This is my second response to Daniel Root’s articles. In this response, I’ll be addressing his arguments from November regarding the morality of a welfare state in his fourth installment of “Why I am not a libertarian.”
One quotation discussed by Root was from William Graham Sumner, which stated, “A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes … is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character and interests … are entirely overlooked.”
Root then claims that there are two logical fallacies with this statement. First, C can vote in American society, thus he has a say in the actions of A and B. Second, C also would have access to welfare programs should he/she fall on hard times.
First, voting for representatives is not the same as having a direct say in their decisions. If it’s true that electing representatives to office is the same as having a direct say in their decisions as representatives, the American people must be directly responsible for authorizing drone strikes on civilians in Yemen or subsidizing the Brazilian cotton industry. I don’t think normal citizens were given any choice in those decisions, though we certainly were/are the ones funding them. In doing so, our government charges us for things we might not want or need. Furthermore, there are no laws stating that a politician has to vote in exact accordance with the principles on which they campaigned or keep any of their promises. It’s safe to say that politicians always have and always will take action without the consent of the citizenry, so pretending that everyone has a say in the actions of government is misleading at best.
Second, moral ends do not justify immoral means. Stealing is stealing; it doesn’t matter who is being stolen from, who is doing the stealing or who wants or needs what’s being stolen. If a mugger takes your money, we would call this stealing, but if a group of people gets together and votes to have the mugger take your money, we call this democratic taxation. Root didn’t seem to notice that C was being forced to give labor/resources to someone against his/her will. This is somehow construed as justice because it’s what most people want. And similarly to what was discussed above, if you are the person being robbed, what little say you might have had didn’t do much good for you. Don’t worry; most people thought you deserved it.
Third, stealing from C to provide them with a safety net is preposterous. Stealing their money decreases their savings, so they have less of a cushion should they fall. Furthermore, ask yourself if you would help someone in need. Most of you would answer, “yes,” I hope. The truth is that most people would help someone in need. America is the most generous nation in the world according to the 2013 World Giving Index. Helping the poor is important; as a country, we understand this better than any other.
Finally, if helping the poor is important, which it is, why are so many people okay with the government being in charge of doing so? The administrative expense for welfare programs is roughly 70 percent, while the median administrative expense for private charities, according to a report by Charity Navigator, is only 10.3 percent. The median indicates that some are better or worse, so typically we’ll see a figure of about 30 percent to represent charity administrative overhead. We can advocate for a welfare state so that 70 percent is paid to bureaucrats, or we can give voluntarily and peacefully so that 70 percent or more can actually be used by the poor. We can choose either coercive, wasteful redistribution of wealth or voluntary charity.
If the government were a charity competing in the marketplace, it would go out of business due to high administrative overhead. It’s really that simple. Government is a terrible charity. If helping the poor is really so important, the government should stop making people poorer by stealing from them and leave charity work to the professionals of the private sector.
