A Reply to a QUORA Comment About a Private
Safety Net
In response to my answer on the QUORA question ‘If we
cut out welfare and allowed capitalism to take its course, would people's basic
needs eventually be fully met by the free market?’, correspondent Miguel Valdespino commented: “Why do you think a private safety net will work now when it
didn’t work in the past? How do you keep people from falling through the
cracks?”
“Didn’t work”? By what standard? To some,
what works is getting as many people hooked on dependence as possible. To
others, what works is getting as many people off of dependence and back on
their own feet as quickly as possible. To still others, what works is based on
the individual giver’s judgement as to the worthiness of the receiver. To still
others, what works is what one can afford to give. The term “work” in this
context is too highly indeterminate to be of any use. No one can have the
knowledge of the millions upon millions of individual welfare cases to know
what’s working in each case. If you can’t do that, you can’t possibly make
overall judgements. That’s why, as a practical matter, charity should be
private, local, individual, and voluntary.
What’s true is that, though life was hard by today’s
standards, no one ever “starved in the streets” in America. Private
anti-poverty efforts grew steadily as prosperity spread and the general
standard of living surged under free market capitalism. The creation of the
welfare state was driven by ideology, not practicality. Before the welfare
state, free Americans found many inventive ways to help people out. For
example, before Government intervened in health care, doctors regularly
charged wealthy patients more to subsidize lower
prices for workers and free care for the indigent. Historian Walter I.
Trattner, himself heavily biased toward welfare statism, nonetheless documents
how private charity and mutual aid or fraternal societies dominated
anti-poverty efforts and were widely available before the welfare state.
"In fact,” Trattner reports, "so rapidly did private agencies
multiply [after the Civil War] that before long America's larger cities had
what to many people was an embarrassing number of them. Charity directories
took as many as 100 pages to list and describe the numerous voluntary agencies
that sought to alleviate misery, and combat every imaginable emergency."
The state had a small role. But “the vast majority looked first” to private
help--and generally found it. In fact, “many charity workers . . . were
horrified by this ‘excess’ of relief,” leading to the rise of private agencies
specifically designed to promote cooperation and efficiency among the private
charities. (page
90-93)
As far as people “falling through the cracks,”
no “safety net” will “catch” everyone in need. Such people exist today, despite
the gargantuan government welfare state--e.g., California’s “homeless
crises”. It’s up to each of us
to decide what, if anything, to do for people needing help, if and when we
encounter them.
Regardless of how you feel about our current
government-enforced system, Miguel, I believe it is simply wrong to say that a
private safety net didn’t “work” in the past. Whatever is meant by “work”--a
highly subjective and debatable concept--a private safety net did exist, was
substantial and widely available, and can be again. By the judgement of the
people directly involved, it did work. Otherwise, why participate?
Fundamentally, however, the issue is moral. Should politicians be forcing
private citizens to fund and/or perform charity and welfare, according to the
politicians’ standards? No. Government and law should never be an instrument
for anyone to force their values and agenda on unwilling others. Every
individual has a moral right to act on their own judgement, including to judge
for themselves when, how, whom, and in what capacity to help others out. Need
doesn’t give anyone an automatic moral or legitimate legal claim on the lives,
liberties, or property of others. Society needs a safety net, but only one that
is private and voluntary can legitimately be said to work.
Thanks.
For
the record, Miguel reacted to my reply. Note that Miguel fails to address the moral aspect, which I highlighted as the main point. If private charity has the problems he claims,
why are the solutions not to be addressed by private rights-respecting means?
What right does he have to use the government’s legal coercion to force his
solutions on everyone else? Miguel doesn’t answer. He also falls back on the
classic statist line that freedom is “inefficient” so the efforts of private
individuals must be consolidated or streamlined by government force. I gave him
the last word, as my reply would be mainly repeating myself.
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