The Price We Pay
Every day, we hear socialists expounding the benefits of the welfare state, and paternalistic governmental policies. When asked about the expanding social problems within modern New Zealand society, the answer is something along the lines of "more welfare ... more spending ... more intervention in people's lives. Of course, Roger Douglas is always to blame.
The price we pay for letting socialists get away with expanding the government to a size in which it is so concerned with what's happening in the lives of productive, good people that it largely ignores the true problems of the welfare state, is, in the case of one Aucklander, murder.
However, it is not merely big government which is to blame here -the underlying cause of big government is, and why it intervenes in the lives of productive people in order to give money to criminals (this isn't the first case).
The underlying factor, behind the government's size and the sanction of criminals, is political correctness, fueled by the moral equivalency of modern philosophical and political thought. It's the idea that the murderer is the true victim of an "oppressive society", and that the man who was murdered deserved it (considering, after all, that he's a businessman; one of the most hated professions by socialists). If he gets stabbed or shot, moral equivalency says: "so what?"
And it's precisely because of political correctness (and its predecessors) that we have a big, intrusive government in the first place, and that the government considers wealth an object of restribution -on the basis of need- which:
a) destroys the self-esteem of welfare recipients;
b) provides no economic incentive to produce wealth; and
c) sends out the impression that the "need" of welfare recipients must come before the production of wealth, and as thus the people who produce wealth are viewed with suspicion.
The entire premise of the welfare state is based on the irrational thought that wealth isn't created; it just simply lands in the hands of certain people through luck, or "greed". It pays no attention to the fact that material resources, in the ground, by themselves, mean nothing.
Only man, through the use of his mind, can determine the proper use of resources -through the market's laws of supply and demand. Only man can put a value on a certain resource; and apply his mind in order to make the largest number of uses a resource can have, a reality.
Socialism and political correctness ignores this. The moral standard, according to both, is "need" -not man's life and happiness. Until we finally wake up to this, and realise what a philosophical scam socialism is, the victim count will rise.
3 comments:
In the large I find myself agreeing with your point of view, the bit where I start to struggle with the libertarian point of view is the total removal of the welfare state.
A society will always contain people of genuine need, and to dismiss this as the domain of private charity seems to me somewhat simplistic. It is this lack of detail in certain areas which I feel make most people dismissive of the libertarian point of view, and I believe these concerns are genuine.
What society needs is a balance, where a backstop is there for the people who need it, not the people who want it. Where we are now is far from ideal, but what the libertarians want to do is simply an intellectual fantasy and as such will render them permanently on the sidelines of our political landscape.
craig -to put it simply, libertarians don't favour the abolition of the welfare state.
You have to consider the fact that, as productive forces (and technological development) grow at an ever-increasing speed even in our far-from-libertarian world, more people can become productive. Case in point: Stephen Hawking. The way to get people out of poverty is to make them productive -and even if they can only be productive to a certain extent, it will benefit them immensely (for instance, more money and more self-esteem).
Also, consider the relationship of force that the government now has with its citizens, in regards to welfare. That welfare is destroying benevolence -men have a tendency to hate their neighbours if they know that his or her money is forcefully going to them. In this way, welfare destroys benevolence, which is what we've seen in the past half century.
Having to rely on welfare has a dangerous effect on repicients' self-esteem. However, there is no need to be properly productive for many welfare recipients.
There are many other aspects of the welfare state that I could prattle on about, but those are the two main ideas.
Craig: there is a world of difference between *state* welfare (ie compulsory charity - itself an oxymoron) and charitable welfare.
Nobody's stopping you from supporting the causes and charities of your choice, except, perhaps the state.
By that I mean, via the money currently stolen from you and redistributed on your behalf - but with none of your input - leaving little or nothing left over for you to donate privately.
Best to treat people like the adults they are. Let them keep the money they earn to redistribute, if they wish, as *they* see fit, eh?
Or perhaps you don't share the high regard for most human beings, I do? Certainly the Sue Bradfords of this world proclaim to know better. They show, with no doubt at all, that they negatively view NZers ...
I refer you to Lindsay Mitchell's blog in order to dispel any myths about the "compassion" of the welfare state.
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