Posted on 07/24/2002 8:11:55 PM PDT by Sir Gawain
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The political Left has, for generations, advocated the concept that individuals are owed a basket of goods simply because they exist. What precisely is in that basket has shifted with time and with the political expediencies of the day. That such a welfare right exists is not something the Left debates. It is taken as a given. Originally welfare advocates argued that basic needs should be provided by the state. Fundamentally they meant food. This soon expanded to include "adequate" housing, schooling and medical care—with the definition of "adequate" being expanded with routine consistency. Now it is not uncommon to have them argue that the "poor" deserve entertainment along with a host of other wants and whims. Anything that others have, they argue, the poor should have as well. They invent new terms to describe the fact that poor people can't afford luxury items. A lack of computers and Internet access, for instance, is now called "the digital divide". When the welfare state was first proposed aid was routinely called "charity" even though it was coercively funded through confiscatory taxation. Nor was it uncommon for poor individuals to decline to live off the "charity" of others via welfare. The Left immediately worked on the language and the word "charity" was replaced with "entitlement". Welfare benefits are not hand outs but entitlements. The Left has argued that the poor are poor because the rich are wealthy. While true, under feudalism and socialism, in market economies there is no historical or economic justification for such beliefs. But these false ideas do have effects on those who listen to them. At one point the impoverished realized that hand outs were charity and that they were surviving because of the good will of others. Several generations later they have accepted the Leftist idea that such benefits are entitlements. The Left has told them that those who "have" (regardless of what it is that they have) acquired their goods at the expense of the "have nots". For the Left all economic activity is a form of plunder. Wealth creation does not exist in their lexicon. There is a stagnant amount of wealth available and the "powerful" take what they have at the expense of the "weak". To prevent this the State must intervene and redistribute the goods on behalf of the poor and weak. They merely project onto market economies the realities of their own economic system. It's an easy mistake to make. The poor, however, are still left with the impression that what they lack has, in fact, been somehow stolen from them. Welfare advocates have trained them well. "Everyone" knows that the State must step in and use violence, or the threat of violence, to confiscate property from the "haves" to return it to the rightful owners—"the have nots". But the poor also realize that the State is an inefficient dinosaur that does few things well. The lumbering bureaucracy eats up huge amounts of the "entitlements" which the poor expect for themselves. A $1,000 taken from the "rich" may only lead to a few hundred dollars of "entitlements" to the poor. The rest is consumed by a greedy band of bureaucrats who have learned that to do well they must be seen to being doing good. The answer then is for those who were robbed to take back themselves those goods to which they are entitled. The State has already shown them that the use of coercion is the proper method to reclaim the "entitlements" taken from the have nots. If anyone doubts this all they need do is ask what happens to individuals who won't pay up when the tax man cometh. First, threats are issued. If those are ignored it is followed up by the presence of stern officials demanding the property of the recalcitrant resister. If he still refuses to budge armed agents are soon knocking at his door. And if he dares to defend his own property in a manner comensurate with defending it from any other looter he is shot, and if necessary, killed. The entire funding of welfare is rooted in the fact that peaceful individuals must be threatened with dire consequences if they refuse to hand over the wealth they have produced and earned. This raw use of power is justified on the basis that the poor need the wealth earned by the "haves". But the state ineffectively doles out the wealth it confiscates. Too obviously much of it is consumed for the benefit of State employees, and never reaches the "poor" who existence supposedly justifies the violence. At this point some "poor" realize they've been had. They accept that they are entitled to the property of others. They accept that the use of violence or the threat of violence is a legitimate means to acquire the property to which they are entitled. But they have a problem seeing why, if these entitlements are theirs, that they should watch most of it being consumed by petty officials and bumbling bureaucrats. Isn't there a more efficient means of getting that to which they are entitled? Of course there is! Take it yourself. If violence is required to get what you want remember the welfare State has already taught you that such violence is justified. Everyone knows that justice delayed is justice denied and of course, all "civilized" people accept that redistributing wealth is justice. If the State can't provide justice then why can't individuals provide it for themselves? The entire process of stealing has been philosophically justified and promoted by the Left. If redistribution is justice then when the poor redistribute to themselves no crime can be charged against them. As David Walters noted, "the widespread and popular acceptance of a looter philosophy is bound to bring forth a rash of looters." The antidote to crime is a respect for the life, liberty and property of others. No culture that denies this triad of rights can ever hope to eradicate crime. For crime, properly defined, is the violation of these rights. At best the welfare advocates can only tell "criminals" to "do as I say and not as I do." But as any parent who has tried this line on their offspring soon realizes they are more likely to emulate your actions than your words.
Jim Peron is the executive director of the Institute for Liberal Values, Johannesburg, South Africa and the owner of Aristotle's Books in Auckland, New Zealand. He can be reached at peron@gonet.co.za. |
I point out, for those who don't have a scorecard of terms, that the political outlook termed by the rest of the globe as (classical) liberal is what is called, in the U.S., Canada, and Britain, libertarian.
And what the rest of the world calls social democrats or socialists is what those in the U.S., Canada, and Britain currently call liberal. (Or "extreme liberal," for the latter.)
And what the rest of the (Western) world calls religious parties or Christian democrats is what those in the U.S., Canada, and Britain currently call conservative.
Just some general precautions against reflex condemnations around here.
The crux of the matter, IMHO.
Yet, the real crux of the matter is the assumption that the tactics of the left are, in fact, their beliefs. This may be true of the useful idiots but it is not true of the movers and shakers. Their goal is complete and total power and welfare, political correctness, etc., are just tactics to achieve that goal.
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