The right to privacy

Among the sillier critiques of the idea of private charity as a substitute for public, is that there are so few private charities providing all the things that government does.

Savor that for a moment. Roll it around in your mind. No one gives welfare beneficiaries cash. Why could that be? Okay, if you really don't know, answer below the fold.

To be sure, I'm not confident that private charity could fully replace government charity, and I'm certainly not eager to raze our current raft of poverty programs on the odds that private groups might keep children from starving. I think a big part of the problem with the libertarian movement is that it's filled with people theorizing about the new libertarian state, or agitating for it, but very few trying to set up the auxiliary services, like private charities for other causes, that will be needed in the new system. This leaves them vulnerable to the charge that they don't actually care about any of the people that this private charity is supposed to help.

There are great libertarian style charities, like the Children's Scholarship Fund. More of us should be donating to them, promoting them, and most importantly, starting and running them. Not me, of course; I've got better things to do. But someone oughta.

Answer: Because, of course, the cash is income, which means it will substitute nearly 1-for-1 for benefits, doing no good at all; or actually pushing the beneficiaries above the threshhold for stuff like Medicaid. The high marginal tax rate faced by the poor (because of benefit loss) is one of the primary barriers to both work, and private poverty-focused charity.

Comments

Take that Ezra Klein!

Posted by Jeff Westcott | October 22, 2007 5:28 PM

You're right -- that is a very silly critique. But it's not one anyone who matters is making.

My point has been that charities not only don't do what governments do, they *can't possibly* do what governments do. No charity has ever managed enough consistent revenue to replace essential services like Medicare, or Social Security. Even if you can find a charity that did, imagine if that charity was devoted to social security instead of, say, orphaned puppies and try to imagine their getting enough revenue. THEN imagine what happens in an economic downturn -- you can't reasonably deny that this would result in anything short of that revenue stream's collapse.

The truth is that giving the amount of money social programs need up is extremely hard to do. I believe in them very strongly and it would still be extremely hard for me if I wasn't legally required to do it. The willpower required to make regular donations to the proper charities is rather difficult to imagine.

The question becomes whether your libertarian sense of aesthetics is more important than caring for people. I'm glad you've decided it isn't so important as to make the rolling back of all our social programs necessary and just -- what I wonder is how, in these circumstances, you can be so sure we don't need more of them?

Posted by Mike Meginnis | October 22, 2007 5:42 PM

The high marginal tax rate faced by the poor (because of benefit loss) is one of the primary barriers to both work, and private poverty-focused charity.

Quite. (I don't have US numbers, but the effective marginal tax rate for low-earners in the UK is more than 80% for lots of people, over a shockingly large income range. That 80% number doesn't include things like the withdrawl of free prescriptions, which is harder to quantify 'cause it depends how sick you get.)

Anyone for replacing welfare with a Citizen's Basic Income?

Posted by Sam | October 22, 2007 5:45 PM

To be sure, I'm not confident that private charity could fully replace government charity,

OK, look, you've got to stop with this technique. You say "Clearly, liberal position A isn't entirely wrong", and you provide a defense of an enormously watered down liberal position A. The effect, though, is precisely to undercut liberal position as it actually exists; the watered-down version is so weak that it becomes in effect an argument for the libertarian side. You've then buffered yourself from criticism coming from the left-- "Hey, I endorsed liberal position A!"-- while actually undercutting that position.

For example-- saying that you're not confident that private charity could fully replace government social programs is an absurd understatement. Private and religious charities had several thousand years to provide a social safety net for the disadvantaged and did not do so. Whats more, whether someone can eat, or not; whether they have somewhere to live, or not; whether they have health care and education, or not-- these things should not be at the whim of private charity or under the constraints of a religious organization. If you recognize the basic rights to these things that I feel every human possesses-- and you must, logically, if you feel that charity is necessary at all-- then surely you can see that. Some things are important enough to be mandated by society, and since no capitalism or wealth is possible without an ordered and free society, the money you give up in taxes for these programs are part of the price you pay for living in the society which gives you the opportunity to create what is, by any global perspective, abundant material wealth.

Posted by Freddie | October 22, 2007 5:59 PM

Private and religious charities had several thousand years to provide a social safety net for the disadvantaged and did not do so.

Really? Before the great liberal welfare programs of the '60s, were people dying of hunger in this country? How about during the Great Depression? I recall reading stories about long unemployment lines and lines at soup kitchens, but I don't recall reading stories about mass deaths brought about by the lack of services for the poor. You'd have thought historians would have made a point of mentioning the fact people were dying by the thousands as one of the reasons FDR was elected. Maybe you're right. But I seem to recall reading studies showing that the government programs drove out the private charities that worked to help the most destitute among us, not that these needs were going entirely unmet before big government stepped in.

Whats more, whether someone can eat, or not; whether they have somewhere to live, or not; whether they have health care and education, or not-- these things should not be at the whim of private charity or under the constraints of a religious organization.

Actually, I do believe that these things need to be at somebody's whim. Suppose a spendthrift gets himself into a bind (as he almost inevitably will), if help is available to him by RIGHT, the spendthrift is much less likely to make the changes necessary to avoid problems in the future. However, if help is subject to the whim of his minister (or Aunt Rita), he may need to humble himself enough to realize the need for change.

You may find my approach hard hearted. I find your approach lacking in a basic understanding of human nature. You want to help. So do I. You want to solve the immediate need. So do I. I also want to prevent future need. Your approach increases the likelihood of future need. I find your approach hard hearted and soft headed. YMMV.

Posted by David Walser | October 22, 2007 6:25 PM

Private and religious charities had several thousand years to provide a social safety net for the disadvantaged and did not do so.

I can just imagine someone saying, not very long ago, "Goverments had several thousand years to provide a social safety net for the disadvantaged and did not do so. Clearly they never will."

Throughout those several thousand years the majority of what social safety net there was, was provided by private and religious charities.

To assert they can not do as much to provide a social safety net as goverment, when they have done more than goverment throughout much of the history of the western world, is an overstatement.

Posted by ad | October 22, 2007 6:32 PM

To assert they can not do as much to provide a social safety net as goverment, when they have done more than goverment throughout much of the history of the western world, is an overstatement.

Except that government has been explicitly prevented from doing so for many parts of the world. Government social services are either proscribed by government, or not. In contrast, there has always been private charity, and no one is suggesting abolishing it now. But it has proved inadequate to providing for all of the poor. Do you really deny that there are parts of the world where, at some point in their history, they had both some private charity, and people who died as a result of the failure of that private charity to provide for their needs?

Posted by Freddie | October 22, 2007 6:41 PM

"If you recognize the basic rights to these things that I feel every human possesses-- and you must, logically, if you feel that charity is necessary at all-- then surely you can see that."

Hoping that a charity provides a service X in no way entails that there is a right to X. I make toy donations to charities before Christmas, but there's certainly to right to Christmas presents. I think there's a general (and often intentional) conflation among many people between "rights" and "characteristics we would prefer to exist in our society."

Posted by Jared | October 22, 2007 7:08 PM

Freddie wrote: Whether someone can eat, or not; whether they have somewhere to live, or not; whether they have health care and education, or not. If you recognize the basic rights to these things that I feel every human possesses

I don't, at least not when defined in terms that divorce it from a proper recognition of how these things are obtained. Food and shelter are not a commons, therefore nobody has a right to them simply for existing. It's one thing to speak of those disabled, those sick, those elderly, those impoverished by misfortune, and those born into some combination of the above circumstances.

But every sustainable society, no matter how individualist or socialist, has found effective ways of identifying any able members who were unwilling to contribute toward their share of consumption, and hanging them out to dry. Unsustainable societies accumulated deadweight loss until they eventually collapsed, or splintered in order to shed it.

Unfortunately, that concept has gradually been lost in many modern safety-net schemes -- sometimes necessarily, as we now live in large societies, and large governmental transfers are often incapable of closely monitoring the recipients -- with predictable results. Every scheme capable of helping three people with legitimate needs, ends up helping two people with legitimate needs and one opportunitist.

Posted by anony-mouse | October 22, 2007 7:12 PM

"Whats (sic) more, whether someone can eat, or not; whether they have somewhere to live, or not; whether they have health care and education, or not-- these things should not be at the whim of private charity or under the constraints of a religious organization."

But when they are at the whim of the politicians, or the constraints of the bureaucrats the risks of just as high, and the costs to society are apt to be greater. Haven's we learned when ill planned welfare schemes created generations of totally dependent, non-contributing people burdening our cities?

We come closest to seeing what putting things in the hands of the politicians and bureaucrats when we look at our largely non-performing public schools (which have steadily degenerated to huge sumps for money, and with steadily declining quality of output).

Posted by Bill | October 22, 2007 7:32 PM

To David Walser:

"I do not recall" has become the hallmark of intellectual dishonesty, hasn't it. The most basic review of the historical record would put the lie to your point, if not the strawman that is "mass deaths".

A more personal anecdote may serve the same purpose, however. My grandmother, and her three sisters, were put up for adoption during the great depression to be raised in an orphanage because her parents did not have the money to raise them. She was too proud to tell the tales of that horror, but my great aunt was more open and told me of digging fruit out of the trash so that she might have a Christmas gift, and of being locked in the basement of the orphanage, crawling with rats, as punishment for not cleaning the toilets well enough. Of course, as you note, the evils of state welfare drove out the well meaning private charity that ran this orphanage. Moreover, food stamps, unemployment insurance and, yes, welfare, would have prevented her from being in the orphanage in the first place, thereby depriving her of such important lessons in self reliance.

David, your ignorance of the past is rather ordinary, I am sure, but no more excusable for its prevalence. As your vanguard of "libertarianism" imagines a world free of safety nets, please take the time to learn what such a world would actually look like. A good place to start would be the United States 70 years ago.

Posted by J Smith | October 22, 2007 10:35 PM

Haven's we learned

SIC

Haha! Pointing out typos means you win!

Posted by Freddie | October 22, 2007 11:08 PM

J Smith wrote: A more personal anecdote may serve the same purpose, however. My grandmother, and her three sisters, were put up for adoption during the great depression to be raised in an orphanage because her parents did not have the money to raise them. She was too proud to tell the tales of that horror, but my great aunt was more open and told me of digging fruit out of the trash so that she might have a Christmas gift, and of being locked in the basement of the orphanage, crawling with rats, as punishment for not cleaning the toilets well enough.

In the 1930s? During a deflationary depression that was driven to worse things by bad governmental monetary policy? You don't say!

To your credit, at least you mentioned that it occurred during the Depression -- specifically, during a time when a large portion of society was enduring that and worse for reasons that were not all tied to the lack of a welfare state.

My own grandfather and great uncle lived on a small family farm that basically went out of production during the 1930s. They trapped skunks in order to sell the pelts and picked through the castaway pile of a couple nearby coal mines in order to find fuel. And yet they went on to become part of middle-class America after the war -- not through handouts, but through hard work in business and industry.

Nobody would debate that a social safety net could have helped your grandmother, or my grandfather and great uncle for that matter, but that in no way refutes David Walser's basic point about the need for personal responsibility in these schemes. I might also note that a modern orphanage would not be permitted to run under those conditions, and quickly shut down with criminal prosecution invoked if such a thing attempted to operate; yet this has nothing to do with private charity or social welfare, but rather an increased awareness of the need for a strong regulatory environment.

Posted by anony-mouse | October 22, 2007 11:19 PM

yet this has nothing to do with private charity or social welfare, but rather an increased awareness of the need for a strong regulatory environment.

The kind of regulatory environment, I must point out, that most libertarians abhor.

Posted by Freddie | October 22, 2007 11:33 PM

For example-- saying that you're not confident that private charity could fully replace government social programs is an absurd understatement. Private and religious charities had several thousand years to provide a social safety net for the disadvantaged and did not do so.

Yes, they did. What they didn't do is what you wish they would have done: treat charity as an entitlement rather than as charity.

The claim that support for private charity implies a "right" [sic] to charity is bizarre in its non sequiturness.

Of course, the charitable safety net wasn't complete -- but guess what? For "several thousand years," government didn't provide a complete safety net, either. Why? Because humanity was too poor. You have to produce an awful lot of surplus for people to feed not only themselves, but unproductive people as well. When most of humanity engaged in subsistence farming -- as they did, for millennia, and as many in parts of the world still do -- then there wasn't enough for everyone. And it wasn't government programs that created that surplus that we can now use to supply the poor; it was economic growth.

Posted by David Nieporent | October 23, 2007 12:24 AM

The working class is not "unproductive." They're the source of all that money going to the top.

I am disgusted right now. Absolutely disgusted.

Posted by Mike Meginnis | October 23, 2007 12:48 AM

You don't know much it bothers me that you're economically illiterate, Mike. I may have trouble sleeping tonight. For five or ten minutes, at least.

Posted by David Nieporent | October 23, 2007 1:44 AM

Personal responsibility in the context of an orphan? Do you really wish to stand on those grounds? We all must know that stance to be morally repugnant. Read your Dickens for education, otherwise.

Our wealth is not merely the product of individual effort, but of collaborative enterprise. The roads we have built, the laws we enforce, public health measures paid by us all... these public goods have allowed the energetic and entrepreneurial to create greater wealth. A listless, diseased and hopeless underclass only leads to revolution and disorder. If not by dint of what is good, do the right thing as a matter of personal interest. The alternative is chaos.

Posted by J Smith | October 23, 2007 1:49 AM

Food and shelter are not a commons, therefore nobody has a right to them simply for existing. - anony

There is little discussion possible with someone who holds this position. Your position is expressible thus: "If person A sees person B starving to death, and person A has the power and resources easily to prevent person B from starving to death, it would be unjust to punish person A if he chooses to allow person B to starve to death." And note that you are also holding that this is true if the person you see starving is a child.

Education, obviously, is not a commons either, so you apparently do not believe that children have a right to be taught how to read. Or perhaps they have a right to be taught to read, but if they starve to death during the lesson, that's not the teacher's problem?

Posted by brooksfoe | October 23, 2007 2:38 AM

J Smith: roads do not create wealth. The Soviet Union had plenty of roads. They had plenty of public health measures.

And capitalism does not create a "listless, diseased, and hopeless underclass." If it did, we'd have had a resolution when we actually were a poor country, which we're not anymore.

Posted by David Nieporent | October 23, 2007 2:46 AM

But you know, I'm actually glad Megan posted this. Because here's the thing: it really helps destroy someone's claim to being a more realistic and hard-headed observer of the economic scene when she cops that she thinks we ought to try eliminating Social Security and Medicare entirely and making up their multi-trillion dollar commitments over the next five years out of increased private charitable giving. That's some serious realistic hard-headedness for you.

Let's try this. Let's really try it. I mean, eliminating social security will immediately result in a return of X dollars to taxpayers. Some of those dollars will be used to buy goodies the taxpayers have been craving, settle credit card debt, what have you, but some will be given to charity. Perhaps with a massive public relations campaign they might raise their charitable giving to FIFTY PERCENT of the amount returned! It sounds impossible, but hear me out. That way, we'd have HALF the money returned from Social Security to give to all the seniors who are no longer getting their social security checks! See? What a great idea!

Posted by brooksfoe | October 23, 2007 2:48 AM

The Soviet Union had plenty of roads. They had plenty of public health measures.

Which is partly why they were so much richer than Zaire, which, while capitalist, had no roads and no public health measures.

Incidentally, the USSR's roads were nowhere near as good as Western Europe's or the US's.

Posted by brookfoe | October 23, 2007 2:59 AM

Here's something for all you people interested in this sort of policy discussion.

My own private charity is where I provide a free self defense course to violent crime survivors. The vast majority of my students are on some sort of public assistance, which makes sense when the fact that the vast majority of people who are victims of violent crime inhabit the lower tiers or income is considered.

So far as I know, there isn't a huge number of government programs to help the poor improve their self defense skills. Like none, say. There aren't even any organized private charities with a big support structure in place to handle this, either. I've come across a few individuals like myself, operating alone and paying our expenses out of our own pocket as we go, but that is about it.

Isn't it a libertarian position that self defense is a human right? Certainly more so than food or shelter. Yet no one seems to be all that interested in proposing any initiative to help out the most vulnerable people in our society.

Those to the right of the political aisle should get behind something like this, as it is an example of the individual standing up against criminals.

Those to the left should embrace the idea because it aligns itself with their most treasured reason for socializing the medical profession: preventive medicine. You are going to get an ever decreasing number of injuries from violent assaults if the victims can defend themselves, since the criminals who survive will become wary of confronting someone who could injure them.

So, back to the question at hand. Why no government assistance programs for developing self defense skills in violent crime survivors? Why aren't there any organized private charities for same?

James

Posted by James R. Rummel | October 23, 2007 4:16 AM

brooksfoe,

Your hypothetical, as written, is completely disingenuous.

Let me fix it so it represents what statists actually mean, in practice:

"If person A sees person B starving to death, and person A has the power and resources to easily compel person C to give some of their resources to person B to prevent B from starving to death, it would be unjust if person A did not in fact compel Person C to do so."

Posted by Kirk Parker | October 23, 2007 5:26 AM

Ah, Kirk nails it down. The problem for me lies in the ability for someone to compel me to give up a large portion of my income. Sure, there are government programs worth having, but their lack of accountability for results that reflect their investment is what troubles those of a libertarian bent.
Improve the quality of service, make it accountable to its customers (being local helps), and you will find greater support for the investment.

Posted by MIchael W | October 23, 2007 7:01 AM

Michael W, I agree that government programs should be more effective.

Kirk, there is no real difference between your analogy and mine. The question is whether, if Americans were starving to death in a situation where food were available, richer Americans should have a legal obligation to use their resources to prevent them from starving. Anyone who answers "no" will never win an election in this country, and that is as it should be.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 23, 2007 7:48 AM

Answer: Because, of course, the cash is income, which means it will substitute nearly 1-for-1 for benefits, doing no good at all

The cash wouldn't be taxable income; are you saying it counts as income just for the purposes of other welfare plans?

Posted by Noumenon | October 23, 2007 8:19 AM

After three threads, I am still appalled at how many McArdle fanboys have no concept of the public good. Or, in many cases, apparently consider it more evil than child abuse.

Actually, that probably explains a lot, doesn't it.

*sigh*

Posted by jonathan | October 23, 2007 9:00 AM

jonathan - come out of your funk. I have appreciation for the commons and the public good. I love our national parks and many other spaces designated for public enjoyment. The problem is that our system, as currently operating, operates largely unfettered from the overall public good.
Our federal government has devolved into serving fifedoms, e.g. corn-growers in the midwest. If every program was forced to be audited for its overall 'public good', I think we'd see more support for those things that are important. The "waste" may only be in 10 or 15% (or pick a number) but those are the ones we read about and make 'us' believe that those in charge of voting for spending don't really have the "public" interest in mind...only their own.

Posted by Michael W | October 23, 2007 9:18 AM

Brooksfoe - Would you help an old lady across a crowded street? Or hold the door for someone carrying several grocery bags?

Despite the absence of a law compelling me to do so, I would still answer yes to both of those questions. Similarly, I would help someone dying of hunger even without the government telling me to.

I don't think anybody's arguing that we shouldn't help people. We're just negotiating the terms. For some services, like roads, there is no question in my mind government is uniquely qualified to take the lead. However, areas like feeding the hungry or providing disaster relief are more open to debate. The Red Cross made a mich bigger immediate impact after Katrina than our federal government, or the state and local governments for that matter.

The debate shouldn't be territorial. It should be about who can help people the best. The government is best at some things, but not all. There's a lesson in there for both liberals and libertarians.

Posted by mike | October 23, 2007 9:34 AM

Savor that for a moment. Roll it around in your mind. No one gives welfare beneficiaries cash. Why could that be? Okay, if you really don't know, answer below the fold.

I have a rhetorical suggestion, Megan, that may make your posts sound a bit less condescending.

Stop writing in the second person. You do this a lot, and it turns a disagreement about policy into a personal attack on every reader you disagree with.

Posted by Brock | October 23, 2007 9:48 AM

There should not be a legal obligation to provide charity to someone who is in need. There should not be a legal requirement to help someone in an emergency.

As it stands, the police are not obligated to stop a crime in progress. Why should any given citizen be required to do so?

There is a moral obligation to provide charity to someone in need. There is a moral obligation to help someone in an emergency.

I don't really like the government meddling in moral issues. Any laws requiring charity or emergency help would be very hard to enforce and would be subject to all kinds of abuses. There are many legitimate reasons why someone might not provide charity or help... enforcing laws requiring such would require a very subjective determination of ability to render aid vs. the actual need for such aid vs. the awareness/understanding of such need.

Note that the belief that law should not compel some behavior is not the same as believing that people should not engage in that behavior.

EI

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | October 23, 2007 10:09 AM

brooksfoe,

Yes, if you think food and shelter is a right, then it is little wonder that you have such a difficulty understanding libertarians. The imposition of such positive rights is completely anathema to the idea of private property and the right to dispose of it as one wishes.

If one has a right to food and shelter, then he has the right to obtain it in whatever way is possible, and I have no right to prevent him from taking it from me, at least, up to the point that he has deprived me of my right to sufficient food and shelter.

Posted by Yancey Ward | October 23, 2007 10:25 AM

Yancey,

You are taking this too far. All this means is that society a whole has an obligation to ensure that individuals do not lack basic food and shelter. Positive right, sure, but one that most people support, or at lease can live with.

Posted by MS | October 23, 2007 11:59 AM

Anyone who answers "no" will never win an election in this country, and that is as it should be.

Ron Paul has won numerous elections.

After three threads, I am still appalled at how many McArdle fanboys have no concept of the public good.

Again, that term doesn't mean what you think it means.

Posted by David Nieporent | October 23, 2007 12:10 PM

Similarly, I would help someone dying of hunger even without the government telling me to.

Would you help them if they didn't live on your block? Your hometown? Your state? Your country? If you live in Beverly Hills or Kenilworth or Martha's Vineyard, how often do you get to help starving people? Is the moral obligation higher if you see them in person than if you see a picture of them in a direct mail piece?

And to the question about starving people in the US during the Great Society era - Appalachia.

Posted by Derek Scruggs | October 23, 2007 12:14 PM

Do you have statistics on Appalachian deaths during the depression? I would have thought that the higher level of subsistence farming coupled with stronger clan ties would have provided a basic safety net in that region better than was available in most large cities. Country folk have generally been pretty good at taking care of their own. Now I grant you that their lifestyle back then would look like abject poverty to us now, but that has been true of rural communities throughout history. The coal mining communities would have had it much harder, but again, I have not heard about high death rates due to starvation in all the horror stories about the mines.

Posted by rafinlay | October 23, 2007 12:45 PM

brooksfoe wrote: There is little discussion possible by me with someone who holds this position.

Fixed that for ya.

brooksfoe wrote: Your position is expressible thus: "If person A sees person B starving to death, and person A has the power and resources easily to prevent person B from starving to death, it would be unjust to punish person A if he chooses to allow person B to starve to death." And note that you are also holding that this is true if the person you see starving is a child.

That doesn't sound like something I said. It sounds like projection upon a charicature of something tangential to something else I might have said. Why and how you came up with it, I have no idea, particularly the "children" part.

Let me ask a couple questions that may clarify where you actually stand on this issue. First, do you believe that food and shelter normally come from any source other than somebody's labor? Second, do you believe that any adult able and capable of productive labor, should have an unconditional right to food and shelter if he refuses to work? (The operative word here is "right", as compared to a "qualified privilege" or some other term of art from a different kind of argument.)

If the answer to both questions is "no", we can then get into the productive areas of discussion as to how rich society actually is, how much it can afford to spend on social programs, how much fruit-of-labor individuals can be legitimately deprived of in order to fund someone else's interests, how to define who should qualify for the assistance, and how to filter out those who have no need but would take advantage of it otherwise.

If you answer "yes" to either of those questions, then there can be no productive area of discussion, because you are living in a fantasyland that requires willful ignorance of how the real world works, and one which will come crashing down violently on your head at some future point after you succeed in implementing all of its tenants. I repeat from earlier, and this time I hope your ears are open and unprejudiced: at the most basic level of nautral existence, either you work for whatever level of consumption you require to surive, or you starve and freeze. This is natural law, not opinion; it is as irrevocable as the root principle death from which it derives, and it is the state from which all social order has sought to flee from.

Sure, once a society has enough wealth to distribute some of it around, we can discuss how to insulate everyone from this; but if your process of insulation does not recognize that wealth is ultimately chimeral in nature, and therefore some level of personal responsibility must be associated with the redistribution, no system of social welfare you can imagine will survive in the long run. It will ultimately dissipate that wealth and even mankind's greatest societies can, and sometimes have, devolved back to the state from whence he came.

I seem to recall that at some point about five ago, fully half of the working-age population of the Netherlands was on some nominal form of disability leave. This was not because the Netherlands is an unusally dangerous place to work, but because a generous system with poor accountability had made it possible for people to live comfortably for extended periods without working, and they did so -- at the obvious expense of both the active workforce, and society generally.

Posted by anony-mouse | October 23, 2007 12:47 PM

"Do you have statistics on Appalachian deaths during the depression? I would have thought that the higher level of subsistence farming coupled with stronger clan ties would have provided a basic safety net in that region better than was available in most large cities. Country folk have generally been pretty good at taking care of their own. Now I grant you that their lifestyle back then would look like abject poverty to us now, but that has been true of rural communities throughout history. The coal mining communities would have had it much harder, but again, I have not heard about high death rates due to starvation in all the horror stories about the mines"

I only have one anecdotal example and that is of my grandfather. He was one of sixteen in West Virginia and the son of a coal miner during the depression. His father took ill and was unable to work at the mine. They moved to a home on Sewell Mountain and supported themselves through subsistence farming just as you suspected. They were industrious and frugal and the older children worked. No one starved, nor does my grandfather ever remember being hungry, though they were very poor. There may have been some hunger in the area, but you have to remember that people were very industrious back then and new how to live off the land.

Now wether a 16 year old should have to work all summer on someone elses farm to feed his family is another question. My grandfather did and does not feel that anyone owed his family anything. I however am glad that we have programs to help such people even though I am sceptical of mass wealth redistribution.

Posted by eccdogg | October 23, 2007 1:01 PM

Megan captured perfectly my objection to private charity as a substitute for public programs:

More of us should be donating to them, promoting them, and most importantly, starting and running them. Not me, of course; I've got better things to do. But someone oughta.

Exactly. That's why it doesn't work. "Not me." That's why liberals emphasize public financing: it eliminates the "not me" dodge.

So I have to ask: "not me" being a commonly-held position, how is it "silly" to critique "the idea of private charity as a substitute for public."

Posted by liberalrob (Hecubus) | October 23, 2007 1:19 PM

Anony-mouse (@ 12:47 PM), that's putting it pretty well.

Taking a page from Bastiat and others, my one simple idea is: each person must, on average, grow enough food to feed himself. Everything else is just details.

Fortunately (again, in the aggregate) it's quite easy to grow a surplus...

Posted by Kirk Parker | October 23, 2007 1:20 PM

First of all, the claim that private charity had its chance for thousands of years is just silly- there wasn't anything even approaching a free market for most of that time period, unless of course Adam Smith somehow was writing in the 18th century BC rather than AD. Indeed, for most of Western history, charity and government were effectively the same thing. We libertarians even tend to forget that by and large- and despite the huge tax rates in parts of Europe- the 20th and 21st Centuries are the most libertarian time period in Western history, and, not coincidentally, the most prosperous. We also do a crappy job pointing out that the most prosperous period in recent history (the 90's) occurred during a period where government shrank the most thanks to the combined efforts of Reagan and, especially, Bill Clinton (with some help from Newt).

The problem with the Progressive view of rights that government must guarantee (best stated in FDR's "Freedoms") is that it conflates "want" with "need." As a result, what people "need" from their government becomes ever-expansive as society becomes gradually more advanced; if these so-called "needs" are met through increased taxation, then the ability of society to advance will become increasingly hindered.

The issue of health insurance provides a good example. A hundred years or so ago, there was simply no such thing as health insurance; indeed, not all that long ago, health insurance was a relative rarity yet the US was no less healthy compared to other nations than it is now when the vast majority of people are insured. Now, however, health insurance- as defined by state-to-state insurance requirements- is viewed as an absolute right or necessity. This right or necessity is so great, in fact, that individuals can be prevented from purchasing insurance that does not meet the state's definition of health insurance. We are even now talking about prohibiting self-insurance.

The problem is, though, that this definition of "need" is arbitrary. For instance, is it really more necessary that someone have comprehensive health insurance than access to modes of transportation that will allow them to work? Moreover, what is the justification for requiring a taxpayer to give up a huge chunk of his income for national health insurance (in a country where overall health is comparatively good) as opposed to, say, giving up that same chunk of his income for a health clinic in Sub-Saharan Africa?

This isn't to say that all charities are better than government or even that all private businesses are better than government. Certainly a number of charities are horribly inefficient. But government is also often extremely inefficient in addition to the fact that it relies on arbitrary lines that cannot ever fully account for individual circumstances. Giving government a monopoly on services is no better or different than giving a private company a monopoly on those same services. So, government services can be ok, as long as there is a way for private organizations and industry to compete with those services on a level playing field.

Posted by Mark | October 23, 2007 1:22 PM

Freddie: Nope.

Nobody has a right to have other people provide them education, or shelter, or food - except for children, and the people they have a "right" to demand food and shelter from are their parents or guardians, and nobody else.

That we, as much as there is a "we", broadly support these things, as a group, even when paid for by coercion, does not make them rights.

Nobody's rights are violated because there's a crop failure or because they chose poorly or because they got injured through no fault of their own, or whatever scenario.

(Otherwise, we find that an isolated man who breaks his leg and cannot fend for himself has had his rights "violated" by ... himself? By nature? The entire concept dwindles into incoherence.)

The concept doesn't even make sense without a deliberate attempt by others to cause such an outcome, and even then I deny the existence of a "right to be educated on someone else's tab".

(The addition of "on someone else's tab" is vital to the idea of it being a fundamental right as you formulated it.

All I'm willing to grant is that people have a right to not be denied an education that someone's willing to pay for. There's a difference, and it's gigantic.

There are no positive and inherent rights; what positive ones there are, are legal rather than inherent, and many of them quite dubious.

This makes me, of course, a shamless Liberal of the old variety.)

That I would gladly feed a starving person in my presence (so long as not starving myself), and judge myself morally bankrupt if I did not, does not somehow become a right on their part to be fed, or a right to compel everyone to, via the mechanism of a state monopoly, do the same.

(Especially since otherwise one must explain why we are not compelling people in, say, China, by brute force, to feed people in India, if nearness and voluntarity are not part of the equation.

Does someone starving anywhere in the world create, by unspecified means, a legal and moral obligation in everyone else in the world to provide them food, shelter, education, healthcare?

[And when does the list of "rights" stop growing?]

Are there any limits on this? Feeding only those starving through no fault of their own? Or even those who deliberately do nothing knowing that the new regime of guaranteed subsistence will support them on the backs of others, since they now have a right to food, shelter, and education regardless of their own actions?

Is there any way this does not create a giant moral hazard, taken to the logical ends that a "right to everything" must lead to?

Might it be necessary that there be risks, for people to flourish - even if we also step in to keep the babies from starvelating, without there being a "right" to such?

Anway, I didn't mean for this to become a term paper.)

Posted by Sigivald | October 23, 2007 1:44 PM

Except that government has been explicitly prevented from doing so for many parts of the world.

Freddie, who explicitly prevented government from doing so?

Remember that until very recently no goverment provided the social safety net you desire. The only people providing such a net were "private and religous charities".

Posted by ad | October 23, 2007 2:06 PM

As far as I know, government welfare programs do not look at cash transfers from families. And even if they did try it would be virtually impossible to enforce such a rule. In fact I know plenty of people on welfare who get significant cash and non-cash help from family.

Posted by Rachel | October 23, 2007 2:54 PM

mouse: a generous system with poor accountability had made it possible for people to live comfortably for extended periods without working, and they did so -- at the obvious expense of both the active workforce, and society generally.

Of course you can cite statistics or give some anecdotes or something, anything depicting this "obvious expense [to] society generally?" Or is this something you simply know to be true?

Posted by liberalrob (Hecubus) | October 23, 2007 4:49 PM

if these so-called "needs" are met through increased taxation, then the ability of society to advance will become increasingly hindered.

So the best route to progress is through the non-fulfillment of "needs?" The Great Depression was actually a blessing in disguise, because it caused so many people to have "needs?"

I don't like this philosophy. It is possibly true that the greatest spur to innovation and advancement is the maximizing of human suffering; but I would gladly trade slower advancement for less suffering.

The problem is, though, that this definition of "need" is arbitrary. For instance, is it really more necessary that someone have comprehensive health insurance than access to modes of transportation that will allow them to work?

As ever it depends on individual circumstances. If someone is both in poor health AND cannot get transportation to work, the relative priority assigned to health care and transportation (in the context of being able to work) is irrelevant. If however one or the other is already supplied, it makes sense for the one that is not supplied to take priority. Generally we assume that people are able to get themselves to work somehow; I would think the barriers to acquiring transportation are usually less than the barriers to acquiring good health care. Given that, it seems to me that (in general) health care is more important than transportation in terms of enabling people to work. There is also the argument that if you are sick it doesn't matter if you have transportation or not, you're still not going to be able to work.

Moreover, what is the justification for requiring a taxpayer to give up a huge chunk of his income for national health insurance (in a country where overall health is comparatively good) as opposed to, say, giving up that same chunk of his income for a health clinic in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Domestic needs always take precedence over foreign needs. Yes that is selfishness on our part but international relations tends to be closer to the "state of nature" than domestic civil society. If it comes down to national survival domestic needs will and should win out every time. One of the goals of good leadership should be to make every effort to ensure that the situation never gets to that point.

government services can be ok, as long as there is a way for private organizations and industry to compete with those services on a level playing field.

"Competition" implies that there will be winners and losers. I am not anxious for an organization to "lose" the competition in providing services to those that need them.

If a service is deemed crucial to the public good, it should be removed from the arena of competition and be provided by the government. If the government can provide the service via private suppliers all well and good; but tossing service provision completely into the free market will inevitably result in the people served by the "loser" organization suffering needlessly.

Posted by liberalrob (Hecubus) | October 23, 2007 5:26 PM

Are there any limits on this? Feeding only those starving through no fault of their own? Or even those who deliberately do nothing knowing that the new regime of guaranteed subsistence will support them on the backs of others, since they now have a right to food, shelter, and education regardless of their own actions?

Are you really prepared to allow people who "deliberately do nothing" to actually starve in the streets? Seriously? Not through bravado or because it's easy to say? You've thought this through?

And do you know of a significant number of these people who "deliberately do nothing?" Is there a plague of such people?

Posted by liberalrob (Hecubus) | October 23, 2007 5:34 PM

Many of our truly needy and homeless are mentally ill. In the past, they would have been placed in a home of some sort and cared for. In the great compassionate mental health system reform, we kicked them all out where they could roam the streets as homeless vagabonds. I'd rather put them back in some sort of home, paid for by taxpayers, then try to give them money and food and other things through hand-out programs.

As far as supplying vital needs, we currently supply a number of absolutely crucial needs through private business through free markets. Examples include: food, housing, and transportation. Education is provided by the government but with private instutitions permitted to compete with the government. In fact, food is MORE crucial than health care. Should the government take over the means of food production and distribution?

There is a huge difference between having needs and suffering from deprivation. If I know that the government will swoop in and provide food, shelter, medical care, child care, etc... if I lost my job or quit my job or whatever, then my incentive to work hard is reduced. If I know that even if I do work, most of my income will go to providing food, shelter, medical care, child care, etc... for those who aren't working, my incentive to work hard is also reduced.

I would like to see us provide minimal necessities to people who just can't provide for themselves. I'm okay with poor people being poor to the extent that I don't want the government to tax people to eliminate the poor or lower classes. I do want to make sure that the poor aren't starving or dying of ailments that are easily treated, etc... I also want to make sure that the poor have access to a decent education so that they have a chance of not being poor.

As far as the hypothetical lazy bum who just refuses to work, I would let him starve. If he chooses not to earn a living (assuming he's capable of it), then he's committing suicide by starving and that's his choice.

EI

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | October 23, 2007 6:09 PM

Brooksfoe - I mean, eliminating social security will immediately result in a return of X dollars to taxpayers.

Why? It's paid for by deficit spending now.

That way, we'd have HALF the money returned from Social Security to give to all the seniors who are no longer getting their social security checks!

Putting aside whether eliminating Medicare would be a good thing or not you still have to figure in the cost of collecting $1 in taxes. It's nonzero. And if people spent Medicare funds on something other than charity, It would still generate value. I'm inclined to think that $100 a year for a gym membership and the time to use it is worth more than a major operation when you hit 75. If we worry about people without health insurance, why not worry about people without gym memberships as well? Medicare favors expensive end-of-life care over cheaper preventative care and good nutrition, because the elderly vote.

Would people be able to allocate their own money more efficiently than the government? Could they stretch a dollar further? It's a question worth asking.

I really don't think this experiment can be done in a person's head. There are too many residual effects from the initial action.

Posted by Ryan W. | October 23, 2007 10:38 PM

So, liberalrob-

I did not in any way say that nonfullfillment of "needs" is a good thing- my point was that the definition of "need" as we now use it has nothing to do with actual need, but instead is just another word for "want"; put another way, it is a way of justifying why one priority is more important than another priority, but without the requirement of explaining why the "need" priority is more important- it's a "need" so therefore, other priorities are irrelvant.

In any event, historically, private industry has been much better at meeting peoples' "wants" than government, since it is usually private industry that creates the object of peoples' "wants" in the first place. If government were to provide all of people's "wants" (which are redefined as "needs"), then innovation would go down the toilet, since government has little incentive or ability to create new "wants" when it already has all its resources dedicated to providing existing "wants."

As for your point about the Great Depression, it might be worth pointing out that the Depression itself lasted for 12 years, with persistently high unemployment throughout- in spite of all the New Deal programs intended to meet peoples "needs." Isn't it at least possible that the New Deal's attempts to meet "need" actually backfired and prolonged the Depression in the United States? Indeed, the end of the Depression came only after New Deal programs started to get rolled back (and, of course, eventually, the start of WWII).

You acknowledge that "domestic needs take precedence over foreign needs", but this doesn't answer the question. Why should the arbitrary fact that I was born in the United States and someone else was born in Malawi mean that I should be forced to pay for the top-quality healthcare that is unheard of outside the West for someone in Hawaii, and in the process prevented from spending that money to make sure that a family in Malawi is able to live on $5 a day instead of $1? Compare the marginal benefit of an American donating $10,000 to a Third World micro-loan program with being forced to pay that same $10,000 so that some other American (who already lives better than almost anyone in the Third World) can save a couple of bucks on his health care? For whom will that $10,000 have the most impact? Which $10,000 payment does more to make the world a better place? Why should I care so much more about someone in Hawaii than I do about someone in Malawi?

Also- "competition" does not imply winners and losers, or a zero-sum gain. "Competition" is what spurs research, development, innovation and good service. Someone is a "loser" only if they fail to adapt to the competition; anyone who does adapt to the competition, however, will be a "winner." The beauty of competition, as the world has seen time and again, is that it increases the size of the pie everyone is playing for- or do you not understand the principle of comparative advantage?

Maybe the best example is the Post Office, which indisputably provides a so-called "public good". Has permitting competition by UPS and Fedex in the package delivery business been good or bad for the public? Maybe it's been bad for the dinosaur-like Post Office, but how much value does Fedex's shockingly inexpensive, convenient and reliable (compared to the Post Office) service add to the economy? On the other hand, if, as most Progressives presumably believe, private monopolies are bad, why is a government monopoly inherently any more trustworthy?

Posted by Mark | October 23, 2007 11:15 PM

Someone is a "loser" only if they fail to adapt to the competition; anyone who does adapt to the competition, however, will be a "winner."

You really think that the only determining factor of whether one "wins" or "loses" in the marketplace is adaptability? That power, luck, and random circumstances aren't just as important, if not more so, than good 'ol hard work and by-your-bootstraps pluckiness?

Buddy, I've got a story for you. It's about a big, successful Texas city called Dallas. In 1871, when Dallas was just a wee little trading station of a town, the Houston and Central Texas Railroad was all set to build a railroad through another town called Corsicana. Dallas coveted this north-south line because it knew the railroad would bring lots of commerce and make a few well-positioned folks a lot of money. So the wise city leaders paid the railroad company a whopping $5,000 to shift its route twenty miles west and build its tracks through Dallas. Some folks called it the best little bribe--whoops, I mean, "investment"--Dallas ever made for its future.

We're not finished yet. A year later, Dallas wanted the Texas and Pacific Railway to build its east-west route through the town and thus ensure its future as an inland hub of intersecting rail of rail commerce. But, gosh darn it, those TPR fellows just wouldn't let themselves be bought off. So the city leaders of Dallas put their heads together and thought, "Hey, if we can't buy off these bastards, let's write a law saying they'll HAVE to build the railroad through our town!" And so they devised a cunning bit of legislative trickery by attaching a rider to a state law requiring the company to build its tracks within one mile of "Browder Springs," a tiny town located--wait for it--just one mile southeast of the Dallas County Courthouse! The railroad didn't have any choice, so it built the tracks where it was legally required to, thus making Dallas the first rail crossroads in the state! Whoo-whee!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? Hard work and perseverence might do some folks just fine, but I'll take luck, money, and power any old day of the week. That's what business is all about. Long live the private sector, y'all!

Posted by Immoralist | October 24, 2007 1:27 AM

I have a rhetorical suggestion, Megan, that may make your posts sound a bit less condescending.

Stop writing in the second person. You do this a lot, and it turns a disagreement about policy into a personal attack on every reader you disagree with.

Condescending is OK sometimes, but it seemed misplaced in this post. The reason you were supposed to guess charities don't give out cash wasn't common sense that you should have guessed, but a feature of the tax code. (Besides, like I linked to above, I think Megan got that feature wrong.)

Posted by Noumenon | October 24, 2007 4:08 AM

do you believe that any adult able and capable of productive labor, should have an unconditional right to food and shelter if he refuses to work?

"Kto ne rabotaet, tot ne est." That's Russian for "He who does not work, does not eat." It's a Stalinist slogan. The Khmer translation was a popular slogan employed by the Khmer Rouge. It's a stance that generally comes into play during regime-enforced famines in colonial or totalitarian states.

I believe that, in the US, adults who refuse to work have an unconditional right to food and shelter. This is the case in American society today. Yes, anony-mouse, your tax dollars are going to provide food and shelter to some adults who are not willing to work (generally because they are alcoholics, drug addicts, or schizophrenics). But there is virtually no one in America who is interested in living the life of a homeless person. The moral hazard here is extremely small.

If we were living on a desert isle where habitations had to be built laboriously from palm fronds and wattle, and food security was dependent on the manioc harvest and the monkfish catch, then there would be no sense talking about a right to shelter or food. At the same time, if we were living in such circumstances, our form of economic organization would probably be communalist rather than capitalist, and participation in communal labor projects like anti-hippo stockade maintenance, hunting, and net-weaving would be mandatory. In other words, taxes would be very high, and many of the negative and property rights we assume in the US would be nonexistent. Most rights are to some extent a function of affluence. In the modern American economy, we can afford to feed the hungry and house the homeless at an insignificant cost to society, and it is difficult to imagine this ceasing to be the case outside of a national economic collapse -- in which case many of our other negative rights would quickly disappear, too.

EI, your stance -- "I'd rather put them back in some sort of home, paid for by taxpayers, then try to give them money and food and other things through hand-out programs." -- does not differ meaningfully from the current system. Under the current system the mentally ill are housed at public expense only if they present a danger to themselves or others. Otherwise they are provided with assistance. The old system, trying to house everyone with a mental problem even against their will, was obviously vastly more expensive than the new system of treating those who are able to care for themselves on an outpatient basis. Not to mention the fact that the old approach violated the rights of large numbers of people who were only borderline mentally ill -- something I am astonished that a libertarian is not more sensitive to. Any system for dealing with the mentally ill is a matter of triage, and the distinction between "mentally ill" and "unwilling to work" is often a judgment call. So I can't really understand how your preference is not simply a call for more publicly funded shelter for the homeless.

Ryan W, the cost of collecting Medicare payroll taxes is the salaries of some dozens of people at the IRS. The entire budget of the IRS is a speck compared to Medicare spending. You note that the money spent would still generate value. Of course it would, just not for the people who would have gotten it under Medicare, and probably not for medical expenses. Why don't you give me $400 you were going to spend on rent, and I'll spend it on an iPhone? It'll still generate value, so what's the difference? Last and most trivially, a gym membership costs a lot more than $100; and if people want to exercise more, they don't need any money at all -- jogging and tai chi are free.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 24, 2007 5:30 AM

Immoralist:
So, to refute the argument that competition as a whole improves society (and that government monopolies are just as bad as private monopolies), you give an example that shows the corruption inherent in government's use of monopoly power?

As far as luck goes, yeah, it plays a role- but you're not going to get lucky unless you actually try. Plus, ingenuity and innovation play a much bigger role than luck- good ideas succeed, bad ideas fail; but if an idea was bad and fails, then no one is the worse for wear.

Also, the argument about adaptability obviously presupposes that the party that fails to adapt is already established in the market place (if you're just entering the market for the first time, there's nothing to adapt from- it's just a matter of whether you are going to be able to find a niche in the market, which is contingent upon ingenuity, hard work, and luck- usually in that order).

Finally, I ask you this- if competition is so bad (and therefore the concept of comparative advantage is a myth), then why were the 19th and 20th century free market economies so able to drive global innovation and improve their qualities of life, while centrally planned economies languished and saw little or no improvement in their quality of life?

Posted by Mark | October 24, 2007 8:46 AM

The welfare system does not run by the same rules as the tax code. It counts income from other sources, such as tax-free gifts. Now, of course, people on welfare who get cash from relatives etc. generally don't report it; but if they did, they'd get their benefits decreased. Or at least that was how it was explained to me when I worked for an organization that provided long-term shelter for homeless families.

A legitimate charity would have to report cash gifts in order to maintain its tax-free status; that cash would then be considered an other means of support, and benefit would be reduced accordingly. There are lots of in-kind benefits you can provide to the poor, and you can even give them emergency cash for things like cabs to the doctor or housing deposits, but you can't give them anything that remotely resembles income without putting their benefits in danger.

Posted by Megan McArdle | October 24, 2007 8:48 AM

liberalrob wrote: Of course you can cite statistics or give some anecdotes or something, anything depicting this "obvious expense [to] society generally?" Or is this something you simply know to be true?

Sorry, Rob, I don't have a source available for that because it was at least five years ago when I read it. I haven't followed trends in Holland's social policies and demographics since then, so I don't know what the situation is today.

It should be blindingly obvious, though, to anyone who isn't already blind, that you cannot indefinitely have a situation where, for the sum number of working individuals in a society that prohibits slavery, one person working is supporting the needs of two people who were working before one of them discovered the practical application of moral hazard.

Posted by anony-mouse | October 24, 2007 4:06 PM

brooksfoe wrote: "Kto ne rabotaet, tot ne est." That's Russian for "He who does not work, does not eat." It's a Stalinist slogan. The Khmer translation was a popular slogan employed by the Khmer Rouge. It's a stance that generally comes into play during regime-enforced famines in colonial or totalitarian states.

Actually, that slogan existed in a variety of cultures a long time before Stalin; your examples prove nothing about it -- except that persons with autocratic power, who wanted to live on the backs of the work of others and extend that privilege to those within a circle of accomplices, found it useful to propaganize the workforce. Which is suspiciously closer to the kinds of positions you advocate, than mine.

brooksfoe wrote: I believe that, in the US, adults who refuse to work have an unconditional right to food and shelter.

In that case, remind me to start gradually converting my money into gold bullion and guns, just in case your preferred handbasket ever reaches its destination. Or maybe you don't even really mean what you say you mean, since you again divert to examples from a different thread of argument:

brooksfoe wrote: This is the case in American society today. Yes, anony-mouse, your tax dollars are going to provide food and shelter to some adults who are not willing to work (generally because they are alcoholics, drug addicts, or schizophrenics). But there is virtually no one in America who is interested in living the life of a homeless person. The moral hazard here is extremely small.....If we were living on a desert isle where habitations had to be built laboriously from palm fronds and wattle, and food security was dependent on the manioc harvest and the monkfish catch, then there would be no sense talking about a right to shelter or food. At the same time, if we were living in such circumstances, our form of economic organization would probably be communalist rather than capitalist, and participation in communal labor projects like anti-hippo stockade maintenance, hunting, and net-weaving would be mandatory. In other words, taxes would be very high, and many of the negative and property rights we assume in the US would be nonexistent. Most rights are to some extent a function of affluence. In the modern American economy, we can afford to feed the hungry and house the homeless at an insignificant cost to society, and it is difficult to imagine this ceasing to be the case outside of a national economic collapse -- in which case many of our other negative rights would quickly disappear, too.

Unfortunately, allof this only serves to reinforce my own own points, not yours. That is, unless even you don't really believe that the word "rights" has the kind of force you are nominally ascribing to it.

Posted by anony-mouse | October 24, 2007 4:18 PM

Liberalrob wrote:
"As ever it depends on individual circumstances"

Well, I'm glad you are willing to acknowledge that everything depends on individual circumstances. So, a one-size-fits-all government approach (which is to say, just about any government approach) is able to adjust to these individual circumstances....how, exactly?

Posted by Mark | October 24, 2007 4:32 PM

anony-mouse, if you admit that negative rights are a function of affluence, then what is the fundamental difference between negative and positive rights? Both are things which societies start to grant people once they move past subsistence level.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 25, 2007 9:06 AM

Hey, Megan. Thanks for explaining that to me. I think the government should just assume that these private charities wouldn't be giving the person cash gifts if they weren't really poor. Seems like counting cash gifts ends up penalizing only people who can't get cash from noncharitable sources.

Posted by Noumenon | October 27, 2007 7:56 AM

Er, the government mostly doesn't give welfare beneficiaries cash; this ain't Phil Gramm's dream of welfare here. In hopes of having benefits expended on life essentials like food, shelter and healthcare, the government tries to provide those essentials directly (e.g. Medicaid) or to provide vouchers for them (Section 8, food stamps). There's some black market in food stamps that allows recipients to get about half their value in cash and go spend that on what they prefer (drugs, alcohol, whatever), but the government does try to minimize that. If you think what ails the needy is merely a lack of cash and not hunger, homelessness and illness, then giving them cash is a good fix. If you think what ails them are their needs for life-sustaining goods, then you provide them those goods in a minimal fashion that's enough to sustain life but not much more.

Some headlines from the Depression that might indicate that a) government was assisting people; and b) people were hungry:

"GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY TO CREATE JOBS FOR IDLE; CITY TO FEED 12,000 DAILY; CAPITAL SPEEDS PROGRAM"
October 24, 1930

MINERS' CHILDREN FACE STARVATION; Friends' Committee Appeals for 25,000 Needy in Kentucky and West Virginia
November 4, 1931

20.5% OF CITY PUPILS ARE FOUND UNDERFED; Medical Leaders Warn of Ills That May Develop if Increase ... More than 20 per cent of New York City's school children are suffering from malnutrition...
October 29, 1932

STARVATION' FOUND UNDER JERSEY AID; Hopkins Says Disease Also Followed State Failure to Help Unemployed
WASHINGTON, June 15. -- A report that "starvation and disease" are to be found in many homes in New Jersey as a result of failure by the State to provide relief for "unemployables" was made today by Harry L. Hopkins
June 16, 1936

Posted by PG | October 30, 2007 2:45 PM