Minor Speculum

Where is the Choice?

By Mike

I admittedly lean heavily towards libertarianism as my own political philosophy; and this is not because I enjoy the suffering of the less well off, but because I believe self reliance and self determinism are principles that define American culture; it would seem to me that the United States and her people have benefited greatly from the results of these ideas. Those who know me know that I am far from the upper echelons of wage earners, thus I might experience a greater benefit from some other philosophy if I were to embrace it, but at what cost to my principles and the whole notion of self determinism, those thing that in my mind make us most a product of our citizenship?

But don’t confuse the advocate of said philosophy with an individual lacking the compassion to aid those in need; it is in fact a philosophy designed to produce the greatest amount of prosperity, as defined by the individual, for those with the drive to improve their livelihood, though this does not always produce favorable results. Those in need could be given a helping hand by their neighbor, not through government intervention or interaction, but through community organizations, charities, churches etc. with their outreaches designed specifically for this purpose. In this way, an individual may put the product of their labor to whatever purpose they wish, be it for personal or community gain and reep the benefit of said investment either emotionally, monetarily, or in whatever other form it may come.

People of another philosophy might convince you that it is impossible to cater to so many people of ill fortune without that societal bedrock, government taking control. In this scenario that product of labor, our property, which might have been donated for the purposes of societal welfare, is instead taken yearly from those who earn the most to be distributed around to those in need through welfare, various health benefits, food programs, education, etc. While this seems entirely fruitful, beneficial, and downright compassionate on its surface, programs like this are rarely any of the above.

Reducing the value of production results in greater harm than if it had been done voluntarily simply because it reduces the incentive to increase one’s earnings when taxed based on those earnings. In this situation, then, there is little incentive to maintain production, or hire new workers if the idea is to stay within a certain tax bracket and potential employees will be left out of work.

These programs also reduces the incentive to earn for those who take advantage of said government programs as benefits given add to income. When an individual qualifies for said benefits of $8,000 a year at an earning level of $15,000 they will be less likely to take a position which would allow them to earn $20,000 but would disqualify them from all benefits. In this scenario, there is little choice but to stay in poverty as the immediate benefits are greater than the long term potential of earning more.

Governments are not in the business of protecting the interests of the least of society; they are in the business of maintaining and gathering power. If that takes assurances of welfare, then they will continue to spend themselves into oblivion to gain the necessary votes. Hence Mr. Franklin notes:

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

Simply put, a philosophy that would encourage the government to maintain system of high taxation, that would rob an individual of their property, in order to gain a little assurance of security and welfare, provide little choice or future prosperity as liberty and opportunity slowly erode.

So what is better: teaching someone a sense of self reliance, skills, and the ability to use all of this together with the possibility of failure, or to simply take from those that are well off to be distributed in an endless cycle to those that inherited a sad standing in life?

Tags: Libertarianism Welfare

Jan 08, 2010 • OP-ED, Politics