Scrooge McDuck is fictional, you know
Free market advocates often hear the charge that they don’t care about the poor. That their belief in the power of markets driven by self-interest and the profit motive implies they’re selfish and egotistical. That the rich exploit the poor. That without government help, the poor would starve.
“Bah!” says the research data, “Humbug!”
Those who place themselves on the right of the political spectrum, according to the General Social Survey in the United States, “are happier, more generous to charities, less likely to commit suicide - and even hug their children more than those on the Left.”
The article in the UK’s Daily Mail is written by Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. It begins light-heartedly, but makes a few telling observations.
It would seem that those who believe in the altruistic power of government merely shift their own feelings of reponsibility (or guilt) onto others. They feel they have the right to force their own notions of what is good, and what needs doing, on their fellow citizens, so they don’t have to bear the cost themselves.
By contrast, capitalists recognise that poverty is good for neither the poor nor the rich. You can’t get rich selling stuff to people with no money. They also can, and do, organise well-targeted charity intervention, promoting voluntarily the things they believe will help other people. Nobody has to accept the charity, and nobody is forced to pay for it against their will. If it doesn’t work, they pull the plug, and the freed capital is allocated to where it might do more good. Just like in the real world. That’s why it works.
What, then, explains the apparent leftward tilt of so many non-governmental organisations and charities? Perhaps they recognise that it is far easier just to get money from government, than to have to answer to private donors who actively manage their charity funding. Perhaps they seek to profit themselves from the “generosity” they enforce on others, and fail to recognise that the funding they draw a salary from has to be created by someone in the first place. Perhaps they just feel the selfish need for self-validation. “Look how unbearably good I am!”
Meanwhile, they apologise for having babies (truly, a friend of mine did so the other day!) and alarm those who share their pessimistic world-view with stories of population explosions and running out of resources. Who was it that said, “If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”? Oh yes, that was Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ rendition of the fictional character.
The survey data quoted by Schweizer puts larges holes in the popular notion that free-market capitalists are simply greedy, or define their self-interest narrowly, or have a “stuff the poor” attitude towards the world. On the contrary: those on the left who (incorrectly) call themselves “progressive” or “liberal” are more likely to fit the generalisation of self-absorbed misanthropy.
Private charity, whether inspired by religion, personal morals or economic interests, predated the modern welfare state by centuries. It now has formidable competition, however, from monopoly services funded by the taxes of the rich. Let’s hope the private charity of generous capitalists doesn’t bleed to death, as the welfare state cuts away at the tastier bits of the goose that lays the golden eggs.
It would be nice if our charity donations were tax deductible up to 90% or over. Under a situation like this, if you care more about HIV medication, education for the poor, health care for the needy, homes for the homeless, then you can donate more to the relevant charity. If the charity you donate to seem to do a poor job, you switch to a different charity. If you don’t really care or bother, you can not donate to any charities and leave it to the government if you believe they will do a good job.
This will also mean that the government will have to compete on quality and effectiveness with private charities. It would also put the public in control of where they want to see action instead of waiting for the next set of politicians to make those promises during the next election campaign.
By limiting the tax deductibility of charities, government effectively have a tax in place limiting the competition from private charities. It’s easy to imagine what good you could do if 90% of the money you hand over to the government each month can be given to charities of your choice instead.
Unfortunately governments won’t want to do this, since it would reduce their budget and their power.
Ah Ivo, you only say these evil things because you have not accepted the intrinsic wisdom contained in the great Socialist truths!
The economics of trade is zero sum. The profit of one is the exploitation of the many.
Such injury to one is an injury to all. There is no honest profit, only profiteering.
Labor is the source of all wealth. A just wage is the only noble way of acquiring income!
The amassing of capital is unjust.
The maxim “Each renders according to his ability, and receives according to his need” cannot be challenged from the perspective of social justice. It follows that persons hoarding capital are receiving rather more than they deserve.
The application of private capital to fund a profit motive is a perversion of the (smart) bourgeoisie. (Even if that ‘capital’ was amassed by saving up just wages acquired through years of honest and noble labor and the deferment of immediate gratifications, apparently)
State owned enterprises are good for you!
Their operations are not perverted by the profit motive, and will thus serve the interests of the people, not the proprietors. The elimination of the profit margin means lower prices for essential services.
State owned monopolies are good for you!
Their operations are not frustrated by competition from predatory private initiative; they can focus upon giving the workers the best deal (i.e. free) essential services.
Profit through private trade is both unjust and completely unnecessary. It creates a wealth class who suck capital out of the economy, both impoverishing the working class and denying them a decent living through their honest (dull) labor.
Scrooge McDuck does exist! He applies his brains rather than brawn to better himself and rise above the stock ‘provisions’ of the nanny state. He is too smart for his own good. He’s got stuff which we can’t have, and uses his cleverness to make mischief, and make us all look dull and stupid. Nanny must cut him down to (our) size.
The prospect of Nanny turning into a nasty big bully never occurs to them.
No advocate of socialism believes in the altruism of his (private) fellow man, yet he trusts the altruism of the state, presumably believing the constitution will constrain any latent misanthpopy in the encumbents, and central planning is sharper than private initiative.
@Kriek Jooste: That’s exactly what I mean by killing private charity. Its existence and success undermines the view that tax-funded welfare is the one and only solution to misery and misfortune.
@ Perry Curling-Hope: Yeah, sorry. You’re right. My bad. Didn’t expect someone to think of using the labour theory of value to explode my oh-so-plausible fantasy. Oh well, there goes my lavish lifestyle.