The theme that most seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of delegates
to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was that we are
all responsible for one another — and that Republicans don’t want
to help the poor, the sick and the helpless.
All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter
ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against
facts.
Yet the notion that people who prefer economic decisions to be
made by individuals in the market are not as compassionate as
people who prefer those decisions to be made collectively by
politicians is seldom even thought of as a belief that should be
checked against facts.
Nor is this notion confined to Democrats in America today.
Belief in the superior compassion of the political left is a
worldwide phenomenon that goes back at least as far as the 18th
century. But in all that time, and in all those places, there has
been little, if any, effort on the left to check this crucial
assumption against facts.
When an empirical study of the actual behavior of American
conservatives and liberals was published in 2006, it turned out
that conservatives donated a larger amount of money, and a higher
percentage of their incomes (which were slightly lower than liberal
incomes) to philanthropic activities.
Conservatives also donated more of their time to philanthropic
activities and donated far more blood than liberals. What is most
remarkable about this study are not just its results. What is even
more remarkable is how long it took before anyone even bothered to
ask the questions. It was just assumed, for centuries, that the
left was more compassionate.
Ronald Reagan donated a higher percentage of his income to
charitable activities than did either Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ted
Kennedy. Being willing to donate the taxpayers’ money is not the
same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth
is.
Milton Friedman pointed out that the heyday of free market
capitalism in the 19th century was a period of an unprecedented
rise in philanthropic activity. Going even further back in time, in
the 18th century Adam Smith, the patron saint of free market
economics, was discovered from records examined after his death to
have privately made large charitable donations, far beyond what
might have been expected from someone of his income level.
Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortunes
is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of
life.
Although the big word on the left is “compassion,” the big
agenda on the left is dependency. The more people who are dependent
on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for
an ever-expanding welfare state.
Optimistic Republicans who say that widespread unemployment and
record numbers of people on food stamps hurt President Obama’s
reelection chances are overlooking the fact that people who are
dependent on government are more likely to vote for politicians who
are giving them handouts.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood that, back during the
Great Depression of the 1930s. He was reelected in a landslide
after his first term, during which unemployment was in double
digits every single month, and in some months was over 20
percent.
The time is long overdue for optimistic Republicans to
understand what FDR understood long ago, and what Barack Obama
clearly understands today. Dependency pays off in votes — unless
somebody alerts the taxpayers who get stuck with the bill.
The Obama administration is shamelessly advertising in the media
— whether on billboards or on television — for people to get on
food stamps. Welfare state bureaucrats have been sent into
supermarkets to tell shoppers that food stamps are available.
The intelligentsia have for decades been promoting the idea that
there should be no stigma to accepting government handouts. Living
off the taxpayers is portrayed as a “right” or — more ponderously
— as part of a “social contract.”
You may not recall signing any such contract, but it sounds
poetic and high-toned. Moreover, it wins votes among the gullible,
and that is the bottom line for welfare state politicians.
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