The thesis I want to defend in this essay is that society benefits from the economic inequality generated by capitalism. People do not want to accept the enriching mysteries of economic inequality. I want to deal as directly as I can with the disparity of income between rich and poor. The political Left and the political Right understand the disparity quite differently. I want to describe the difference as fairly as I can.
Government does not create wealth. It lives off the wealth others create. John Kekes (A Case for Conservatism, 1998) defines justice as social and political arrangements in which people consistently receive what they deserve. This definition assumes inequality of social arrangements. In this, he differs from the egalitarian definition provided by John Rawls, in Theory of Justice (1971). One of the basic lessons we learn is that life is not fair. Yet, some people seem uncomfortable with inequality.
In Politics, IV.11 (1295b), Aristotle discusses the proper arrangement of wealth. It ought not surprise us that he considers the mean the best, contrasting it with rule by masses of poor and rule by a few rich. His point is that the best government will be democratic, but wealth itself will have broad distribution. Now, I would argue that the experience of capitalism in America has brought the gift of a broad distribution of wealth. I would further argue that what constitutes “poor” in this nation would be middle class in many nations.
Envy and greed are twin issues in the human condition. We see the greed of executives who earn millions while running their companies into the ground. We see the envy of people whom daily work hard and offer valuable services envying people who have earned millions more while playing games, acting, or simply experiencing some good fortune. None of it seems fair. The harsh reality is that it is not fair. The design of the system called capitalism is not fairness.
Some people hold that society must not hold the poor morally accountable for their economic condition. This view does a disservice to the poor, especially in terms of their accountability for how they treat themselves, how they treat others, and the work habits they develop.
My background is that of lower middle class, blue-collar father with working mother and five children. I am not sure why, but the populist appeal by the political Left has never appealed to me. I have never wanted the wealthy of this country to help me by providing my health care or housing. I have never looked at them as benefitting unfairly, lucky, or greedy. In my experience, wealthy people are neither better nor worse than are other economic brackets. Sin spreads itself around quite evenly.
First, I think most societies tend to have hostility toward its greatest benefactors, the producers of wealth. Rage against the wealthy is still an idea that works with many people and politicians. Critics of capitalism want wealth in the nation without the apparent embarrassment of an economic class we can label as “rich.” Critics find it easier to label them as evil, corrupt, and oppressive. With derision, people call it “trickle down” economics. The hostility of many on the political Left toward those who have achieved financial success is intense.
Some proponents of this view will refer to the Bible as supporting this hostility. A favorite “proof text” for such attitudes comes from Matthew 19:24, where Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” In 1706, Matthew Henry explains this passage by saying, “Rich people have great temptations to resist, more duties are expected of them than from others, which they can hardly do…It must be a great measure of divine grace that will enable a man to break through these difficulties.” Wealth comes with special challenges and responsibilities, but it is hardly a crime deserving of punishment or discouragement. Inconveniently, the Bible also says that the legal system must not favor the poor, or the rich (Lev 19:15).
Part of the motivation for expansion of the federal government is care for the poor. This is laudable and, from the perspective of one who takes the Bible seriously, in line with what it means to be a follower of Jesus. From a Christian perspective, actions toward the poor and marginalized is central to true religion. Israel was commanded to be generous to the poor (Deut 15:10-11); Job cites sympathy for the poor as proof of righteousness (30:25); the Psalms praise God as a defender of the poor (e.g., 12:5; 14:6). ‘Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,’ says Proverbs 14:31, ‘but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.’ The prophets condemn ‘grinding the face of the poor,’ as God says in Isaiah 3:15, and God’s victory over evil will bring plenty for the poor (e.g., Isaiah 14:30). By Luke’s account, Jesus began his ministry by announcing ‘good news to the poor’ (4:14-30), and he reiterated commands of generosity, both explicitly (Matt 25:31-46) and in broader words (Matthew 7:12). The church in Jerusalem kept a common purse and ‘sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need’ (Acts 2:42-47), and Christian responsibility to the poor is an assumption running through the Epistles (e.g., Rom 15:26; Gal 2:10; James 2:1-6). Scripture’s final vision of a rescued Earth is one of abundance (Rev 21:1-4; 22:1-4). We can be thankful that we already have a welfare state that protects people from the extremes of deprivation of the basics to sustain life. I do think such aid would best come from the combination of a variety of activities from states, local communities, and private efforts. The federal government acts most efficiently when dealing with the mass, such as mailing out social security checks, rather than dealing with matters have zip code.
What has become liberal ideology has no problem setting one economic class against another. Producers are “malefactors of great wealth,” according to the progressive, Theodore Roosevelt. Interestingly, Al Smith, the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party in 1928, disagreed with Franklin Roosevelt in 1931. As noted by Amity Shales (The Forgotten Man, 2007), he said he would oppose anyone who would make demagogic appeal to “working people” to destroy themselves by setting class against class, rich against poor. I find this insightful, in that such rhetoric divides the masses from the very people who can improve their economic lot in life. By contrast, Franklin Roosevelt would target class enemies in the name of reform. In particular, he targeted the lack of honor by people in high places and crooks as the cause of the Great Depression. John Dillenger and other depression era gangsters became folk heroes because they robbed only the banks that people like Roosevelt targeted as the cause of the depression. Sadly, the Democrat Party has long been the party of encouraging a victim mentality on the part of a group of citizens, setting themselves as targeting the enemy (bankers, oil, pharmaceuticals, the rich, and so on). Yet, the producers are the people the nation needs investing, taking risks, and creating wealth. When the producers do these things, they do not create only for themselves. They create wealth for others as well. They do so directly through hiring people, and indirectly by providing a vehicle for investments. These investments are not only for the few. Today, they include large retirement funds that will provide a living for many people when they retire. My point, of course, is that such people are a small number of Americans upon whom the nation relies for present and future growth. Instead of making it difficult for them through regulation and taxation, as well as political rhetoric, these persons deserve the support and encouragement of government. Yet, liberalism continues to attack the people the nation needs to continue growing its wealth.
Government benefits ranging from housing subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid, fuel assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or welfare. Further, poverty is a relative thing. Trends in furnishings and accessories tell the same story: poor households' possession of modern conveniences has been growing rapidly.
Here is another place were liberal and conservative part company. For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings. As the Congress of today seems quite willing to diminish the rights of those not yet born through the national debt, the country has decided to tax them without their representation. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats, and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. Today, that American has not been born. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn. Rev. William Boetcke, Presbyterian pastor, quite rightly said that we do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. (The saying gained in familiarity due to its incorrect ascription to Abraham Lincoln). Yet, that is precisely what the American liberal is trying to do.
Critics of capitalism do not want to accept the harsh reality that the bottom of the economic ladder does not create wealth. To put it graphically, none of us would go to a poor person and ask for a job. Rather, we go to those who have generated wealth. The same is true for the churches, who must generate income for their ministries and building campaigns primarily with the help of those who have wealth and are committed to the mission of the church. Because of the passion and compassion of the wealthy, they foster opportunities for the economic classes below them. Yet, no other group in society can do the risk-bearing role that the rich play as effectively.
The United States is the most upwardly mobile society in history. A growing and dynamic society should value such upward mobility. Incomes are not stagnant. Opportunities continue to exist. The right thing to do is protect individual liberty and private property, which carries with it the responsibility of conducting government affairs in a fiscally responsible way. If I thought it would add to my argument, I could point to the many places in the Bible that protect private property from stealing. I could also point to the abuses of power by kings as an argument in favor of limited government. If I were to do so, such points would be for illustrative purposes only. For me, this means low taxes and allowing people to experience both the blessings and consequences of their choices. The only way the government can give to one set of citizens is to take from another set of citizens. I find this to be a moral issue.
I want to take seriously and walk us through some of the anger many people feel toward the way the capitalism distributes income.
In every country, there is anger about the distribution of income. In command economies, the rulers receive that anger. In market-oriented economies, the market receives that anger. We all think that we are more valuable than what the market will allow. Inequality of income distribution in free market societies often becomes the focal point of economic and political debate. Citizens often hear the unequal distribution of income in a context that suggests it is a dreadful thing. We ought to distribute income more equally, so some have suggested.
The anger is legitimate from a historical perspective. The unequal distribution of income was morally wrong. It resulted from a small group, military or hereditary in nature, that imposed its will upon the people, keeping them at an income level that provided necessities, but rarely more than that. The political powers used taxation for that purpose. Often, disparity of income rested upon various forms of slave labor. Uneven economic distribution for these reasons is never moral. For that reason, Israelite prophets often condemned the kings and merchants for their oppression of most of the population, often as much as 80% of it.
Another part of our anger with unequal income distribution occurs because of inherited wealth. Even though statistics show that unless they learn to manage this wealth and put it to work, they will lose it, critics of capitalism will want the federal government to have tax policies that reduce the influence of inherited wealth. Yet, one does not need to resort to government to even the playing field. The stupidity and carelessness of many wealthy persons will do fine.
Another part of our anger with the unequal distribution of wealth is the distorted value of what people offer. We often puzzle why some people are richer than others are. Well, some people have a greater capacity to please others than most of us do. A basketball player can earn millions a year, while a teacher earns a few thousand. Yet, a player like Michael Jordan not only reached the highest level of the game thus far, but he pleased millions of people with his play. In other words, people are worth what the market value of their gift is. While there are thousands of teachers, there is only one Michael Jordan.
Clearly, another part of our anger with unequal distribution of income is our compassion for the poor. As noted, this is a laudable, moral, and Christian concern. We live in a world full of poor people; no matter how much wealth we create. People lack the resources, income and skills required to participate meaningfully in civil and political life. According to the Harvard School of Risk Analysis, poverty cuts life expectancy of the poor in America by nine years, by far the greatest health risk any American faces.[1] Poverty is a circumstance of alienation from the basic institutions of modern society. Therefore, poverty is a matter of deep concern, even if it seems insoluble.
Second, I want to focus upon the way we think about the rich. I do so, not having ever been rich, and knowing only a few people who are.
The assumption of the Left is that people are wealthy because they have taken something that legitimately belongs to the poor. The assumption of the Right is that people are wealthy largely because they have worked hard and earned it. The Left is willing to divide America into two cities, one rich and one poor. The Left is willing to divide the global community into two nations, the wealthy and the poor. Such divisions overly simplify a problem that is far more complex.
The failure of the analysis of economic life by the political Left is greatest at this point. Animosity and alienation that the approach of the Left engenders toward the wealthy is not a helpful emotion to generate, either among themselves or among the poor. It tends to make the poor victims, the wealthy and corporations the persecutors, and the elite of the Left, through the agencies of government, as rescuers of the poor. Such a position encourages the poor to look to the government for entitlements to rescue them. The poor then think that other people owe them a living. When others do not meet their demand, they will wind up believing everyone is their enemy. The assumption seems to be that someone has designed a global system in which a few benefits and gain wealth whereas most experience the global system as victims.
In offering a mistaken analysis of the problem, the political Left offers unwise tax and spend politics as a remedy. For example, the bifurcation of the world between wealthy nations and poor nations is the result of the unequal distribution of freedom, not the unequal distribution of wealth. Economic freedom and political freedom require cultural values that will support them. They also require changes in the traditions to the value of respecting the worth and dignity of others, regardless of their beliefs. In 2003, according to the Heritage Foundation, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Estonia, America, Australia, and the United Kingdom are the countries with the greatest economic freedom in the world. The countries with the least amount of economic freedom were North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Laos, and Libya. The economic division in the world is not so much between rich and poor nations, but rather between free and totalitarian nations. The genuine experience of freedom in some countries is the primary reason they experience economic well-being.
The political Left also misreads the statistics involving the unequal distribution of income, refusing to consider the temporary, contingent, and historical nature of the place one finds oneself on the economic ladder. The horror one senses in the voice and pen of those on the Left arise because their perspective is one in which statistics of wealth distribution are static pictures of the economy at one moment in time. They do not want to consider that such statistics reflect the normal up and down movement of income throughout the year or the decade. For example, the bottom of the economic ladder will have a sizable portion of elderly because they are past their productive years. The bottom of the economic ladder will also consist of a substantial proportion of young people, since they are at the beginning of their productive years, a fact that suggests that a sizable proportion of children will always be toward the bottom of the economic ladder. None of this suggests that the problem is not real. It only means that, for most young families, living toward the bottom of the economic ladder is a temporary situation. Since the young and the old will always be with us, we will always have people at the bottom of the income ladder. Further, people who self-destruct through drugs, alcohol, crime, the failure to educate themselves toward the best life they can lead, will always be with us. Such observations do not suggest doing nothing, although they do bring some realism into the discussion in the public square.
Here is the main point of this discussion. The inequality of income distribution within capitalism is one of its best features because it is the result of freedom.
Focusing upon the distribution of income rather than production, we will forever count how many rich and poor exist, become outraged at the discrepancy, and argue for a government powerful enough to re-distribute wealth. The focus on distribution assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, in which the gain for one person means a decline for another. However, assuming an equal distribution of freedom among citizens, people still have different abilities, talents, desires, and characteristics. We are unequal by nature. In culture, this natural inequality rises to an inequality of skill and resources, and even to one of moral and intellectual attainment. The demand for a right of equality takes as real and rational the abstract nature of equality. There is no way government can equalize these differences, except by force.
Further, the moral problem with the apparent unfairness of unequal income distribution is to encourage envy and bitterness between classes. It also does not keep the focus on what the poor need, such as education, training, formation of character, self-reliance, and achievement.
The mystery is not why there is poverty, for that has existed for most of human history and for most of the people. The mystery we ought to seek to unravel is why capitalism has generated so much affluence. The answer may be freedom to pursue one's own interests without interference, and government protection of private property rights. The answer may be the structure of freedom that the liberal democracies have provided their citizens. That structure includes domestic life, civic life free of government, and political life in which one can meaningfully participate. This culture of freedom provides the opportunity to respect the worth and dignity of individuals as well as belong to various social groups in ways that other societies cannot do.
Who are these rich people?
These persons are ordinary people who happen to be at the stage of their lives where they are earning more than they did in years past and more than they will be earning in the future. They are people in their 50's or early 60's who have worked their way up to a decent income and are seeing much of it drained away by politicians who proclaim that the rich ought to pay their fair share. The rich, therefore, are not a different class of people than anyone else. Rather, they are people in older age brackets who have accumulated some money in a pension fund, paid off most of their mortgage and put a little money aside to see them through retirement and the illnesses of old age. The average net worth by someone 65 years old or older is more than 10 times the net worth of households headed by someone under 25. These are not different classes, for the one who is now 65 was at one time 35. Most Americans will have incomes in the top 10% at some point during their lives.
Third, I want to focus our attention upon the poor in America. Søren Kierkegaard, in a journal entry he quotes for his book Christian Discourses, Etc. (1849), refers to journalists who earn their living, many doing so in luxury and abundance, by writing on poverty. His sarcastic point, I think, is that many people use the poor to serve an ideological agenda, rather than help the poor. I have no desire to fall into that category. The design of the rest of this essay is to point the way toward helping poor people to move out of poverty.
We need to begin with a better understanding of where we are. Being poor in America does not entail the same degree of deprivation it once did in this country and as it still does in other countries.
Spending patterns provide a clue. The percentage of spending by poor households for food is declining. The smaller the share of income going to meet basic needs, the more money left over to purchase the goods and services that most poor households once had to do without. Thus, most poor households have needed appliances (washing machine, dryer, microwave ovens, color television, cable, air conditioning) and motor vehicles. Many own their own homes and have credit cards. They begin to look like the middle class. The poor spend more than they earn, the reason being the income transfers to them through government programs, mostly through food stamps, unemployment benefits, AFDC, Medicare, Medicaid, school lunches, rent subsidies, and other programs. Many have savings to fall back on. Many retirees have low incomes, but own their home, car, and furnishings. If we were to look at consumption, most of America is in the middle class, Daniel Slesnick of the University of Texas suggesting as high as 98%. If the problem of poverty is access to goods and services, then this fact provides a better indication of how the economy combined with government programs has done in lifting families out of poverty.
Thus, the price of things one might use, such as electronics, has come down, while the actual comfort one experiences can increase, even while the income disparity is greater. The tax code encourages payment in benefits rather than salary, and so many Americans are experiencing greater comfort for that reason as well. Middle class Americans are experiencing greater satisfaction when they shop, as their choices have advanced. Thus, Bill Gates has a bigger house, but his access to medical care and the Internet are not different from that of many Americans. Most Americans are not envious of the upper one percent. Most Americans recognize that increasing tax rates to 40%, which is higher than most European countries, would simply produce more tax avoidance.
Fourth, instead of rhetoric about the poor, we can engage in some straight talk about how poor people can rise out of poverty. Poverty is an alienating condition that one must overcome. Some government sources may prove helpful. However, the only dependable route from poverty is to reorient oneself toward the culture.
We need to be willing to ponder the long-term effect of creating dependence upon government for our basic needs. It will take intellectual and moral courage to do so.
F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote The Road to Serfdom in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader's Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies. Hayek meant that governments cannot plan economies without planning the lives of people. An economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. People must shelve their own plans in favor of a single government plan. Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that is at stake when the government controls our lives: "The most important change ... is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people." This should not be controversial. If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, cannot help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society. The danger of serfdom is not that we all work for the government. It means that we change from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit.
Here is a way to help the poor. Walter Williams, in his article “Are the Poor Getting Poorer,” (October 31, 2007), examines some numbers from the Census Bureau's 2004 Current Population Survey. One segment of the black population suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of their under-5-year-olds are poor. Another segment of the black population suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Among whites, one population segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Another segment of the white population suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. He then points out that the only statistical distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage. There is far less poverty in married-couple families, where presumably at least one of the spouses has employment. Fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household.
Domestic life becomes important, involvement in places of employment and other civic institutions, and acceptance of the modest role one can play in political world, all become crucial. Re-engagement with the culture involves attitudes like faith, hope, self-esteem, development of skill, and entering contracts with others. To depart from the underclass requires movement to a different place in one’s mind and heart that includes work, family, and faith. The poor must work harder than other classes to rise out of poverty. The maintenance of monogamous marriage and family is also an important part of rising out of poverty. Marriage is a consistent encouragement toward rising out of poverty. Further, faith in humanity, in oneself, and in the future, is an important part of the psychology of rising out of poverty. The poor need to have the same freedoms and opportunities, the values of family and faith, which are indispensable to all wealth and progress. What the underclass need is not handouts that fail to recognize their capacity to improve themselves. What they do need are mentors who teach by world and deed the value of actualizing oneself and being a social member. Even William Galston, assistant to Bill Clinton said that to avoid poverty, just do three things: finish high school, marry before having a child, and do not have that child until you are at least twenty years old. Only eight percent of the people who do all three of those things wind up poor.
Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, both African-American political conservatives, have done much research into what has happened within the African-American community. The rise of government programs does not seem to help. Illegitimacy and crime grew with the rapid growth of AFDC programs. The decline of the fathers in the African-American household is the largest single variant in this picture. Efforts to end discrimination and poverty must begin here, in a re-valuation of the important of family for the incorporation of proper values for participation in modern society. The African-American community is an example of a sub-culture that has low trust, and therefore less ability to work together toward a common purpose. The cultural habits necessary to share norms and values so that people learn to work well together has not developed. Many ethnic communities, such as Chinese or Jewish communities, stick together and buy from each other. The black community has a lower rate of self-employment; an entrepreneurial class has not developed.
Compassion that genuinely helps the poor or underclass will have several components. One is re-connecting people to family, friends, and local community. Mentoring on a one-to-one basis is a crucial step. Those who help the poor need to give time, love, and counsel. Cases in which persons have severe problems with self-destructive behavior, such as alcohol, drugs, or general laziness, need a separate form of treatment from those who simply need motivation and skill. Frankly, any subsidizing of injurious behavior to self or to others by the government does not help the poor find their way out of poverty. When the poor see such behavior subsidized by government it discourages them from making needed changes in their lives. This fact recognizes that personal conduct, using one’s freedom to make self-destructive choices, makes an important, even if not definitive, contribution to one’s economic condition. Work is critical to building self-esteem and hope in the future. Consequently, work needs to be a condition for compassion, not because one is cruel, but because one has genuine compassion. The vision is that freedom from government support is important for future improvement of economic life. Escaping poverty is, in one sense, painfully simple: long hours, good morality, decent work habits, and commitment to family. Compassion needs the balance of challenging people to lead the best human life they can lead. For the challenging cases (alcohol, drugs, and crime), some form of spiritual transformation is often necessary, a genuine conversion to a new form of life than that to which one had committed oneself. Such recognition that one has been in the wrong, and needs to have life made right, is not easy to achieve. With a purely secular or scientific program, it is almost impossible. In any case, those in need of help can make it, not because of a government check, but because others take an interest in them.
Michael Novak has made the point that we must work out our understanding of economics with the poor always at the center of our attention. Frankly, any society that failed to exhibit concern in its members would be an objectively alienating society. The enlightenment moral aspiration of liberty, fraternity, and equality is consistent with the abolition of poverty and the increase of wealth.
The political Left and Right can be compassionate. A person’s political opinion to spend government funds on aid programs is not evidence that the person is compassionate. The political opinion to spend money on defense is not a sign that a person is brave. The political opinion to spend government money on sports is not a sign that a person is physically fit. In the same way, one who lacks compassion may favor various government aid programs. Conversely, a compassionate person may oppose those programs. Our political beliefs are not a test of compassion. If you want to determine how compassionate an individual is you should ask what charitable contributions the person has made, or what volunteer work he or she has done. You might also inquire into how the person responds to the needs of relatives, friends, and neighbors. True compassion is a bulwark of strong families and communities, of liberty and self-reliance. True compassion is people helping people with a genuine sense of caring. It is not asking your legislator or member of Congress to do it for you. True compassion comes from your heart, not from government treasuries. True compassion is a deeply personal thing, not a check from a distant bureaucracy.
Every attempt to reflect upon the moral content of an economic system must place at its heart what the impact is upon the weakest members of the society. At the risk of sounding absolute, every religious tradition of which I know urges compassion toward the weakest and poorest of society. The American experience is one of rooting for the downtrodden and the underdog. Our consideration of discourse in the public square will need to take that seriously.
Sympathy for the downtrodden and compassion for those less fortunate than oneself is part of what makes a person moral. Compassion has its roots in the harsh reality of poverty, combined with respect for those persons. For example, genuine compassion recognizes that some homes are poor and as well as good and happy. Compassion recognizes the capacity of the poor to respond to the demands of life and challenging them to achieve independence and a better human life. Well-meaning persons who provide some form of dole undermine their self-esteem and impair their capacity to thrive independently.
Marvin Olasky identifies seven "seals of good philanthropic practice." 1) The person helped needs to have ties restored to family, friends, and neighborhood. 2) The volunteer expects to become deeply involved in those needing help. 3) Those deserving of help were separated from the alcoholic, cheater, or lazy, those unwilling to change. Helpers visited them to counsel and exhort them, but not to subsidize their behavior. 4) Discernment was necessary by the volunteer to spot potential fraud. It was self-defeating when the poor saw others whom they knew who did not deserve help whom the system nevertheless helped. 5) They view work as critical to one's personal health. They did not assume that everyone wanted to work. It was a non-negotiable condition of aid. 6) They viewed freedom from government and the opportunity to work and worship as essential. With long hours, good morality, and work habits, a family could escape poverty. 7) God. Spiritual transformation was the only thing that could change an alcoholic, addict, or abuser into a productive, temperate citizen. People reminded those in need of help that God created them in the image of God and that God had expectations of them. Helpers combined charity with challenge.
All of this assumes that one dimension of poverty is moral. It suggests that one ought to lead a life that supports self and family. To remove moral responsibility from the quality of a human life, including what one achieves with this time and this body, one ignores an important aspect of the solution of poverty. In my judgment, the political class has embarked upon a program that singles out the poor for a socialist system. It makes them dependent upon the state for health care, housing, food, and income. The government has turned the poor, regardless of the color of their skin, into slaves on a feudal plantation system. The good intentions of the Johnson War on Poverty programs have resulted in a rise in crime, illegitimacy, and money to fund the programs. We must take responsibility for the monster we have created, note the devastating consequences, and correct our mistakes.
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