I recently read parts of a book called Nickel and Dimed. In case you don’t know, it is about a reporter who voluntarily tried to take on low-paying jobs and restrict her income to the wage. In the book, she describes how hard even the low paying jobs are, and how hard it is to match income and expenses (seems almost impossible without having a crappy lifestyle or a good deal). She also describes how bad the employers are at treating the low-paied workers. She uses this to demand that these workers should force the employers to have better practices as she demands more welfare.
So, I have a question, fellow liberterians. How do we best help the poor, so that less of them are stuck between a rock and a hard place?
The best way to help the poor is to promote economic freedom. If there are fewer taxes and regulations, then more exchange and capital accumulation take place. This increases the marginal productivity of labour, raising wages. Higher wages may come in the form of a higher income or better working conditions.
The plight of the poor is that they have to deal with the twin towers of burdensome taxes and regulations, and inflation. They are stiffled by all levels of government extracting precious wealth from these people. Then to make matters worse, the govenrment jumps on these folks through zoning regulations, other regulations and the worst licensing. Then to cap it all off the Fed and Congress consistently reduce the value of the currency hurting the poor the most as their wages are the least flexible.
What is funny about these books is that the authors make these emotional please with how hard life is for poor folks but never mention the causes. I wonder why, maybe because the cause is the exact process that they support.
The solution to reduce poverty and help the poor is easy: 1. Stop creating money. 2. Stop all occupational licensing. 3. Shutdown government, especially local government and let the poor keep their money.
The book is bias based on a good concept / experiment, methinks. I say this because I read a much more coherent article / account that was sort of a “reply” experiment, where someone else conducted a similar experiment , yet had considerably different results.
If I find the link / site that did this, I’ll post it here later
Hello everyone. Good comments. I work as a social worker with individuals who are chronically homeless and have serious mental health issues (such as psychotic disorders). I consider myself a libertarian. I work for a private agency. I find it interesting that a huge majority of my colleagues in this field fail to realize that (among other things): 1. Democratic politicians have been just as supportive of drug war policies as republican ones. These policies have negatively affected “poor” people more than any other segment of the population in so many areas of existence. The growing recognition of harm reduction oriented practice has benefited the lives of many individuals. Libertarian ideals have provided the inspiration (and rationale) for the harm reduction movement.
The government has done a horrible job of trying to improve the lives of those who truly yearn for a sense of empowerment - instead of simple handouts. In Chicago, a public aid link card for a single individual amounts to approximately $150 a month. That is another small governmental handout that does little to help a person achieve true long term fulfillment. I am really starting to believe that private agencies that have the freedom to be creative in the ways they empower clients to make significant improvements in their lives will be the key to changing the social service landscape for the better. I have seen how governmental programs have performed ineffectively (and often cruelly) in their methods of helping.
Would be very interested in seeing that Nitro - recalled seeing something similar, but no clue where now.
BTW, it is not only the government that is ‘keeping the poor man down’ as some posts here indicate. Yes, taxes and regulations are serious issues (minimum wage laws spring immediately to mind) - for example, the poor inner city woman who can style hair but is proscribed from doing so sans a certification from the state (this is actually a real case of a black House member who was not allowed to style hair in her district with such a certification and ran for office to change that). But often times, it is businesses themselves that lead the charge for such certifications - a Middle Ages guild-type mentality. This is often due to the fact that every businesses in an industry - like every individual - are pitted against all the others. As Nock put it, the common notion is that government’s job - far from being to engage only in negative interventions - is to ‘help business’, but by doing so, it can only create win-lose situations.
But at a much higher level than this, America has more and more become an increasingly corporatist land - and the corporations, favored, protected by their pals in government (who came from and likely will return to corporate America via the revolving door of fascism, and vice versa), are at least as if not more responsible for keeping labor and wage conditions as they are - suitable to corporations, who need cogs to perform in their machines just so, and without too much complaint. Robert Higgs has done some outstanding work in explaining why, post-WW2, business, which had up to that time had viewed the State with alarm, jumped so competely on board and in bed with it. May have been in his ‘Neither Liberty nor Security’ - well worth reading, as is everything the guy ever wrote.
Alrighty, the response-experiment I referred to was called “Scratch Beginnings: Me, 25 Dollars, and The American Dream” (Alan Sheppard).
In retrospect, I hesitate to praise this as some could interpret it as somewhat of a pass at vulgar libertarianism (in so far as the current conditions are justified as the free-market, sans government intervention), however, the experiment was not politically motivated (which I found N&D’ed was from the outset), and was merley done as a response to what the author of “Scratch Beginnings” felt were flaws in “Nickle & Dimed”.
However, the point about minimum wage not stimulating the economy of the lower class was obviously spot-on, and his insight into the American Dream were enlightening (at the time I read this, as I remember).
Along the way, Shepard explores the following, such as:
The best way to help them is for government not to do anything at all. Let the market help them. Let local social and culture bonds help them in time of strife rather than some bureaucrat 1000’s of miles away who doesn’t even know their name.
The economy is also not helped in any fashion by our government’s obsession with the affairs of other countries. Our military adventures hurt commerce in countless ways.
My question for everyone concerns how to help individuals who have suffered most of their lives from severe mental health issues. (I work with individuals who generally fall under this category). Many of them are not necessarilly capable at this point of fully supporting themselves with full time occupations. In a pro libertarian type of society would they be helped by private charities? (I am not, of course, implying that any individual citizens are obligated to provide money or labor to charities) As I mentioned in my last post, I believe that privately supported charities could ultimately do a more effective job of helping individuals in great need of well rounded, clinically sound assistance.
Can anyone shed some light on how this kind of privately supported/funded social service structure would play out (Which I believe could prove very successful). Thanks everyone. Great forum!
“Let local social and culture bonds help them in time of strife rather than some bureaucrat 1000’s of miles away who doesn’t even know their name.”
Good point.. The level of overall clinical skill/knowledge at our department of human services is very low. But the level of pay that DHS workers receive is much higher than what other professionals receive at most other non governmental social service agencies. Their level of effectiveness in providing innovative treatment approaches is incredibly low.
The last director of the department of human services in Chicago was an extremely corrupt, politically appointed worker who really only cared about his image as opposed to concrete results.
Interestingly enough the guy who made “Super Size Me” did a similar social experiment on his tv show. These kind of experiments assume that the mininum wage worker is not even trying to look for a better job. By purposely restricting the amount of income or hours the experimenter is slanting the experiment.
I’m surprised no one mentioned Grammen Bank or microloans. Extending credit to those who have trouble escaping the cycle of poverty is so promising. It is the market response to poverty–treating the poor not as sub-human or wage-laborers but as capitalists. I believe this is the best way to improve the human condition. Charity is only a short term solution. Welfare is a long-term disaster. Microcredit is the sustainable future.
The microloan idea is wonderful. I guess my concern (which has to do with the population I have chiefly focused on throughout my career) is of how the most mentally and physically disabled members of society would receive assistance. Again, I agree totally that no member of society should be coerced in any fashion to provide for those with severe disabling issues. But I am in need of more feedback to help me develop these ideas… Much appreciated.
While the concept of microloans is excellent, the Grameen Bank is not all that it is cracked up to be. It actually receives its funding from governments. Check out the story on Mises:
It should be added that marginal productivity is not only what increases the worker’s wage. Productivity increase elsewhere in the economy will also benefit everyone with more goods and service, resulting in an effective increase in wages as they buy more. At least in Portugal, the big problem is not crappy jobs – those go to Eastern Europe as nobody wants to do them here --, but social assistence dependency. A lot of these people actually reject programs like re-allocation to a new, better public housing location, or getting high-school diploma by simply attending classes (no exams), because they are afraid of losing their welfare status. Parents do whatever they can to keep the kids with them, not because they care for them, but because they care for government’s money. Public housing rapidly becomes hell holes because, unlike what democracy advocates would like you to believe, when people look for government to order them around, it destroys the social tissue that forms a community.
If government just supported these social enterprises, instead of launching ones of its own, it would improve matters greatly. Unfortunately, you can’t avoid politiceans from gettings tempted to dictate how many psychologists they should have for every N clients, how caloric the meals should be, … Then, you get the unions of those workers colluding with bureaucrats to increase unnecessary demand for them, and all that stuff. Unfortunately, right now, I’ve read people give less than 0.1% of their income to charaties. I tend to think that can change – maybe through safety-net services that promise to help donors in case of need – so I believe it’s very possible to have strong social institutions built without government presence there.
By the way, John Stossel Goes To Washington covers a lot of what’s being asked. (you can find it here)
Just to add my two cents, I think monetary inflation is the biggest obstacle to wealth accumulation for the poor. You can’t make them smarter–they are stuck in low-skill, low-pay jobs for life. But if they are paid in sound money then their time horizons expand and they can save and build some equity instead of living paycheck to paycheck behind rising prices.
And why would some of them not become sucessful enterprenuers or at least get higher-paying jobs in a free market? Why would one assume that all of them are inherently stuck with the short end of the stick? Wouldn’t a free market provide more upward mobility in this regaurd?
I think you are overreacting on the effects of inflation – surely, the biggest effect would be on wage de-stabilitization, not on de-valuation of their paycheck throughout the month. And, at least in most countries, the biggest tax revenue is through VAT and other consumer taxes, which help to hide the cost of government from people, but are of a very regressive nature. Dependency is the big issue though, IMHO.
