Eric Hoffer: "Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many"

It has often been said that power corrupts.  But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts.  Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.  Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness.  The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence.  We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them.  They feel our generosity as oppression. 

~ Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms, Section 42, 1955

Sam Zell on welfare incentives not to work

We've created a welfare society that is really discouraging people [from working].  When you can make as much or more by collecting unemployment insurance, and supplemental this and supplemental that, that's pretty dangerous stuff.  Clearly, we're having trouble getting everybody back into the workforce because the alternative is so attractive.

~ Sam Zell, "Sam Zell Buys Gold With Inflation ‘Reminiscent of the ‘70s’," Bloomberg interview, 2:25 mark, May 4, 2021

Jason Riley on the history of black poverty and the family in America

Jason Riley: Let's look at poverty. Between 1940 and 1960, black poverty in America fell by 40 percentage points... in 20 years. That's before the Civil Rights Act, before Voting Rights Act, before Brown v. Board of Education... Now it continued to fall through the '70s and '80s, but at a much slower rate. You had a much stronger black family coming out of slavery, throughout Reconstruction, into Jim Crow. Two parent households were much more likely among blacks than what you have today. And in some years, according to census, two parent households... the rate exceeded that of whites. The difference today, and I would argue largely as a result of these efforts to help blacks, you have seen the disintegration of the black family. And until blacks repair that damage - and there is significant damage there - I don't see how these other outcomes are going to improve. 

Nick Gillespie: What can the government do? 

Riley: It's not about what I want the government to do; it's what I want the government to stop doing. Stop raising the minimum wage and pricing blacks out of the labor force. Stop mismatching kids with schools in the form of affirmative action and setting them up to fail. Stop trying to replace a father in the home with a government check. 

~ Jason Riley, "Black Americans Failed by Good Intentions: An Interview with Jason Riley," 5:38 mark, Reason TV, September 3, 2014

Walter Williams on poverty, responsibility and welfare

The poverty we have today is spiritual poverty. Spiritual poverty is an absence of what traditionally has been known as various human virtues. Much of that spiritual poverty is a result of public and private policy that rewards inferiority and irresponsibility. Chief among the policies that reward inferiority and irresponsibility is the welfare state. When some people know they can have children out of wedlock, drop out of school and refuse employment and suffer little consequence and social sanction, one should not be surprised to see the growth of such behavior. Today’s out-of-wedlock births among blacks is over 70%, but in the 1930s, it was 11%. During the same period, out-of-wedlock births among whites was 3%; today, it is over 30%. It is fashionable and politically correct to blame today’s 21% black poverty on racial discrimination. That is nonsense. Why? The poverty rate among black husband-and-wife families has been in the single digits for more than two decades. Can anyone produce evidence that racists discriminate against black female-headed families but not black husband-and-wife families?

~ Walter Williams, "Today and Yesterday," LewRockwell.com, September 10, 2020

Guido Hülsmann on family and the welfare state

The welfare state has also had a lasting impact on the relationship between the costs and benefits of family life. It, too, has weakened the community of solidarity between the spouses—and between parents and children—if not quite as quickly, brutally, and cynically as the more recent feminist politics. It didn’t slaughter the family, but it slowly decomposed them. This tendency is particularly evident in the relationship between the generations. The state pension system turns this relationship upside down in economic terms. Families must continue to bear the costs of bringing up children but must share their children’s future tax payments with all other citizens, including the childless. The benefits of children are socialized, while the cost of raising children remains private. If you wanted to reduce families, you couldn’t think of anything better.

~ Jörg Guido Hülsmann, "How the State Destroys Families," LewRockwell.com, July 21, 2020

Kevin Duffy on police reform

Ending the drug war and victimless crimes may be the lowest hanging fruit to police reform. Strangely, raising speed limits might also reduce harassment of peaceful, law abiding citizens.

The problem with socialism, of course, is the system. Tweak it all you want and hire the best people, and it will still ultimately fail. Police services are no different. The past 3 months reveal an epic failure of the police. They were very efficient at shutting down businesses (owned by peaceful, law abiding citizens), but when it came time to protecting those same businesses from hoodlums, they failed.

There are also the deep roots of moral decline, and not just in the black community where approximately 70% of children are born out of wedlock. If your cultural belief is that you're a victim of racism and/or exploitation by capitalists, and that education - the normal ticket out of poverty - is a tool to subjugate you, cultural deviancy is assured.

I have a white friend who grew up poor. He told me how he was afraid of getting beaten up for studying and trying to get ahead. Of course, the public schools have now become propaganda mills, poisoning young minds with victimology.

Another deep root is the welfare state, which provides incentives for the less fortunate to become dependent on the state and stay trapped. By taking over private welfare functions, the state eliminates the glue that holds communities and families together.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, June 5, 2020

Kevin Duffy on looting and the welfare state

We've condoned looting for decades. It's called welfare. This is what the welfare state produced, a culture of victims. If you oppose the welfare state, well, "you're a racist!"

Conditioned by the welfare state and the envy, hatred and entitlement it promotes, looters make the system more efficient: they cut out the middleman.

~ Kevin Duffy, May 31, 2020

Rutherford B. Hayes anticipates the modern welfare state

No man, however benevolent, liberal, and wise, can use a large fortune so that it will do half as much good in the world as it would if it were divided into moderate sums and in the hands of workmen who had earned it by industry and frugality. The piling up of estates often does great and conspicuous good.... But no man does with accumulated wealth so much good as the same amount would do in many hands.

~ Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th president

Rutherford B. Hayes
1922-1925

Clifford Thies on the 19th century private welfare system vs. the 20th century welfare state

The 19^th century welfare system was privately supplied, much more efficient, and more compassionate, for society as well as the poor. Instead of giving away cash and other benefits, it mandated work and responsibility. In the 19^th century, the poor were divided into three groups: 1) those who worked and were given supplemental assistance through private charity; 2) those who were manifestly incapable of working and who were sent into poorhouses; and 3) those who were capable of working but refused to do so. The latter were called “paupers,” people who lived from hand-to-mouth, and were drifters, alcoholics, beggars, and thieves. The social welfare system effectively (although not of course perfectly) identified them as the undeserving poor and denied them help. Through poorhouses, and other extremely limited programs, charity provided only for those manifestly unable to work. Poorhouses were usually private institutions, sometimes no more than a family with a large house, which, for a fee, took care of the mentally and physically ill, the enfeebled aged, and orphans who could not be placed for adoption. Conditions in those poorhouses were minimal (although better than depicted by the left-wing Charles Dickens). Accordingly, the able-bodied poor tried to stay out of the poorhouse.

 […]

Going to the poorhouse meant trading liberty for subsistence… The stark terms of the deal offered by the poorhouse was no bargain, as was intended… Private charities demanded that those would could work, do so. Their programs were not “anti-poverty” but “anti-pauper.”

[…]

Very few single women were able to raise their children without continuing help, and most eventually married. At the same time, however, the case of unwed motherhood led to a decoupling of welfare and work. In 1911 Illinois adopted the first “mothers’ aid” program and by 1928, 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Alaska and Hawaii had followed this lead. Modest at first, they made a step towards replacing the 19^th century, work-based philosophy with a new “scientific,” income-based one. Today, income is no longer dependent on work, nor is assistance based on charity. There is no distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. There is no effort to provide the proper incentives. But this should be no surprise. By its nature, government is unable to do much more than dish out money to people who meet the standards set by the application process, regardless of their intent or prospects. Press group politics, moreover, has turned a permanent income combined with perpetual laziness into a civil right.

[…]

Government welfare has encouraged the worst vices of the poor, turning even able-bodied people into drifters, alcoholics, drug addicts, beggars, and thieves. In short, the poor have become paupers, the group the 19^th century charity theorists identified as not deserving of support… In fact, the situation is much worse than the 19^th century charity theorists predicted. The primary victims, ironically, have been unmarried mothers and their children, the supposed beneficiaries of the early 20^th century reform movement.

~ Clifford F. Thies, "Bring Back the Poorhouse and the Workhouse," The Free Market, October 1992