What about the Poor?

FrontPageMagazine.com | Barry Loberfeld | Aug. 13, 2008

For defenders of the Constitution, the free market, and individual liberty, no single issue has thus far proved more defeating – on both the intellectual and electoral battlefields – than that of poverty. It has handed one unearned (and by no means inevitable) victory after another to the unconstitutional statism of collectivist liberals.

The conquest of poverty (to borrow the title of Henry Hazlitt’s classic) requires just two weapons: wealth and compassion. So the only real question is: Who can better provide these – civil society (“the market”) or the political state?

The answer as it regards wealth has now been settled: “[C]apitalism has won,” conceded left-aligned economic historian Robert Heilbroner in 1989. “Socialism,” conversely, “has been a great tragedy this century.”

Paul Samuelson’s famous textbook a few years later deemed state production the “failed model.” It is a society of free people, not coercive government, that produces wealth. And yet, most bizarrely, liberals still believe it is government, not people, that possesses the compassion necessary to redistribute some of that wealth to those who find themselves in need of aid (a percentage of any population).

Society will starve the poor, but the State won’t. How did it come to that? Mostly from the premise If government doesn’t do it, it doesn’t get done. But if we followed that consistently, we’d wind up right back with the “failed model” of socialist state planning of production and everything else, e.g., Stalin and Ceausescu’s prohibition of abortion or the Chinese Communists’ imposition of (even late-term) abortion. It is a premise refuted by an insight from an American Founder. We know Madison and his politics of limited government, we know Jefferson and his morality of individual rights, but we often forget Paine and his philosophy of the primacy of society over the State:

A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their laws; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost every thing which is ascribed to government.

We don’t need state charities for the same reason we don’t need state churches, state families, or state anything else, i.e., we don’t need state socialism because we already have civil society. Government, organized armed force, exists only to provide governance — basically, defense against the violent criminal element (domestic and foreign, e.g., bin Laden). Condemning limited government for not performing the functions of the charity, the church, the family, the firm, the school, and the other organs of the body politic is like condemning the skeleton for not performing the functions of the brain, the heart, the stomach, the liver, the lungs, and the other organs of the body proper. Freedom is the framework that secures all other virtues.

Ironically, the widely expressed fear that people won’t voluntarily help those who can’t help themselves — the foremost objection to the free market — is self-refuting. If everyone is concerned about the poor primarily, then what’s the problem? Religionists and secularists of virtually all stripes proclaim identical sentiments when it comes to aiding the less fortunate. And yet we have this theater-of-the-absurd chorus with each member wailing that he alone cares about his fellow man.

. . . more

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

6 thoughts on “What about the Poor?”

  1. From a political philosophy standpoint, the article’s great: people should work for the money they get, and people should not be taxed at an egregious rate just so that someone who doesn’t work can have a color television.

    I think most reasonable people can accept that.

    However, if the author were pressed for details in terms of how much in cuts should be made or where those cuts should be made, he’d probably be speechless. Do we abolish Medicaid and all social services or just make partial cuts? Do we cut funding to some programs and not others or just all of them? Do we change requirements or make them more restrictive? I’ll be hit on for just asking these questions, but these seem like worthwhile questions, do they not?

    So, okay, everyone keeps 98% of the money they earn. I, for one, would be ecstatic. I could finally pay off those wretched student loans in short order! However, how are these “poor” going to petition for aid? Who are they going to petition? Once I get 98% of my paycheck actually deposited in my account, should I suddenly expect phone calls from hapless indigents asking for help? I tend to ignore requests for that “emergency bus ticket” when accosted by people on the street: why should I take seriously any claims from the many people who will be knocking on my door because they think I have money?

    Maybe you assume I’ll start contributing even more to charities. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I’ve been considering remodeling my bathroom and covering the walls in travertine, so maybe I’ll focus on that and whatever is leftover I’ll drop in the Salvation Army bucket at Christmas. After all, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing needy people: I see it every day on TV and frankly, I’ve become a bit numb to it all.

    I don’t mean to sound sarcastic, but has anyone really thought through the practical ramifications of implementing sweeping social assistance program changes? Perhaps the results don’t really matter: it’s all about “sticking it to the beaurocrats, results be damned”.

    Ideology’s great: without details, it’s unlikely I’m going to give it much weight, however.

  2. James,

    It’s simple. Those who are able to work should. We have roads to be built, parks to be restored, etc. Take the “able bodied” and pay them their welfare while they do public works. why should they sit at home and do nothing?

    I had a friend, who in 1982 lost his job in aerospace. He was making $11.00 an hour. He received unemployment at $8.00 an hour. He applied for a job with the county. He got the job but it only paid $ 6.00 an hour. He refused saying he got more for staying at home.

    Now, that is an example of a broken system.

  3. Having able-bodied people work is a great idea, but then you have to consider issues such as child care, the cost of housing, medical care, and other routine expenses. Many studies have been done on what it takes to be able to survive financially. In the county in which I live, the basic budget for a family consisting of one adult and one child was $34,560 per year in 2006. That translates into a job paying around $16.60 per hour. I currently work for the agency that compiles such information. I know where the numbers come from, and they are not made up out of thin air.

    If you’re going to put that adult to work fixing road potholes for minimum wage, that person and his or her child is simply not going to be able to survive on that. They literally will not be able to pay for basic necessities. An $8 per hour job generates a $16,640 annual income. A $700 per month apartment costs $8,400 per year. That alone would consume more than 50 percent of the person’s income. It would leave the family with less than $700 per month for every other expense. Child care alone could easily consume over half of that. A single medical bill or expensive car repair could push the family over the edge.

    So having the person work is a great idea, but she’s going to need other kinds of support, if these people are not going to live in the street in a cardboard box. Call it communism, socialism, statism, feel-good liberalism, welfare, hand-outs — call it whatever you want. But there are certain financial realities. Work is a great thing, but for many people it is only one part of the equation.

  4. Fine. Include child care. That’s really the only extra cost to what we’re already giving them.

    They already get food stamps, so there’s no need to worry about that. They already lived in subsidized housing, so there’s no need to worry about that either. If they are made to work for the State or any other civil service job they have health and dental insurance.

    So what’s the benefit? The benefit is making someone responsible and stop rewarding them for being unproductive. It also will give them a sense of self worth, how they too are important to society.The welfare system has become a form of slavery. It is an endless cycle passed on from generation to generation.

    And it’s not just women as your post implies.

  5. I’m not an orthodox person, and I just don’t belong to any church, because I just don’t think that people believe in what they say they believe in. I went to this website because I was curious about why people (religious people mostly) don’t help the poor. I’m thinking that what everyone who has commented here is saying is that the poor are helped by the government or it’s just not important.

    I’ve been looking for some help. I get the door slammed in my face when I ask. So I just can’t understand any of this. When I had a few dollars, I would help. Sometimes it wasn’t money, I would listen to someone that was going through a rough time. I would try to stop a person from being fired. I would stop to help a stranded traveler. I would open a door. I would help to clean their house. I’ve let people stay in my house. To me, it seemed like common sense to help someone so that they could help someone else someday.

    Well, someday came a few years ago. I’m in need of a job or some type of income. In my case, I worked for 36 years (most of the time working two jobs) and like you all, I paid taxes. I had insurance which I did pay for. The insurance would not help because they were trying so hard to get me fired because I was an assault surviver. Not only was I fired, my retirement was docked by 75% because I was fired. Then they had to label me with a disability and, even though that I didn’t want that label, I had to pay the doctors around $5000 to get this label. The insurance wouldn’t pay for a disability although they required this. Yes they gave me around $500/mo. (and it is taxable) but since I had a disability, they took another $300/mo. from my retirement. The government wouldn’t help, because I don’t have the specialists that the insurance requires to get a Social Security disability. I couldn’t get unemployment benefits because, since I have been labeled disabled, I’m no longer an “abled” person. The nonprofits won’t help because the government won’t help. “Friends” won’t help because they are afraid that this could happen to them. I’m barred from getting a job outside of my home due to this designation. If I give away the tiny “retirement” income for ever, I might be eligible to get welfare. I’m unable to find anyone who knows what the eligiblity rules are or how much they would pay.

    So at this time, the only thing that anyone can suggest is to put myself in the nursing home. Isn’t this just an ugly and stupid society that won’t even give me a job or a few dollars to survive on, but it will pay $60,000/yr (plus travel expenses, medical attention and all of the drugs that they can force me to take) to warehouse me in a nursing home? Can you really afford that? Do you wonder where all of your taxes, insurance payment and nonprofit contributions go to?

  6. Kathy,

    You’re the type of person the government should assist. The sad thing about the system it either wants you to live in poverty or it wants you to work. Why not let folks subsidize themselves? I’m in favor of that. What I don’t like is the government forcing folks to be dependent on “big brother.”

    The government’s willing to waste money but not put it to good use. No churches in your area willing to help?

Comments are closed.