And furthermore, that entire $10 does not make it from the most productive to the least productive. $9 of it goes to the agency doing the collection and transfer.
I suggest reading, “Our Culture, What’s Left Of It” by Theodore Dalrymple. Theodore eloquently exposes the failure and unintended consequences of government social programs.
It will never be possible to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor with 100% accuracy.
Whoever is paying will get to make such decisions.
The Cambodian upper class of 1977 would presumably have preferred “slavery” to mayhem.
I never claimed that the state’s taking care of the handicapped was more effective than alternatives, so the onus is not on me to explain why such an approach is more effective. What I said is that until other alternatives work, it’s better than the alternatives.
It’s interesting that you quibble over claims that I didn’t make, but don’t ask about what sort of transfers I have in mind. Hungry people riot.
You can’t compete with a system that funds itself through taxation. There will not be a working alternative to tax-funded welfare so long as welfare is taxed.
And when was the last handicap riot?
That is false. Hungry people starve, flee, migrate. They do not riot.
You can’t compete with a system that funds itself through taxation. There will not be a working alternative to tax-funded welfare so long as welfare is taxed.
And when was the last handicap riot?
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This is a questionable assertion at best. Certain faiths in the United States, among them the Church of Latter Day Saints, operate a welfare system for their members that is far more generous and far more effective than that of the US government. You can and do have alternative and supplemental welfare systems.
My point was that rather than condemn “the state” for providing what essentially are essential services, it would behoove those discontent with them to establish more efficient services with a view to replacing the often inefficient state mechanisms. Dr. Paul did so, for example, by providing free medical care rather than accepting medicare. Just moaning about the status quo without doing anything or recognizing its admittedly imperfect benefits is a waste of time.
[quote=“Stranger”]
The history books disagree with you.
The Boston Bread Riot was the last of a series of three riots by the poor of Boston, Massachusetts, between 1710 and 1713, in response to food shortages and high bread prices. The riot ended with minimal casualties.
In the early 1700s, the city of Boston had very little arable land, and most grain had to be imported from surrounding environs or from abroad. It was common practice for the larger local grain merchants to hoard grain to drive up local prices, and to sell local grain in more lucrative foreign markets such as Europe or the sugar plantations of the West Indies. On top of this, Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713) interfered with foreign trade. By 1709, Boston was experiencing a serious food shortage and skyrocketing bread prices.
The hardest hit were the working poor. Since they did not own land, and were therefore not allowed to vote, governmental indifference to their needs left violence as the only effective recourse. A percentage of the poor began an uprising against the government.
In April 1710, a group of men broke the rudder of a cargo ship belonging to merchant Andrew Belcher, to prevent the wheat contained therein from being shipped away and sold abroad. The next day, about 50 men attempted to force the ship’s captain ashore, intending to loot the ship of its grain. They were arrested, but popular support for their cause resulted in their being released without charges.
In October 1711, a fire in Boston left over 100 families homeless, leading to a second riot.
In May 1713, a mob of more than 200 rioted on Boston Common, protesting high bread prices. The mob broke into Belcher’s warehouse looking for grain, and the Lieutenant Governor was shot and wounded when he attempted to intervene.
As a result of the Boston Bread Riot, acts were passed prohibiting exports of grain in time of shortage, fixing grain and bread prices at more reasonable levels, and establishing a public granary. These measures somewhat alleviated the immediate shortage, however, food shortages and the attendant rioting and looting would recur in Boston throughout the Revolution and into the early 1800s.
This is an overly simplistic view. How can 100 million people make a decision? Only through their so-called representatives, and as we’ve seen, those folks do not honestly represent the interests of the citizenry, instead becoming corrupted by the decision making power they wield. So you are rejecting the “ideal” situation of non-State actors doing this, but you are accepting another implicit “ideal” - that we can trust the State to make these sorts of decisions on our behalf. I think history is pretty clear on this point: the latter ideal is even less workable thane the former.
A false analogy. What they got was both. As to slavery - inasmuch as the Khmer Rouge never recognized that that individuals had rights that the State should not transgress against, all classes in Cambodia were slaves. And then mayhem ensued, as it typically does in such situations.
And as has been pointed out to you, other alternatives CANNOT work in the presence of ongoing State usurpation and domination of that function. This is a really dishonest argument you are making inasmuch as the alternatives WERE working (see ‘The Tragedy of American Compassion’ by Marvin Olasky for details) until the State, asserting a bogus crisis, took over and pushed alternatives off the ledge. This is similar to asserting that, until you get a cure for heroin addiction, it’s “better” to keep doing heroin. I disagree, because the disease in both cases is progressive.
And you have also failed to address the fundamental ethical issue: you say the current regime is “better” than the alternatives, but “better” in this case = stealing money at the point of a gun from all productive members of society (i.e. taxation) and using it to subsidize non-prodective members. How is this “better”?? It is only “better” if by “better” you mean 'financially beneficial to one segment of society at the expense of another" - I maintain that this is not a good definition of “better.” And you’ve provided no logic as to why your definition is a reasonable one.
I don’t understand. You said “In so far as taking care of the handicapped and the like prevents riots and more, welfare contributes to the public good.” and I responded to that, specifically. You went on to say “the big distinction to be made is between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.” and I responded to that, specifically.You went on to say “to abolish one system before the other one works would only cause mayhem.” (which, note, is in essence exactly what the State did in the early 20th century) and I responded to that specifically.
So which claims that you did not make am I quibbling over?
This is simply wrong. I agree with you on the history of “compassion” in the US. That said, various faiths have charity organizations that parallel or supplement that of the US government. The Church of Latter Days Saints, for example, provides its adherents in need with benefits that by far surpass those offered by Uncle Sam. When Margaret Thatcher represented a London constituency with a large Jewish community, she was awestruck that she never once was approached for help by a destitute member of the community. Not only CAN private charities work alongside the state, they DO.
- My point is that the best way to reduce government charity is to establish private charities that take off the slack from government charity. You could, for example, set up a voucher system so that people could either contribute or draw benefits from the government run charity system or a privately run charity system. (You’d have to prevent good risks flocking to one or the other if this was to be workable.) The very worst thing to do is to call for slashing the admittedly very flawed public safety net before there are alternatives. Many voters will never be willing to jump into a void, even it if is theoretically superior.
- I think the current regime is superior to your and my putative private regime in one meaningful way. However massively flawed it is, it works, somewhat. People have no guarantees that there are alternative arrangements for them, and are not willing to abandon what little safety they know they have.
Using Cambodia an example was polemical on my part. As was your equating big - but not totalitarian - government with slavery.
Listen, I’m not concerned with pursuing an ideal solution that cannot or will not be implemented, but rather how to attain the most ideal situation that can be attained. Medicine being an art, and not a science, you will always have people who malinger, but - and this is equally important - you’ll also have people who are really sick, but for whose ailments medicine has neither an explanation nor answer. No matter who pays, you’re either going to have “freeriders” or people who suffer terrible injustices.
My dream is of private solutions in which people feel comfortable putting their faith. The way to such a solution is NOT to post on websites about slashing and burning existing solutions, no matter how flawed, but rather to establish replacements that render current solutions obsolete.
My argument was not that public charities are superior to private ones, something I don’t believe, but rather that until private charities can and will tend to all the deserving destitute - a goal I whole heartedly support -, it’s a fools errand to advocate the abolishment of public welfare.
- Anecdotes mentioned above disprove your theory of competing with the government.
- It would behoove you to read and then respond to your counterparty’s arguments rather than strawmen. My specific words were: In so far as taking care of the handicapped and the like prevents riots and more, welfare contributes to the public good.
Books on American history completely contradict your claims. Put “Boston Bread Riots” into any search engine!
Well, I doubt we are going to convince each other, but I think you are allowing the great to be the enemy of the good. By holding out for a system which tends “to all the deserving destitute” you are establishing an impossible bar, in my view.
What matters in such things are the incentives that exist in the system. The fact is that the State run welfare system incentivizes dependency and non-productivity, and it does so for a reason - NOT because it benefits the recipients of welfare, but because it benefits the State, and does so tremendously. It benefits the bureaucrats who work in the system and the political appointess who run it (patronage), and who have a strong vested interest in its persistence. It benefits the politicians who can gain votes, on the one side by calling for its increase, and on the other by calling for its decrease. It disadvantages only its recipients, as I’ve noted, as well as its funders, the taxpayers.
Where you are going wrong, in my view, is in your assessment of the fundamental nature of the State. It seems from your comments that you see the State as a socially beneficent entity. I do not - I see it as anti-social and malevolent, pursuing outcomes which have nothing to do with ‘helping people’ but realizing it needs to cloak its activities as such. I am totally on board with Nock, Spencer, Oppenhiemer and Rothbard in their characterization of the State. In this view, the State will jealously guard those functions which enable it to continue its ongoing and ceaseless conversion of social power to State power, and the welfare system - no less than the warfare system - is a powerful component of that overall process. So the State has incentives to preclude the very conditions you assert are necessary from coming into being in a way that could actually compete with its prerogatives. Thus, the condition you place - alternatives becoming truly viable - is the one condition the State will never allow. Because it would work to reverse the entire purpose of the State as an organic entity - that purpose being to convert social power to State power to facilitate exploitation.
This does not mean that the State will not tolerate and even support small private charity work such as you have noted, which allow the State’s pretense of ‘helping the poor’ to be more readily argued. How many people does the LDS support? Now, how many are supported by State and Federal welfare programs? 'Nuff said.
If I - and Spencer and Nock and Oppenheimer and Rothbard - are right, then your proposed condition is an impossible one to achieve. Suggested reading:
Herbert Spencer: Man vs the State
Albert Jay Nock: Our Enemy, the State (available for download at mises.org)
Rothbard: Anatomy of the State (available here: http://mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp)
Franz Oppenheimer: The State
Regarding the ‘what is practical given our circumstances’ argument - this is, obviously, subjective and non-provable. In my view, none of what we’re talking about is practical. Your proposal would require the State to become something other than what it is, and my proposal would require the abolishment of the State itself. Neither of these scenarios appear to be remotely practical at this time.
I think we agree in 95% if not more of our thinking. It’s been a family tradition that it’s better to endure injustices than commit injustices. My commitment to caring for the destitute stems from this tradition.
I like to think that I have no illusions about the government and predation. As to the LDS, the Economist explained how Mormons who were down and out had the expectation that they could go to their local temple, and would receive a clunker of a car, and an introduction to willing employers, and contrasted it to the US gov’t and its tradition of handing out checks without any accountability. This may explain why there are fewer dependent Mormons. I would imagine that in Utah the LDS provide more benefits than federal welfare.
I’ll preempt this by stating that I’m only going to generalize my own point of view on this matter:
I think that welfare as a concept is great. It’s a method of helping out one’s fellow man when he needs it.
For the anti-welfare crowd, would you be as adamently opposed to welfare if it was ran in a much more productive manner that actually provided temporary help as opposed to encouraging non-productivity?
I know many would still oppose it on the grounds that taxation = theft, however - I’d feel at least a little bit better about being robbed by the state if it actually went to a useful purpose.
The biggest issue I have with state-ran welfare is that it allows for people to live off of it without encouraging any other options. There’s no real incentive. Get into a rent controlled apartment, get the government to pay you for doing nothing, get government provided healthcare, pop out a ton of kids to get more money, and turn your life into a soap opera, and you can actually still live comfortably if you know how to play the system.
Private charity would be far more efficent than state-sponsered welfare.
I’m the kinda guy who’d gladly spend $5 for booze for a homeless bum than $3 on someone whose subsisting soley off our tax dollars.
As long as welfare is run by the government, it will serve merely as a mechanism to convert social power to State power. So, no, even if it would be made more ‘productive’, it would still be anti-liberty and anti-social. As chaneys rightly noted, churches like LDS and other private orgs do a vastly better - more effective (not to mention, efficient) job. Civil society is the proper place for this function. There are churches and NGOs/NPOs which excel at this sort of thing, but which the State inhibits by its dominating presence and by legislation and regulation. So the best thing the State can do is get the hell out of the business of compassion. As long as it doesn’t, the problem will only get worse.
I think this is one more example of wishful thinking - believing that the State is a socially useful and potentially beneficent entity conflicts with everything we know about it. Spencer, Nock, Oppenheimer, Rothbard make this abundantly clear, as does any even moderately serious analysis of history.
Government welfare creates a permanent underclass as evidenced by accelerating dependence on government handouts in all the “social democracies”. It is really just political corruption and vote buying. Remember Rome? Nothing ever seems to change.
One cannot say “welfare hurts the poor!” without making an objective value judgement. It seems to me that doing such a thing would be very un-Austrian.
The poor on welfare believe welfare helps them, else they wouldn’t accept it.
I think the question can be posed objectively; would there be more welfare if the state did not tax welfare.
For example, if the state taxes the sale of tomatoes, it will cost more for the buyer of tomatoes and benefit less for the producer of tomatoes to trade tomatoes.
Can we not use the same reasoning for welfare? If say the recipient of welfare is the producer, and the provider of welfare the buyer, does it not reduce the buyer’s and producer’s benefit to create a huge bureaucracy to distribute welfare?
Because money is so widely used as a medium-of-exchange, any reduction of money in the hands of the poor is an objective reduction in their ability to pursue their subjective desires.
Some might want pizza, others might want tacos. But if they don’t have any money, they’re not going to eat anything.
Welfare is bad, then, in so much as it either has no long-term effect or creates a permanent decrease in the amount of money in the hands of the poor, and the value of that money. Even temporary increases through wealth distribution may be offset by long-term losses.
This ignores all aspects of the issue except for the static monetary question, and so fails to address the ethical aspects. It’s an answer NOT to ‘does welfare help/hurt the poor?’, but rather to ‘is welfare remunerative, overall, for the poor?’ I don’t accept that as the topic under discussion.
i think it is possible to argue there is a real risk to welfare recipients, both in a moral sense and in a strict economic sense. first, the existence of “free money” allows the recipient to forget about where the money is coming from. that is, were there no government welfare, there would be an intimate connection between the giver and the receiver. on balance, there would be more scrutiny on actually how genuine the recipient’s need are. by having direct contact with the benefactor, the recipient would be forced to acknowledge the fact that a real person is taking a hair-cut in this process (no manna from heaven). critics will wheel out some oliver twist caricature at this point.
furthermore, i think there is an important socializing aspect to work. it’s a pain in the butt having to be polite to employers and customers, to be punctual and reliable, and to get on with fractious work colleagues. particularly for younger people, i think these social skills are important. others have addressed the corrosive effects on self-esteem of welfare - earning money gives you tangible proof of your value to society, and encourages competition. finally, working often mixes people of different backgrounds and outlooks, encouraging cross-fertisation of ideas between people who probably wouldn’t associate if they weren’t obliged to.
on the economic front, the welfare recipient is divorced from the workplace, and therefore not exposed to the skills required to move ahead. even a dead-end job offers opportunities for contact-making, and a stepping stone to a better position. someone currently working is intrinsically more attractive to a prospective employer than someone who is unemployed.
people don’t always in act in ways that benefit them, long-term. otherwise most would walk the stairs rather than catch the lift. laziness and short-term convenience outweigh the long-run health payoff of the firestairs.
“How does welfare hurt the poor?” is a question of remuneration, not ethics. Nowhere in that question is it suggested that helping or hurting the poor is either right or wrong.
That’s patently absurd. If you cannot see the ethical connotations implicit in a discussion of welfare or in the terms ‘help’ or ‘hurt’ then there is nothing for us to discuss. Right and wrong has nothing to do with it -you seem to be confusing ethics with morality.