My politics are too complicated to express as a pithy placard slogan

A practical approach to welfare must begin with an understanding that citizens of our developed economy require a certain level of income simply to stay alive. In the absence of employment or charity, these citizens must choose between crime and death. It follows that any welfare payment less than or equal to the costs of this crime and the citizen's subsequent route through the justice system must be considered both an economic and moral good.

An amoral calculus

I am increasingly fixated on what I perceive to be an amoral calculus employed by those with great power or wealth in society – a calculus which is denied to the poor and powerless by laws they cannot take the risk of ignoring.

Take the drugs kingpin. There is no moral quandary for this person as to their trade. Like all businessmen the kingpin takes on a certain level of risk (albeit of a different nature from, for example, the property developer) in search of profit. There is a government-imposed disincentive to his business model – but in the cost-benefit analysis of an extremely lucrative and enduring trade, this disincentive is not practically different from a higher rate of tax. The descriptions of our statutes' attitudes to marijuana and tobacco are different, but mechanically and economically they are identical.

(Of course arguably the public economics of drug prohibition are all negative – resulting in a tax-free black market, the criminalisation of entrepreneurs, and massive public costs in policing and justice – while at least the tax disincentive applied to tobacco contributes to the public purse. But for more on that see anything written by Transform).

Similarly there are mainstream businesses. The most successful business is the one that finds the most efficient and sustainable path to profit. Take for example Boots, which of course has recently been under attack for its massive tax avoidance. Putting that issue briefly to one side, Boots is a fine example of an efficient and profitable business. It has expanded hugely across Britain, is now synonymous with pharmacy, and generally offers good products and services (let's ignore the homeopathy thing for now as well). Initially it grew organically, until it developed a strong enough capital base and went on to acquire other pharmacy chains (and for some reason, Halfords). This enhanced its economies of scale, with centralisation of management also offering efficiency savings. Boots is now a gravy train – any possible risk of expansion is easily dealt with by simply expanding into an existing local pharmacy. For Boots it is all benefit.

The cost is borne socially.

"The problem is that, considered as a labour force, the golems are capable of doing the work per day of one hundred and twenty thousand men."

"Think of what they could do for the city!" said Mr Cowslick of the Artificers' Guild.

"Well, yes. To begin with, they would put one hundred and twenty thousand men out of work."

– Terry Pratchett, Making Money

The social cost of greater efficiency is always greater unemployment. We have already agreed as a nation – implicitly, over successive governments of both left and right – to adopt an economic model dependent on constant (but hopefully low-level) unemployment. Understanding this, we must ethically include as part of that model some support for these unemployed – hence taxation and the welfare state.

Boots' calculus does not contain a moral dimension. It does not consider the non-financial implications of higher efficiency and higher unemployment (you may argue that those laid off by Boots are hired by other companies, but consider that in the long term this efficiency path is sought by all commercial businesses). This is not to say that there should be an explicit disincentive for businesses to make redundancies – simply that higher profits tend to come with a social cost, and businesses should be made to contribute to those costs. As it is, the companies that contribute most to this country's headline GDP are allowed to ignore the moral commitment it has to compensate for that social cost.

Commercial businesses are motivated almost entirely by profit. Of course there are higher order purposes – a business may consider its goal is to make great games, or provide excellent service, or anything of that kind. But as long as it is fulfilling that purpose, its incentives are costs and sales. The only organisations that must inherently consider society as a 'cost' are local and national government.

The benefits of inefficiency

Let's say there is a local authority that is working on its roads. It has identified 10 roads that need to be resurfaced and their underlying gas lines maintained. The most efficient way of doing this would be to shut the road, strip the surface, check the lines, then resurface the road. This is how a commercial business would do the job.

The best way for the local authority, however, is probably the opposite of that. Let's say that process would take 10 weeks – one week per road. Once the job is done, the workers hired have no more work to do. If eligible they will receive benefits – a direct cost to that local authority. They will no longer have discretionary income to spend on the high street – an indirect cost to that local authority. Some may turn to crime – another direct cost.

It is in the interests of the local authority, therefore, to continue to employ these people for as long as possible, at or below the costs they would otherwise suffer from their unemployment. This could well mean the job taking three weeks per road – one to resurface, one for the gas lines, then another to resurface again.

Within the rules

Profits can be considered as the rewards of risk. I mortgage everything I own – I build a successful pharmacy business. I risk jailtime – I push hash at a 200 percent mark-up. Judicial punishment is simply another form of risk.

Consider Thierry Henry's infamous handball, which knocked Ireland out of the 2010 World Cup tournament. This is perfectly within the rules of football – specifically rule 12, which states that a direct free kick should be awarded to the opposing team if a player handles the ball deliberately. Also by convention he should receive a red card. In this instance the risk paid off – all benefit, no cost. But clearly from interviews given afterwards there was no moral component in his decision.

The rules of football very clearly lay out the penalties for what ought to be considered cheating. The only thing I can think of that would break the rules of football would be to actually murder someone on the pitch – an action so far outside the rules that Fifa would probably have to form a special committee to work out what to do.

Similarly the laws of the land very clearly lay out the penalties for breaking the rules of society. If those with money and power choose to take these risks without any consideration of morality, surely those without may also take that risk?

This is how radicalisation happens

When businesses increase social costs and deliberately avoid contributing tax to rectify it, because there is no moral component the decision is all benefit and no cost. It is the purpose of our elected representatives to ensure a moral component is included in their calculus in the form of taxation – higher costs to society must come with higher costs to business. As our current government has shown no interest in doing this – in fact quite the opposite – it falls to citizens to introduce this cost to businesses' calculus through direct action.

There is no moral component to property damage. How can there be? Assuming no people are hurt by fallen glass – a condition easily fulfilled by even the most lackadaisical attitude to health and safety – what moral harm is caused? Of itself, I would argue that low-level property damage can be a social good when correctly directed. The broken window fallacy observes that the money used to repair such damage would otherwise be spent more productively elsewhere – but for big businesses this is a demonstrable untruth. Far better that more workers are hired at the minimum wage to repair damage than higher profits are diverted overseas – away from those who contributed to them, be that by shopping with that company or enduring the trials of unemployment because of them.