It's my belief that the generous-looking benefits package for people laid-off, sick, or self-employed are to maintain sufficient standards of living that we minimise the risk of marauding gangs of starving plumbers breaking in to shops and looting houses.
We might start having a weekly "basic ration box" per person of, say, a carton of milk, six eggs, loaf of bread, bag of carrots, pack of nurofen, box of porridge or cornflakes, strip of multivitamins.
We're only four meals away from anarchy, as MI5 likes to say. Breakdown in social order would cost a lot more money, property and lives, than keeping the lid on.
Utilities have a long record of preparation for major incidents, but the nation lost interest in civil defence and preparation after 1990.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...s-away-anarchy-cyber-attack-takes-power-grid/