Choosing to Solve Poverty

Some things are simple but not easy. Solving the problem of poverty is one of those things. But here at The Spherical Model, we have the solution:

Free-enterprise economy combined with charitable giving and service.

We don’t solve poverty by taking from those who have been able to acquire more than they currently need through hard work and good fortune and giving their money to those who have less, for whatever reasons.

How do we know? Prime evidence is the “War on Poverty,” now ongoing for over half a century. I wrote about it two years ago, when it turned 50 ("The Fifty Year War" part I and part II). It is the largest, costliest war ever. Yet poverty rates remain about the same. And government goes on taking money to transfer even though their approach is provably faulty.

Graphic I used in 2014, found here

Maybe there’s something more than numbers involved.

Prosperity requires a free people engaged in a free market—all of which requires a law-abiding, righteous people. Things are interrelated. There’s something that comes up in all three spheres—political, economic, and social—and that is choice.

We need the freedom to choose how we will live, what we will do in life, what we will believe, what we will pursue. So political freedom will set the foundation for greater prosperity than any tyranny can do.

We need a free economy, in which we choose how we work, and more particularly how we spend what we have earned. This encourages the incentive to work harder and innovate, so that we can enjoy the fruits of labor.

But one reason “the poor are always with us” is that some are unable, for reasons that are no fault of their own, to take care of themselves, either temporarily or permanently. Some might lack physical or mental capacity to earn enough to care for themselves. Some might be in the position of taking care of a loved one, which prevents them from earning income.

In a civilized society, we recognize these people in need, we have softened feelings for them, and we want to help. We choose to help.

Those who think there is some other way have always failed, and will always fail. You can’t force good will, or charity, or caring.

But how do we get people to do the necessary giving? Because, what if people just don’t do it? Are we just going to let people die on the streets?

No, no one wants people dying on the streets. But if giving power to government to do charity for us would work, we’d have evidence of that by now. Instead we have proved that coercive “charity” doesn’t work.

Remarkably, though, even though government has tried to usurp this charity role from the people, we have nevertheless been charitable. In the January issue of Imprimis, Karl Zinsmeister writes of “Charitable Giving and the Fabric of America.” He offers some surprising evidence of our choice to give. He says,

Private philanthropy is crucial in making America the unusual country that it is. Let’s start with some numbers. Our nonprofit sector now comprises eleven percent of the total United States workforce. It will contribute around six percent of gross domestic product this year. To put this in perspective, the charitable sector passed the national defense sector is size in 1993, and it continues to grow. And these numbers don’t take volunteering into account: charitable volunteers make up the equivalent—depending on how you count—of between four and ten million full-time employees. So philanthropy is clearly a huge force in our society.

He gives examples of a few of America’s larger philanthropists: Ned McIlhenny, Alfred Loomis, John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, Milton Hershey. These are all businessmen who then used their considerable wealth to do good in ways they were passionate about.

Then he told the stories of some lesser known, smaller philanthropists, because only 14 percent of charitable giving comes from wealthy people giving to big foundations. And only 5 percent comes from corporate giving. “The rest comes from individuals, and the bulk of it comes from small givers at an average rate of about $2,500 per household per year.”

One such person was Anne Scheiber, a reserved auditor. She retired with $5,000 in the bank in 1944, lived frugally, invested wisely, and amassed $22 million by her death in 1995 at age 101. She left her legacy to Yeshiva University so “bright but needy girls could attend college and medical school.”

Then there was Elinor Sauerwein, who frugally mowed her own lawn, painted her own house, and grew her own garden. She was motivated by a goal to give all she could to the Salvation Army—which was $1.7 million in 2011.

A shoe-shine named Albert Lexie donated his tops to the Free Care Fun of the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. From 1981 to present, he donated over $200,000, which was a third of his income.

There are others. You may know some. People who give to benefit society through education, or hospitals, or on-the-ground charities helping the poor and homeless. There are private societies preserving our history, maintaining libraries, and funding scientific developments.

America is great because America is good. So far. Partly because America is free to choose to be good.

Zinsmeister mentioned a comparison done by historian Daniel Boorstin: “In 1880, the state of Ohio had only three million inhabitants but 37 colleges. That same year, England had 23 million inhabitants but only four colleges. The difference was small-scale philanthropy directed towards education.”

Those who worry that charitable giving can’t possibly do enough look at private philanthropy with variations of three criticisms:

1.       It’s a drop in the bucket.

2.       It’s amateurish, chaotic, and lacks expert coordination.

3.       Private donors act from impure motives.

Zinsmeister then tackles each of these in turn. As for the first, he points out, “The Gates Foundation alone distributes more overseas assistance than the entire Italian government.”  And that single foundation is only “a tiny sliver of American philanthropy directed overseas. Members of American churches and synagogues send four-and-a-half times as much to foreigners in need each year as Gates does,” and far exceeds the foreign aid budget of the US government. Recent annual totals are $31-$39 billion.

About lack of coordination, he offers evidence that local people, observing a problem and acting to meet a need, are more likely to succeed than distant planners. He contrasts a woman named Lizzie Kander, who funded a settlement house for Russian Jewish immigrants around the turn of the last century—she made and sold a cookbook to fund the thing—with his experience working in the White House West Wing.

He asserts, “The healthiest forms of societal improvement result from lots of little experiments. Some will fail, but others will succeed and be copied. This is the method by which private philanthropy proceeds.”

As for the third concern, impure motives, he says, so what? Most donors have altruistic motives beyond a tax break or getting their name on a building. Still, if good things get done, why worry about mixed motives?

What if the government got out of the “charity” business tomorrow? Could we figure things out? I believe we would. I believe good people follow natural impulses to help one another. And the more we are personally connected locally, the more that is true.

My belief is that the natural freedom of the internet makes connecting givers to organizations and individuals working to make a difference easier. There’s also the possibility of fraud there, but I think we’ll get better with time at recognizing and weeding those out.

Some people have money to give. Some have time, talents, or expertise. There are so many ways to give and serve the community.

community service illustration from JustServe.org

My church has organized a website (I think it’s national and international) for connecting givers and servers with organizations in need of the help: JustServe.org. In Houston we’ve had a version of that for a while: VolunteerHouston.org.

For larger disasters and ongoing humanitarian projects, my favorite is LDS Philanthropies and Humanitarian Aid, where 100% goes to aid, because overhead is handled through other, separate donations. 

A couple of my most read posts relate to community service: “Community Service Is Better Than Community Organizing,” and “Peanut Butter News.”

Zinsmeister concludes: “Early on, Americans discovered that voluntary action to lift others up is not only possible, it is superior to the kind of state paternalism that diminishes freedom. Private charitable giving and the spirit of volunteerism have been essential bulwarks of the American character, and they remain indispensable to our national success.”

So, can we eliminate poverty? There will always be poorer people, but in a civilized society they are clothed and fed and sheltered. And paths are made available so that most can find a way out of being at the bottom of earners. That happy outcome happens not from government “being giving,” but by individuals in a free society choosing to give to one another.

What We Conserve

There’s a question I’d like to ask candidates—presidential candidates have our attention now, but it’s a question for anyone who asks to be allowed to lead us. I’d like to ask: Are you conservative—and, if so, what is it you want to conserve?

Any typical conservative is likely to say, “Yes, I’m conservative.” They may even believe they’re conservative. So what we need is how they define it.

The GOP Presidential Candidates, including
Perry and Walker, who have withdrawn from the race
Image found here

In the Spherical Model, what we want to conserve—or, in large part, to restore—is freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Let’s look at the specifics of what is conserved in each of these spheres.

Political Sphere

We want to conserve our freedom to live our lives, free from oppression. Government serves that purpose only if it is limited to the specific tasks the people ask of it. Otherwise government becomes the oppressor.

Our founding documents give us some specifics. The Declaration of Independence summarizes freedom this way:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

So our life is protected, our freedom from coercion or slavery is protected, and our choice to pursue a livelihood or live our lives as we see fit. This last includes our right to own property and protect it.

The Constitution outlines a government that would offer these protections. The Preamble lists this limited government’s purpose:

We the People of the United States,

·         in Order to form a more perfect Union,

·         establish Justice,

·         insure domestic Tranquility,

·         provide for the common defence,

·         promote the general Welfare,

·         and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The body of the Constitution spells out how a government can go about these limited duties. But the founders believed it was necessary to spell out some of the God-given rights in the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments, in case there came a time when they weren’t quite so self-evident. Here are a few of the rights government is particularly denied the ability to abridge, because in their experience other countries regularly denied these rights:

·         Right of freedom of religion

·         Right of free speech

·         Right to peaceably assemble

·         Right to petition government from redress (sue the government)

·         Right to bear arms

·         Right to freedom from coercion to quarter soldiers

·         Right to freedom from illegal searches and seizures

·         Right to refuse to incriminate oneself, and to be free from double jeopardy

·         Right to life, liberty, and property except following due process of law

·         Right to just compensation for private property taken for public use

·         Right to a speedy, public trial by impartial jury

·         Right to freedom from excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishment

·         Rights enumerated to government are still retained by the people

·         Rights not delegated to the federal government in the Constitution are reserved to the States or to the people

If we’re going to conserve our liberties, that means government does nothing to infringe on our God-given rights. So government has no business involving itself in what we believe or what we say, with the specific exceptions of when something we do infringes on the God-given rights of others. What we need is to conserve our Constitution, in its real form, not some penumbras invented by unelected judges.

When these government powers are translated into current issues, the government should be seeing to the strength of our sovereignty, the security of our borders, the limitation of immigration to those who will contribute to our society and adopt our beliefs in freedom. Our military should be strong, to protect us and our interests, in a world in which enemies would rejoice in our ruination, and would gladly use nuclear weaponry and terrorism for our destruction.

If you’re listening to candidates, see if they have a commitment to conserving/restoring our Constitution, and can enumerate some of these limited duties of the proper role of government.

Economic Sphere

There’s a simple way to prosperity: those who earn wealth get to decide how to spend it.

Government doesn’t have much business being involved in the economy, except to protect our property. Government duties do require some money. For the first century and a half, that didn’t require any income tax. At first, doing all government needed to do took $20 per person (modern dollars). And during war time, only a few hundred a year. If the federal government did only what it is granted enumerated powers to do, a flat rate of 10% would probably be far beyond adequate.

Every dollar government spends is a societal expense. Government can’t spend more money to help the economy. When we have downturns in the economy, and everyone says government has to do something—that something should be to get out of the way and let the recovery happen.

The budget should primarily consist of military budget and FBI and other federal law enforcement. Infrastructure is arguably a federal duty, so there could be some budget for roads, dams, bridges, etc. Government offices and staffing could be much much smaller than current levels. And, after my recent visit to Washington, DC, I’m not against maintaining our national monuments and museums.

Charity isn’t a duty of government; charity isn’t even possible by government. Government charity is better labeled coercive taking of income from some to give to others—or theft. Charity includes various helps for the poor: welfare food and housing, health care, student grants, social security, and more.

Conservatives don’t mean for these helps to be eliminated. But in a civilized society, those in need receive help mainly locally, by those in contact with them, such as churches and local nonprofits, from those who freely give. Charity means love; it is entirely unrelated to forced income redistribution. If there is one thing conservatives need to speak more clearly on, it is this better way to help those in need. Our way is better for giver and receiver, and leads to greater prosperity, rather than more poverty at the cost of lost freedom.

So, a conservative not only wants small, limited government, but limits spending to the proper role of government, leaving the largest portion of income to the people who earn it.

This conservative approach to the economy is the engine behind thriving prosperity and unlimited innovation. A conservative gets out of the way of a productive people, and does nothing more than protect the people’s wealth and their freedom to pursue their work.

Social Sphere—Civilization

Elected officials have power mainly over the political and economic spheres, but there is also important work they can do in the social sphere—if they understand what civilization requires, and they live those principles in their own life.

Civilization requires a people accountable to God. Such people value family, innocent human life, property rights, and truth. Such people respect one another and generally live together in peace despite differences in belief and culture.

It’s possible to live in a civilized society without believing in God, as long as a person values the same things as the typical religious person. But civilization (my definition) can’t grow and thrive without a critical mass that sees the source of our rights as God, and sees our obligation to live God’s laws. It’s great if non-believing individuals choose to live good, civilized lives. But depending on their gut feeling as to what is right is precarious at best. The authority has to be something bigger than the changeable individual. It has to be the arbiter of Ultimate Good. God is the only source for that.

So, it’s possible, at some levels, for civilized but unbelieving persons to be electable. But at the national level, electing such a person is a bad idea. Electing someone based on their particular religious affiliation or claim to religiosity is also unwise. What we need to see is a person who turns to God for direction, daily and regularly, and knows what inspiration looks like when finding answers to serious questions. And we need a person whose life shows us their consistency in valuing family, life, property, and truth. We need a person with integrity.

A religious person missing other ingredients is better than a nonreligious person missing the other things. But it’s better to have a religious person who understands how religious values lead to Constitutional principles and economic freedom.

A civilized religious person knows government should not be interfering with fit parents’ decisions about the care, education, and upbringing of their children. Such a person would value adoption for children born to unwed parents—exclusively placing those children in the homes of married mother and father, because every child is entitled to a married mother and father. Such a person sees no role for the federal government in education beyond providing a resource for new and proven ideas, and providing government documentation for history. Even state and local officials must recognize the parents’ supreme role in decisions about their child.

Family is formed when a man and woman are lawfully married, with a permanent covenant, so that children that come because of the union are raised by their parents. There is nothing better economically and socially, in the aggregate, for children. A good leader recognizes this basic truth, and doesn’t yield to media, propaganda, and pressure from the savage end of society.

A conservative leader recognizes that religion is not just a tolerated quirk of some minority of the population; religion is an essential institution helping us understand what our rights are, and what our obligations to one another are. The question about forcing Little Sisters of the Poor, or Hobby Lobby, or bakers, florists, and photographers to act against their conscience would disappear, if our leaders appreciated the religious view of family, life, property, and truth.

A conservative leader lives a life that shows commitment to family. Such a leader would have no sexual scandals coming up from the near or distant past. Such leaders would be so consistent that all those who know him/her would stand up to defend against such an accusation, because they would know such an accusation is inconceivable.

A conservative leader gives charitably, privately. He/she tithes (ten percent of income) plus more, regardless of income level.

A conservative leader is honest and consistent, so that his word is his bond, and everybody knows it. He doesn’t make behind-the-scenes deals in darkness. He doesn’t engage in crony capitalism, either receiving “bribes” or offering them. He’s not beholden to donors; anyone who would donate to him does it with the clear knowledge that as an elected official he will vote based on principle.

So, the answer to what we conserve ought to include clear evidence of understanding of the Constitution and its purpose, strong commitment to the free market and property rights, and strong personal religious practice that values family and marriage, innocent life, and truth. And the answer must come naturally, as part of the basic vocabulary, because the person is a natural conservator of freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

It’s a high bar. No presidential Democrat candidate meets it. Several Republican candidates fail. I’m looking at the others, and praying for the best we can possibly get. Because that is who we need more than ever.

Disparity

Some people have more money than others. Some people have a lot more than others. Is there something wrong with that? Something evil that requires correction?

First of all, what is wealth, again? At the Spherical Model, this is the definition:

Wealth is not some mystical entity endowed by either government or birthright. Nor is it something that the haves enjoy by depriving the have nots of their fair share. Wealth, simply, represents the accumulation of the results of labor.

There is a total amount of wealth in the world—at this current moment. But that is an accounting detail, not a limit. There is no upper limit to wealth in the world. It is producible by every productive human individual.

There’s a section of The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant, on money, and disparity of wealth:

Since practical ability differs from person to person, the majority of such abilities, in nearly all societies, is gathered in a minority of men. The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and the laws. Despotism may for a time retard the concentration; democracy, allowing the most liberty, accelerates it….

We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution.

So, what we know is, there will always be differences, disparity of wealth. Because people are different. But the problem isn’t that wealth disparity exists; it is that poverty exists. As the Gospels say, “For ye have the poor with you always” (Mark 14:7, see also Matthew 26:11 and John 12:8).

It would be helpful to look at real root problems, rather than imagined problems.

Does a rich person’s wealth prevent a poorer person from generating wealth? Not in a free market. In a true free market, wealth is developed by producing more than the minimum necessary for survival. In the language of money, it’s when you earn more than you spend, and you accumulate the extra. And you might accumulate more if you invest it—low amounts in a savings account, possibly more with other investments—along with the risk of loss.

But what about the person who spends everything he can earn, and can hardly get by? What if he can barely cover his food, clothing, and shelter needs, with nothing left over for education, entertainment, or greater comfort? Is it fair that he works hard and lives this way, when another person works maybe only as many hours—and maybe at less physically taxing work?

Isn’t it evil for the rich person to accept so much money—way beyond what he needs—for work that is in many ways equivalent to a regular worker?

The Good Earth

That’s the kind of question that leads to discontent and sometimes to violence. 

In Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth, there’s a point where the poor are starving and growing daily more desperate, squatting along the walls of the wealthy, until things get so heated, the poor rise up and raid the property of the wealthy, looting and killing. That was a book of fiction, but the Durants’ book describes that as a typical cycle.

It might look like the problem is too much wealth at the top, but it’s really about too little at the bottom. When people are starving and suffering while the wealthy ignore their needs, that is an injustice that won’t stand indefinitely. Usually in that kind of situation, there are interferences going on that protect the position of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. There are class systems that keep people down. Or there are limits to who can do what work, or enter into certain businesses.

It is interference with liberty that leads, not simply to disparity, but to suffering by the poor with no apparent way out. More interference, even with the intention of making up for the injustice, will never solve the problem.

The problem isn’t that some people make more; the problem is that there are actual poor—those who, for no fault of their own, cannot earn enough to meet their needs—that aren’t being taken care of.

A Democrat friend (whom I am quoting without identifying, because I value the friendship, if not the ideas) recently posted this Jimmy Carter quote:

If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor—then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian Values, because you don’t.

And then he commented,

We are the government. We choose where the money is spent. If you hate government, then work to change it. A society is known for how it treats people. I choose to live in a society where we feed the poor and provide great education for people to succeed. I believe we should provide healthcare to all people regardless of what country of birth or ability to pay. These people are our brothers and sisters. If you want to turn away your brother and sister then send them to me. If you want to blame government for everything bad in this country, then blame your forefathers for setting up this system. I choose to work harder to make a difference.

I guess we need to mention that this is not the system of forefathers set up. I've read the Constitution. But this is an example of how many Democrats think. They would never vote for a Republican, because Republicans are mean and stingy, and out to make money for themselves and let the poor starve. But they’re wrong. Republicans, or conservatives in general, because they don’t assume that government has relieved them of responsibility, are much more likely to give freely, and are likely to find charitable organizations that make a real difference in the lives of those in need. need.[i]

Government is coercion. There is no charity in coercion, so government charity is a lie; it is the despotism of redistribution. In short, that means we are voting to allow government to take earnings from whomever it chooses and to give that confiscated money to whomever it chooses. In our individual lives, that is called theft. When our government does it, it doesn’t suddenly become noble; it is still theft.

The “we are the government” claim is a fallacy. We, the people, are sovereign, and grant to government only what we must, to perform specific security and infrastructure roles. When government takes our money to give to the poor, we aren’t being charitable; we are being robbed. And too often the poor aren’t helped out of poverty; they are lured into dependency on government, which is about government power much more than about helping people. If you assume that, once robbed by government you have no more responsibility to the poor, you might be making yourself feel good, but you’re not actually engaged in charitable giving.

Follow that “we are the government” idea to its logical conclusion, and it means any majority can do anything it wants: confiscate wealth, take businesses from those who own them (ask GMC dealers under threat of Obama), control what you produce and sell, control what you are allowed to do with your own property, decide whether you are a preferred person to get various opportunities, decide how you raise your children, decide whether you get health care and within what limits, and on endlessly.

The solution to poverty isn’t theft from earners. It has to be actual charity. People with enough to meet their needs need to feel compassion in their hearts and give freely, in ways that will help the poor, whenever possible, to move out of their situation and become self-sustaining, and on the way to building their own wealth.

Name calling about whether someone is Christian or not isn’t helpful. Start with tithes and offerings. A tithe is 10% of your gross income (you figure that out, if you’re a business; it can be after reinvestment in the business for future income). Then, on top of that, consider going without something, such as a meal or two while you fast, and giving that to the poor. If your church isn’t a good outlet for the entire amount of your charitable giving, then find the charities that work for you.[ii] If you’re not doing this minimal amount that God asks for, then don’t go pretending you’re more giving because you let government take your money for its purposes. [Note: the Democrat friend actually is a rare one who pays tithes, so at least he's not hypocritical on this point.]

Baby Social Sphere helps by making friends
at a nutrition screening in Peru

If you’re at the lower end but getting by, you can still give that percentage; the widow’s mite was the greatest gift left at the altar that day (Luke 21;1 and Mark 12:14). Seeing yourself as someone with extra to give can be mind-changing in ways that lead to wealth. You feel gratitude instead of covetousness. You recognize the value of what you have and take care of it. You feel generosity to care for the less fortunate. You cease to feel entitled to what others have earned and begin to feel confident in your own ability to meet your needs and offer value to the world.

Inculcating real charity, instead of resentment and covetousness, would get us closer to solving the poverty problem.

The problem isn’t disparity, so let’s not even worry about that. The problem is that some people are in need and really need help. The political solution isn’t more government control; it is more liberty. The economic solution isn’t forced redistribution and control, but free market with its opportunities. The real solution is something you need for civilization—real charity and voluntary giving.

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[i]  Read Arthur Brooks, Who Really Cares? The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism, © 2006.  

[ii] I suggest Liahona Children’s Foundation, which offers nutrition-dense resources for poor children, a project daughter Social Sphere is helping with in South America the past couple of months.

Giving until It Hurts

Tuesday was a good day. The American people spoke pretty loudly in favor of more conservative principles and less liberal/progressivist/socialist policies. Yay! I wanted reassurance that America hadn’t gone as far astray as the last presidential election indicated. It is my belief that when the truth is presented accurately, people are likely to choose wisely.

So it’s a matter of finding ways to express truth accurately.

Some of what we conservatives need to do is understand how the other side thinks, because we probably both want freedom, prosperity and civilization, but for some reason the words don’t translate into their minds. They say we’re racist, bigoted, hard-hearted, violent—and a host of other epithets that we know are not true. What do they get out of telling those lies about us? Or believing those mischaracterizations?

Except for maybe some clinically mentally ill, people tend to do what they think will make them happy. They want to feel good. So let’s go with the assumption that those who choose more government intervention do it out of interest in living better lives.

William Voegeli wrote the Hillsdale College Imprimis piece for October: “The Case against Liberal Compassion.” He gives an excellent, and probably accurate, description of the opposition mindset. He starts by pointing out, as we all know, the War on Poverty has failed. Government social programs are an utter failure. And yet the big-government set keeps asking for more of that failure.

I think he’s asking some very good questions:

All along, while the welfare state was growing constantly, liberals were insisting constantly it wasn’t big enough or growing fast enough. So I wondered, five years ago, whether there is a Platonic ideal when it comes to the size of the welfare state—whether there is a point at which the welfare state has all the money, programs, personnel, and political support it needs, thereby rendering any further additions pointless. The answer, I concluded, is that there is no answer—the welfare state is a permanent work-in-progress, and its liberal advocates believe that however many resources it has, it always needs a great deal more.

That’s a starting point for understanding. But the next question is, since there can never be enough, and programs actually fail, and waste money, why is that OK? He doesn’t assume it’s because liberals are bad people. He says,

Readers could have concluded that liberals are never satisfied because they get up every morning thinking, “What can I do today to make government a little bigger, and the patch of ground where people live their lives completely unaffected by government power and benevolence a little smaller?” …

If we make that effort—an effort to understand committed liberals as they understand themselves—then we have to understand them as people who, by their own account, get up every morning asking, “What can I do today so that there’s a little less suffering in the world?”

He quotes President Obama as saying, “Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. When I think about what I’m fighting for, what gets me up every single day, that captures it just about as much as anything. Kindness; empathy—that sense that I have a stake in your success; that I’m going to make sure, just because [my daughters] are doing well, that’s not enough—I want your kids to do well also.”

If the president wants to be believed, he ought not use the IRS and NSA to target anyone who has a non-liberal/progressive/socialist approach to bettering the interrelated causes of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. To us conservative targets, he seems a lot more tyrannical than kind. But back to Voegeli’s explanations.

Compassion, he says, is used as a political weapon against anyone who disagrees, because that works:

Arguments and rhetoric that work—that impress voters and intimidate opponents—are used again and again. Those that prove ineffective are discarded. If conservatives had ever come up with a devastating, or even effective rebuttal to the accusation that they are heartless and mean-spirited: a) anyone could recite it by now; and, b) more importantly, liberals would have long ago stopped using rhetoric about liberal kindness versus conservative cruelty, for fear that the political risks of such language far outweighed any potential benefits.

But here’s the important thing: using the compassion claim as a political weapon—to gain power—is the end; actually accomplishing compassionate ends do not matter. In fact, getting to that end would eliminate the powerful political weapon, and that isn’t even desirable. That’s a pretty damning accusation, so we’d better look at the rest of Voegeli’s reasoning. He uses the recent Obamacare website debacle as an example. He quotes liberal columnist, and then makes his observation:

A sympathetic columnist, E. J. Dionne, wrote of the website’s crash-and-burn debut “There’s a lesson here that liberals apparently need to learn over and over: Good intentions without proper administration can undermine even the most noble of goals.” That such an elementary lesson is one liberals need to learn over and over suggests a fundamental defect in liberalism, however—something worse than careless or inept implementation of liberal policies.

That defect, I came to think, can be explained as follows: The problem with liberalism may be that no one knows how to get the government to do the benevolent things liberals want it to do. Or it may be, at least in some cases, that it just isn’t possible for the government to bring about what liberals want it to accomplish….It may also be, as conservatives have long argued, that achieving liberal goals, no matter how humane they sound, requires kinds and degrees of government coercion fundamentally incompatible with a government created to secure citizens’ inalienable rights, and deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

So we are, possibly, at an impasse. Liberals want to be compassionate, and conservatives see that their efforts are fruitless, as well as dangerous to our freedoms. Liberals think we should just keep pushing toward the goal—living out a definition of insanity by doing the same thing over and over, more and more, and expecting different results. Conservatives think we we’ve tried the bad policies long enough to prove to everyone that they don’t work. It’s a $3 Trillion going concern. We’re spending $10,000 per American per year, much of it on people are not, by any stretch, impoverished, insecure, or suffering.

Liberals think conservatives are evil for not continuing the failing “compassionate” policies. But there’s the error. Conservatives want to actually relieve suffering, not just relieve their own conscience by expressing compassion pointlessly.

Voegeli quotes Rousseau on compassion, and then explains:

As Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in Emile, “When the strength of an expansive soul makes me identify myself with my fellow, and I feel that I am, so to speak, in him, it is in order not to suffer that I do not want him to suffer. I am interested in him for love of myself.”

We can see the problem. The whole point of compassion is for empathizers to feel better when awareness of another’s suffering provokes unease. But this ultimate purpose does not guarantee that empathizees will fare better.

Sometimes altruism actually causes harm to the target of sympathy. But that doesn’t seem to matter. Sometimes failure to help is part of the equation: “This is why so many government programs initiated to conquer a problem end up, instead, colonizing it by building sprawling settlements where the helpers and the helped are endlessly, increasingly co-dependent.”

He quotes political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain as saying, “Pity is about how deeply I can feel. And in order to feel this way, to experience the rush of my own pious reaction, I need victims the way an addict needs drugs.”

So, what we have with all these compassionate liberals, then, is a large segment of the population addicted to the self-satisfaction of “caring,” not to help, but to feel better about themselves. Simply put,

Because compassion gives me a self-regarding reason to care about your suffering, it’s more important for me to do something than to accomplish something. Once I’ve voted for, given a speech about, written an editorial endorsing, or held forth at a dinner party on the salutary generosity of some program to “address” your problem, my work is done, and I can feel the rush of my own pious reaction. There’s no need to stick around for the complex, frustrating, mundane work of making sure the program that made me feel better, just by being established and praised, has actually alleviated your suffering.

I think Voegeli is right in his assessment of the liberal mind. He is also accurate about the insanity of squandering more and more money on programs essentially designed to fail.

What we as conservatives need to do, then, is not simply deny the accusation that we’re hard-hearted. We need to clarify the truth of the situation. We need to connect the dots between government welfare and increased pain. We need to make it clear that, any time an American tax dollar is spent on something extra-Constitutional, it has the unintended consequence of causing harm in place of alleviating suffering.

There are times when charitable giving is appropriate—but never through government coercion. It’s not even possible for government to coerce charitable giving; its not logically, by definition, possible. We want to actually alleviate suffering. We will do it by following the principles of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. That’s what works.

Let's speak the truth clearly. Government “giving” hurts people, and mostly hurts the very people designated to be helped. So if you’re in favor of government welfare, you’re in favor of hurting the most vulnerable among us. If you want to think of yourself as kind, you need to change your ways.

Economic Sphere Basics

Today is the second anniversary of the beginning of the Spherical Model blog, and we’re doing a recap of the basics of what the Spherical Model is. Friday’s summary covered the principles that lead to the northern freedom zone on the Political Sphere. Today’s summary covers the basic principles leading to the thriving free enterprise zone on the Economic Sphere. (I hope you'll read the full version of each.)

The principles themselves are simple. The preliminary discussion is basic economics, which doesn’t get taught nearly enough in schools. Here are some of the main points:

·        Wealth represents the accumulation of the results of labor.

·        Money is a representative, or symbol, of wealth, to make it easier to exchange.  

·        Problems of the economy as a whole always result from interference in the exchange of labor, or value of money.

·        There has never been a national recession or depression that wasn’t caused by interference with the money supply, or in other words dishonesty about the value of money.

·        Capitalism is a system of increasing productivity, and thereby increasing wealth.

o   Capital is extra time/work/wealth that is invested to make it possible to produce more wealth.

o   Capital in and of itself is simply never evil. Capital might be considered always good. It represents work above and beyond what is essential followed by careful use of it toward a good idea, resulting in even more surplus.

·        Government cannot create wealth; government can only spend it. Government can, however, regulate (that is, make standard) monetary units by coining money, or printing money, each unit of which represents a result of labor that can be exchanged for the results of someone else’s labor.

o   Government can cause harm by printing “money” that does not represent actual wealth.

With these things in mind, how do we identify ways to guarantee thriving free enterprise? Limit government to its proper role: protecting people and their property (wealth), and guaranteeing the value of the money. Maybe add to that some infrastructure to help facilitate commerce, and that’s about it. Every intervention by government to redistribute from those who have to those who have not causes unintended consequences that make things worse both for those being taken from and those being given to.

Capital is taken that could have been used for productive purposes, possibly that could have provided employment for those in need. Incentive is taken from those who would have freely given to the needy, taking their surplus so that they can’t decide to give, and making them resentful that they had no choice about the confiscation. And the receivers of government largesse feel entitled to the redistribution, since the faceless government, rather than a neighbor who did the earning of the wealth, has decided they deserve it. They are therefore ungrateful. If there had been a personal connection between willing giver and reluctant but grateful receiver, both could have benefitted and moved forward in a positive relationship.

The way to limit government is to recognize God-given rights and never allow government to usurp power over those things. That requires political freedom instead of tyranny, so you can see how free-enterprise overlays freedom in the north and controlled economy overlays tyranny in the southern hemisphere.

So freedom and economic thriving both require knowing what a right is. The Constitution, again, is handy for that. The first Ten Amendments were not an afterthought; they were understood clearly by the founders, so much so that they went without saying. But then some of the wiser ones wondered what would happen if these rights didn’t remain self-evident. So they were included before the Constitution was ratified.

They are in a way “negative rights”: God has given these to all men, and government shall not infringe upon them. Government, in other words, is limited, while the individual, in regard to rights, is not.

Then along come the “progressives,” who start talking about “positive rights,” things they think every person ought to have, and therefore government should have the ability to bestow upon them, things like a right to a job (regardless of skills), a right to food, a right to shelter. Are these things rights?

If it is a right, God has given it. But we all come into the world naked, impoverished, and inexperienced. It is by growth, hard work, and gaining in expertise that we try to overcome this condition throughout our life. We are born with the right to life, the right to live free (not enslaved), and the right to pursue our own path to overcome the naked impoverished state.

Do we have a right to clothing? Well, it’s sure nice to have the appropriate clothing when you live through a northern winter. But is it your neighbor’s obligation to work to provide your clothing? Or is that your own obligation? Would it be good of your neighbor to give you his surplus clothing if he saw you were in need? Yes. But his giving it to you is charity, or philanthropy, not an obligation to meet your right. If he had no surplus, but just enough clothing to keep himself from freezing, would it be his obligation to give up a coat to you? No. If he were heroic, he might work out a way to share with you and perhaps keep you both alive. But he is not obligated to do so. So, your clothing is not his obligation. Providing clothing for someone other than self is a charitable act.

At the basic level, the relationship of parent to child is charitable. The parent can clearly see that the child cannot provide his own clothing, so the parent, showing his care for the child, provides that clothing. Same with food. You might even say that the parent has an obligation to feed, clothe, shelter, and nurture the child, because the parent brought the helpless child into the world and therefore has an obligation to that child. But the obligation isn’t without limit. The parent nurtures the child to be capable of feeding, clothing, and sheltering himself. And then, at that point, the parent no longer has the obligation to provide. If the grown child has lost a job, and has a temporary need for economic help, it might be that the parent could step in and offer food, clothing, and shelter from his surplus (charity). But the parent would have no such obligation to a grown and capable child who lacked means simply because of unwillingness to work for them. And that parent would have absolutely no obligation to provide from his hard-earned supply to a lazy child of the neighbor down the road.

So, even though we need them, we do not have a right to food, clothing, and shelter. Ditto for a furnished apartment, a television, telephone, medical care, air conditioning, or a car. Nice to have. Important to have. Maybe even necessary to have in order to fulfill one’s purposes in life. But it is a capable person’s own obligation to work to provide these necessities for himself.

In a civilized society, there will be a desire to somehow provide these necessities to those who are not capable of taking care of themselves: the impoverished because of illness, accident, injury, or lowered mental capacity. But it is philanthropy that fills the need—not government taking from a producer by force to give to a non-producer.

Economic thriving, then, requires limited government, adherence to laws protecting property, and then a charitable people to care for the truly needy.