Thinking about Government (II)
On the off chance Jakob Lodwick checks who reblogs his posts, I would just like to respond to his original post.
Rick Toone says:
“Two hundred thirty-two years ago a small band of rebels rose in armed rebellion to cast off the yoke of oppressive government. When backwoods farmers and self-educated idealists rejected the tyranny of monarchy, oligarchy, and theocracy which had, for all of recorded human history, ruled the fate of men — and united in a single cause.
Individual human liberty.
[This is partly true, although as you’ll remember from you middle and high school history classes, the Stamp Act and other taxes were major impetuses. The Boston Tea Party was a response to a tax, not to some form of social injustice. Also keep in mind a number of the Founding Fathers kept slaves, and were mostly fairly wealthy.]
In the past one hundred years, a new ideology emerged which threatens our right to self-determination. The ideology is insidious because it is rooted in a natural human desire to want to help others: altruism.
Rick goes on to differentiate between “voluntary altruism” [good] and “compulsory altruism” [bad]. His definitions are good, and I agree in part with his thoughts, unfortunately I believe the world and people are more selfish than he does.
He also goes on to say:
The threat to individual human liberty occurs when altruism is institutionalized in the form of government. Institutionalized altruism is the tipping point when the needs or wants of the masses supersede rights of the individual.
Jakob agrees with Rick, and basically state that Rick’s view is similar to Ayn Rand’s view of individualism (he also mentions a few interesting things about her theories).
But most importantly for my purposes he says:
— jakoblodwickIt’s worth noting that the first time in my life I considering starting a charity was after writing a paragraph where I fantasized about the abolition of welfare.
Jakob, your idea for your institution sounds great, but if what Rick Toone said was true, then at some point in the past we would have already defeated poverty and the American Government would not have ballooned into the bureaucratic monstrosity that it is.
I agree that welfare is not the most efficient way of redistributing money to those that need it, but I do not believe for a second that relying solely on the benevolence of individuals would provide enough money to be an adequate safety net for society.
I’ve written and rewritten this post countless times since last night, and each time I started writing treatises… but I think it all boils down to human nature. We all are built in with, or socialized with a certain sympathy for others. And you Jakob want to help a sector of society that you see needs help and you want to help in a way that you are able, and that is utterly fantastic. Would you really do it if you weren’t taxed though? And you have to remember that you would still be taxed for maintaining roads, bridges, and other costs government would still have to pay for.
No offense, but I’m assuming you wouldnt. I know I wouldn’t. I doubt that I’d donate even half as much as I pay in taxes each month.
Then of course, even assuming each and every one of us donated what we paid in taxes, where would we donate the money? As humans we all have sympathy to where we see need, so I assume we’d give locally. New York City would probably do alright, but what about Buffalo or Rochester? There just aren’t the same types of wealthy people in that part of the state. Or what about entire other states which right now receive money from the Federal government? What would happen there?
My political studies professor always reminded us that unfortunately the government was the most efficient way of collecting and redistributing money. It is currently a bit inefficient and can be taken advantage of, but similar things would happen to charities and they wouldn’t evenly distribute money.
But we wouldn’t give the same amount of money. And if we did, as a society we’d give to where we wanted it. There’d be abnormal amounts of money given to the arts, or to churches. We’d have more televangelists living the high life and bilking money, and cities would have better museums. The government and social services are by no means perfect, but they are the best tool we have to provide a safety net for those in society, and we should work within it to make it as efficient and as effective as possible.
And for those that think the poor are poor because they’re lazy or because they know they can rely on the government, well there are those that abuse the system, but the majority of people just need someone to catch them and give them a hand. A response to that idea would require more time than I have tonight.
(p.s. I think this reblog feature is an amazing way to continue a public discourse and I think tumblr kicks ass. And Jakob, thanks for sharing your ideas and creating this discussion.)
