At best a paternalistic attitude reminiscent of attitudes towards women not so long ago. The handicapped have become a kind of societal moral test – demonstrating how compassionate or how callous we are. The public discussion is about our moral egos rather than about their social needs. What is the task of a truly enlightened society – to show how good we are by helping these “needy unfortunates” or to provide them with the means and infrastructure which would enable them to become independent and autonomous taxpaying citizens like the rest of us?

In reality this is a dispute between two worldviews regarding the nature of being human and the functions of society – between social dependence as the basis of solidarity and economic independence as the basis of citizenship. The technological revolution provides us with the practical means to make the latter the truly enlightened choice. In the new economy there is no such thing as being handicapped; there are only people with different infrastructure needs

The new economy doesn’t give a bonus to muscle power. It rewards brain power and reliability. This transformation constituted one of the foundational pillars of women’s liberation in the 20^th century. It can now provide one of the foundational pillars of handicapped liberation in the 21^st century.

An alternative scenario

Professor Steven Hawking is not a welfare case but a self-supporting individual. He does not have to solicit the government or the welfare system to get the services he needs. He hires (and fires) his own caretakers as and when he needs them without having to appear before an evaluation committee to prove how pathetic he is or wait two weeks for a meeting with a tired, overworked and resentful social worker who in any case doesn’t have the budget to help him and who gets annoyed when he requests a different caretaker.

He doesn’t have to demonstrate in front of the Parliament or lobby them in a self demeaning way. He doesn’t have to cater to a patronizing media. In short he doesn’t have to endure endless humiliation. Why? Because modern technology has enabled him to work and to become financially independent!

An enlightened policy would provide the severely handicapped with a telecommuting infrastructure in their homes. Telecommuting means the ability to “commute” electronically to work and refers to the ability to perform an ever increasing number of economically worthwhile jobs at a distance by means of the telephone and the Internet.

This constitutes a virtual freedom of movement and must be seen as an unalienable human right, similar to the actual freedom of movement of the non-handicapped. And just as governments see their responsibility to facilitate the freedom of movement of the non-handicapped by building roads and railways (thereby also contributing to the economic vigor of society) so must they see their responsibility to facilitate virtual freedom of movement by building information highways that would cancel out handicaps.

The government should take the lead in providing these jobs. It should become policy that 50% of new government hiring or contracted labor should be amongst the homebound or semi-homebound handicapped. Working on spreadsheets, processing computer submitted forms, responding to inquires, translating and editing, research, writing manuals, purchasing, reviewing tax rolls etc. are all tasks that do not require a physical presence in a government building.

Indeed the government could begin to save a great deal of money by not having to build, maintain, clean and insure office space. In other words handicapped liberation could become a boon to the tax-payer. The government could also offer a small bounty to manpower companies that find telecommuting jobs for these people in the global economy.

Since we do not want to make telecommuting a de facto prison for the handicapped, a substantial portion of their taxes should be dedicated to making public buildings and byways more accessible. This would be similar to a certain percentage of road and petrol taxes being dedicated, by statute, to the building and improvement of roads. And since the handicapped would be funding these improvements they wouldn’t be beholden to anyone.

This would be one example of a new non-altruistic welfare policy dedicated to transforming net consumers of value into net producers of value by turning them into taxpayers. In other words no one would be doing anyone any favors.