Besides, says Wendy McElroy, the founder of ifeminists.com,
"government aid doesn't enrich the poor. Government makes them dependent.
And the biggest hindrance to the poor ... right now is the government.
Government should get out of the way. It should allow people to open cottage
industries without making them jump through hoops and licenses and taxing
them to death. It should open up public lands and do a 20th-century
equivalent of 40 acres and a mule. It should get out of the way of people
and let them achieve and rise."
David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, took
the discussion to a deeper level.
"Instead of asking, 'What should we do about people who are poor
in a rich country?' The first question is, 'Why is this a rich country?' ...
"Five hundred years ago, there weren't rich countries in the
world. There are rich countries now because part of the world is following
basically libertarian rules: private property, free markets, individualism."
Boaz makes an important distinction between equality and
absolute living standards.
"The most important way that people get out of poverty is
economic growth that free markets allow. The second-most important way --
maybe it's the first -- is family. There are lots of income transfers within
families. Third would be self-help and mutual-aid organizations. This was
very big before the rise of the welfare state."
This is an important but unappreciated point: Before the New
Deal, people of modest means banded together to help themselves. These
organizations were crowded out when government co-opted their insurance
functions, which included inexpensive medical care.
Boaz indicts the welfare state for the untold harm it's done in
the name of the poor.
"What we find is a system that traps people into dependency. ...
You should be asking advocates of that system, 'Why don't you care about the
poor?'"
I agree. It appears that when government sets out to solve a
problem, not only does it violate our freedom, it also accomplishes the
opposite of what it set out to do.