Benjamin Franklin, statesman and signer of our
Declaration of Independence, said: "Only a virtuous people are capable of
freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of
masters." John Adams, another signer, echoed a similar statement: "Our
Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other." Are today's Americans virtuous
and moral, or have we become corrupt and vicious? Let's think it through with a
few questions.
Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a
heating grate in the dead of winter. She's hungry and in need of shelter and
medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and
threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then
purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty
of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I've committed
theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree – 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that's clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality? Before you answer, keep in mind that slavery was legal; apartheid was legal; the Nazi's Nuremberg Laws were legal; and the Stalinist and Maoist purges were legal. Legality alone cannot be the guide for moral people. The moral question is whether it's right to take what belongs to one person to give to another to whom it does not belong.
Don't get me wrong. I personally believe that
assisting one's fellow man in need by reaching into one's own pockets is
praiseworthy and laudable. Doing the same by reaching into another's pockets is
despicable, dishonest and worthy of condemnation. Some people call governmental
handouts charity, but charity and legalized theft are entirely two different
things. But as far as charity is concerned, James Madison, the acknowledged
father of our Constitution, said, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty
of the government." To my knowledge, the Constitution has not been amended
to include charity as a legislative duty of Congress.
Our current economic crisis, as well as that of
Europe, is a direct result of immoral conduct. Roughly two-thirds to
three-quarters of our federal budget can be described as Congress' taking the
property of one American and giving it to another. Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid account for nearly half of federal spending. Then there are
corporate welfare and farm subsidies and thousands of other spending programs,
such as food stamps, welfare and education. According to a 2009 Census Bureau
report, nearly 139 million Americans – 46 percent – receive handouts from one
or more federal programs, and nearly 50 percent have no federal income tax
obligations.
In the face of our looming financial calamity, what
are we debating about? It's not about the reduction or elimination of the
immoral conduct that's delivered us to where we are. It's about how we pay for
it – namely, taxing the rich, not realizing that even if Congress imposed a 100
percent tax on earnings higher than $250,000 per year, it would keep the
government running for only 141 days.
Ayn Rand, in her novel Atlas Shrugged, reminded us that "when you have made evil the means of survival, do
not expect men to remain good."
Ridiculous articles such as this one, give(neo-)liberalism its "bad name" (or at least its a reputation for short-sightedness)
ReplyDeleteFrom a philosophical perspective, it is not sufficient to proclaim a solution a cul de sac without offering an alternative. If people are left to starve, then they will have no incentive to play the game of the economy and/or engage in free market activities. They will just take what they need from their fellow man; better for the government to take it via taxation, than to be taken at gun point by a commandante and his or hers "religious" followers.
You may be right. Still, it strikes me that you have a very low opinion about your fellow men and women. If you live in a society that will allow people to perish because of lack of voluntary help, i pity you, because you are very unfortunate. May be you should move to a different, more humane society and culture
ReplyDeleteThe author is much more optimistic about the ability of the society to help people in need, without the state's compulsory charity at gun point.
A minor reminder. Most taxes are allocated to the new ruling class. That is government employees, government vendors etc.
People in real need are, almost universally, taken care by private organisations.
I don't necessarily have a low opinion of my fellow men and women, but I do remember that humans are ultimately bound by biology.
ReplyDeleteSo during history (or at least this is my interpretation of history), the failures of democracy and economical organization were either resolved peacefully, or when everything else failed they were solved by war, revolution and bloodshed. Whenever an animal feels threatened, he or she will revert back to the penultimate biological law: my survival (or the survival of my extended self, whether this is the family or group) uber alles.
So even though I agree philosophically with the post, I am afraid that these theoretical constructs are of little help in the current situation of global affairs. Unleashing lessez faire to the world as a single bolus will do more harm than good than good.
What is required a way for this to happen gracefully and not all at once to avoid kickstarting the beast inside us, which is much uglier than the rational man of the simpl(-istic) economical models. Unless of course you wants to witness the validity of the Competitive Lokta Volterra models in a street next to you.
So I would rather keep some form of state protection at this point, although I would rather not have the state both collect some taxes and provide the services (the UK or the Greek National Health Systems are prime examples of why this should not be allowed).
Once we reach a point where it is safe to dismantle the state, then this should be done pronto because they have become vast machines of wealth distribution between the have-nots and the haves as you have said. But even at that that point we should make some provisions for the necessary infrastructure to keep a "negative income tax" system going in order to prevent the current welfare system from rising ever again.
I agree that dismantling the core of the welfare state in one stroke, is neither desirable nor possible right now.
ReplyDeleteIt is, however, possible to keep the core functions of the welfare state towards people in real need and gradually scrap everything else.