socialist and communist ideologies. In contemporary times this approach has since evolved and expanded into a broader framework that encompasses immigration policy, healthcare, education, environmental policy and economic governance.
Consider mass illegal immigration. Activists encourage waves of migrants to enter a country illegally, knowing full well that the state lacks the infrastructure to accommodate them. When the system buckles under the strain, the same activists call for expanded welfare benefits, amnesty, and open borders, policies that permanently alter the electorate in their favour. Fundamentally it is of no surprise that the American Democrats, Australian and New Zealand Labor Party, the Canadian Liberal Party and the British Labor have become signatories to this strategy in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Many of their counterparts have mirrored their devotion incentivised by monetary wealth and greater power.
Economic and social crises rarely occur in a vacuum. When examined through an analytical lens, the so-called "spontaneous" collapse of financial institutions, housing markets, or public welfare programs often reveals deliberate attempts to engineer instability. Political actors seeking greater control understand that people are most malleable during times of distress. By exacerbating economic strain through unsustainable fiscal policies, excessive regulation, and mass migration policies that overload public services, activists create conditions where the only apparent solution is increased government intervention.
Under the guise of social justice, pressure groups push for reckless public spending, knowing full well that an overburdened welfare system will lead to insolvency. When resources become scarce, governments are forced to expand borrowing, raise taxes, or seek external funding from international agencies. The spiral of dependency deepens as citizens grow reliant on state provisions, setting the stage for sweeping socialist reforms that would have otherwise been politically unpalatable.
Similarly, the deliberate sabotage of law enforcement, under the guise of social justice reform, creates surges in crime. Police are vilified and defunded, emboldening criminals, which in turn destabilizes communities. The solution offered? More federal oversight, surveillance, and bureaucratic control. The formula remains the same: create a problem, ensure it spirals out of control, then present a top-down, socialist solution that expands state power.
While government incompetence often plays a role in economic and social collapse, it is the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that actively benefit from sustained crisis. These self-proclaimed humanitarians operate under the pretence of serving the disadvantaged, yet their very existence depends on the continuation of suffering. If systemic issues were ever truly resolved, these organisations would lose their primary revenue streams, taxpayer funding, donations, government contracts, and international grants.
Consider refugee resettlement agencies. Many NGOs receive government contracts to resettle migrants, earning per capita fees for every person they place in a community. This creates a perverse incentive to encourage more migration, regardless of the economic or social strain it places on the host nation. These groups lobby for expanded welfare benefits, lenient immigration laws, and even legal protection for criminal behaviour, all under the banner of "human rights."
Meanwhile, domestic poverty-focused NGOs advocate for perpetual increases in social spending, despite overwhelming evidence that these programs fail to lift people out of dependency. In the Northern Territory they have wasted Billions of tax-payer funds to “Close the Gap”. Hundreds of NGOs and agencies blatantly refuse to accept any responsibility for the increased disparity and continual drops in literacy and increases in treatable diseases regardless of the evidence that funding does not make it to the required recipients or that services have been delivered. The reality is that these organisations have no incentive to solve the problems they claim to address. If poverty were truly eradicated, their funding would dry up, and their executives, many of whom earn six-figure salaries with seven-figure benefits and bonuses, would be out of a job.
Rather than providing practical solutions that foster self-sufficiency, NGOs focus on narratives that amplify victimhood. Welfare policies are manipulated to encourage generational dependence rather than economic mobility. Criminal behaviour is excused under the premise of social inequity, leading to increased lawlessness that justifies further funding for "restorative justice" programs. Activists within these organisations push for mass migration policies that overwhelm social services, straining housing, healthcare, and education infrastructure, all under the guise of compassion. They promote special measures for minority groups and encourage welfare dependency. The result is a perpetual state of crisis that keeps their coffers full and their influence intact.
Beyond national borders, intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) act as enforcers of this manufactured dependency. Under the pretence of promoting equity and sustainability, these institutions pressure governments to adopt policies that further weaken national sovereignty and economic independence.
Take, for example, the WHO's handling of global health crises. Instead of empowering nations to adopt independent, rational responses, the WHO promotes uniform policies that benefit large pharmaceutical companies and global financial interests. Lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and sweeping restrictions on civil liberties have proven to be more about control than health outcomes. Several validated studies have surmised that the use of experimental drugs as a Faux vaccine from 2021 to 2024 led to over 20 million world-wide excess deaths. And who benefits? The same international elites who invest in the pharmaceutical-industrial complex.
The UN operates in a similar fashion, particularly in climate policy. Under the banner of environmental justice, the UN promotes policies that strangle small businesses with regulations while allowing multinational corporations, who can afford to lobby for special exemptions, to monopolize industries. This is not about saving the planet; it is about consolidating power.
Programs such as climate reparations, refugee resettlement quotas, and pandemic response initiatives are crafted to redirect wealth from productive nations to bureaucratic elites who administer these schemes. While the rhetoric speaks of global solidarity, the reality is an entrenchment of centralized power. Developing nations are kept in a cycle of dependency, while wealthier nations are saddled with unsustainable debt and regulatory burdens that stifle economic growth.
Within national governments, the bureaucratic class serves as the middleman between globalist agendas and local implementation. These career bureaucrats, who are insulated from electoral accountability, act as the enforcers of expanded state/Territory intervention.
Bureaucrats are often depicted as neutral administrators of policy, yet they form a powerful class that thrives on the expansion of the state. As social programs grow, so too does the machinery of government required to manage them. The more citizens become reliant on welfare, the greater the demand for administrators, case managers, and compliance officers who justify their salaries through the very existence of widespread social dysfunction.
Every crisis, whether economic, social, or environmental, becomes an opportunity for bureaucratic expansion. If unemployment rises, new government jobs are created to manage welfare programs. If crime increases, more administrators are needed for community intervention initiatives. If public schools fail, the education bureaucracy demands greater funding, despite no evidence that increased spending correlates with better outcomes. In fact, after $40 Billion invested in the Norther Territories Education since the 1980’s, indigenous literacy rates at 48% 1978 have dropped to 24% in 2018.
It is no coincidence that those who work in government agencies tend to vote for the political parties that promise bigger government. The bureaucratic class has a vested interest in perpetuating social dysfunction. A well-ordered society would render many of these government departments obsolete, but disorder ensures their relevance.
The middle-class welfare class, composed of bureaucrats and regulatory enforcers, serves as the bridge between political elites and the working class. This group actively resists any effort to curtail government expansion, knowing that their job security depends on the persistence of societal issues. Public sector unions and advocacy groups wield their influence to ensure that no meaningful reform occurs, lobbying for increased funding rather than efficiency.
Most political candidates promoted by the government come from the bureaucratic class, administrators, police officers, and taxpayer-funded industry welfare recipients because these individuals are already embedded in the machinery of state control. Unlike entrepreneurs, private sector workers, or independent thinkers who thrive on market efficiency and competition, these candidates have spent their careers within taxpayer-funded systems where power is accumulated through regulation, compliance, and institutional loyalty rather than merit or innovation.
Their dependence on government funding and their experience in centralized administration make them ideal candidates for perpetuating the expansion of state power. Bureaucrats and administrators are trained to justify government growth, often under the guise of “public service” or “protecting the people,” yet they are ultimately incentivised to maintain inefficiencies and dependency. Police officers, particularly those in administrative or union roles, understand how to leverage government authority, while welfare-funded industry leaders benefit from policies that ensure continued state subsidies. These candidates do not seek to dismantle government overreach but to entrench it further, ensuring that government remains the dominant force in society while taxpayers bear the cost. Their selection is not based on competence in governance but on their predictability and allegiance to the existing bureaucratic structure.
The culmination of these orchestrated crises is a society where individual freedom is sacrificed for collective control. As dependency grows, the political class exploits fear to justify sweeping reforms that erode property rights, financial autonomy, and self-governance.
While the architects of these crises, activists, NGOs, international agencies, and bureaucrats, (In Australia that would include the likes of the judiciary, police, Doctors, nurses, teachers and administrators), grow wealthier, the people they claim to serve remain trapped in cycles of poverty and despair. The suburban poor, the unemployed, the unskilled immigrants, all of these groups become permanent political pawns in a game of manufactured dependency.
Welfare programs that disincentivise work do not empower individuals, they create multi-generational poverty. Lax law enforcement does not promote justice, it allows crime to flourish in the very communities that these activists claim to protect. Open borders do not foster diversity, they drive down wages and strain public resources, harming both native workers and migrants alike.
The corporate sector, rather than opposing these trends, aligns itself with activist movements for its own benefit. Major financial institutions, banks, and tech conglomerates support policies that weaken small businesses and private enterprise, ensuring monopolistic dominance. The erosion of the middle class, once the backbone of a prosperous society, accelerates as regulatory burdens favour global corporations and foreign actors over independent entrepreneurs.
The reality is that the disadvantaged are not meant to escape their conditions under this model. They are meant to be used. To be used as leverage for political movements, as justification for tax hikes, and as case studies for academic theorists who have never experienced hardship themselves.
Consider the effects of unchecked welfare expansion, productive citizens are burdened with higher taxes to fund programs that incentivise idleness. Law enforcement is neutered under the guise of criminal justice reform, leading to increased crime and suburban decay. Public education shifts from knowledge-based learning to ideological indoctrination, ensuring that future generations remain intellectually dependent on the state. It is not by accident, it is by design.
The solution to this systemic subversion begins with understanding the game being played. The welfare state is not about compassion, it is about control. The manufactured crises that plague modern society are not accidents, they are calculated strategies designed to justify expanding government power.
NGOs are not elected bodies, yet they wield enormous influence over policy decisions. Many exist in a permanent state of crisis management, ensuring that poverty, immigration waves, or social unrest remain unresolved. By lobbying for taxpayer funding while engaging in political activism, they effectively become parasites that sustain and exacerbate the very problems they claim to address.
Governments should defund and eliminate government contracts for NGOs that engage in political lobbying or crisis perpetuation. Strict regulations should prevent NGOs from receiving government contracts if their leadership is connected to political parties or ideological activism. Mandatory audits and annual impact reports should track NGOs' actual improvement in addressing issues, regardless of Indigenous partnership or ownership. Restricting foreign-funded NGOs and classifying them as foreign agents with severe restrictions on lobbying activities are also effective solutions.
To regain stability, governments should criminalize conflict-of-interest practices, introduce competition and private sector alternatives, and subject NGOs to criminal prosecution for encouraging illegal immigration, human trafficking, or violent protests. NGOs should introduce competition and private sector alternatives that emphasise individual empowerment over dependency. Criminal prosecutions and asset seizures should be imposed on NGOs found to worsen conditions for financial gain. These strategies are aimed to restore stability and prevent NGOs from perpetuating crises.
International organizations like the WHO and UN have become unelected supra-governmental entities, dictating policies that conflict with national interests. These agencies push for greater centralization of power and eroding national sovereignty under the guise of humanitarianism, climate change, and public health. To regain stability from globalist institutions, national governments should defund and withdraw from corrupt organisations, expose conflicts of interest and financial corruption, prioritise national sovereignty over global directives, limit the power of UN-backed climate and migration policies, develop independent economic and political alliances outside of globalist structures, and reduce the influence of NGOs in international governance.
To defund and withdraw from corrupt organisations, international aid should be redirected towards bilateral agreements with allied nations, and conflicts of interest and financial corruption should be exposed. Additionally, national governments should prioritise national sovereignty over global directives and develop independent economic and political alliances with partners that share their citizens values.
The bureaucratic class exploits the disadvantaged for profit, exploiting them for their own gain. To regain stability, strategies should include reducing government employment and departments, implementing strict term limits for bureaucrats, decentralizing government functions to state and local governments, linking bureaucratic salaries and budgets to economic growth, strengthening whistleblower protections, and requiring public vote on major bureaucratic decisions. These measures would aim to reduce bureaucratic expansion, improve governance, and give communities more control over public services. By implementing these strategies, the bureaucratic class can be reclaimed and the disadvantaged, working class, and taxpayers will be better served.
Despite the overwhelming influence of activist networks and government overreach, the solution remains within reach. The antidote to engineered crisis is individual responsibility and economic self-determination. Policymakers must resist the temptation to expand welfare programs beyond their intended function, focusing instead on fostering a culture of self-reliance.
They must avoid giving greater power to unelected bureaucrats, history is littered with the dead and broken from such ill-conceived decisions, be it from Health department overseers, that’s killed unnecessarily hundreds to thousands in the Northern Territory over the last 4 years alone, or Infrastructure where just over 300 houses instead of 1,000 houses were built with $2 billion dollars and an additional $550 million built only an additional 3 homes. The Billions wasted in education in the Bush or the approval for a gas plant that until recently provided no energy to the NT.
The Cloward-Piven strategy and its modern extensions represent a calculated effort to destabilise societies for political gain. The NGOs, bureaucratic middle-class welfare elites, and international agencies orchestrating these crises are not champions of the oppressed but profiteers of despair. The way forward lies in reclaiming economic sovereignty, dismantling institutionalised dependency, and restoring the principles of personal accountability and individual liberty. Only by rejecting the manufactured crisis narrative can a society break free from the chains of perpetual government control and rediscover the path to genuine prosperity.
For too long, the productive members of society have subsidised their own subjugation. It is time to disrupt the disruptors, dismantle the welfare elite, and reestablish a system in which prosperity is earned, not redistributed through coercion. Only then can the cycle of dependency be broken, and genuine freedom restored. From the author.
The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security Consultant with almost 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organizations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.
Comments