What kind of permissions do the leaders of a meritocratic welfare state seek from us before they act?
An aphorism.
The struggle for democracy offers us a parallel to the struggle for decent welfare reform. Without this struggle political systems tend to autocracy and elitism.
In the Jewish and Christian tradition we are all too aware that we need God to stop short of the demands of strict justice and that mercy must subdue God's proper wrath.
The ideas of Adam Smith are often far more progressive than you might expect.