An acquaintance once said, “The more money I make, the less I care about people.” This ‘insight,’ he explained, informs his conservatism.
It was to me totally insensible. Conservatives do not not care about people. Opposition to welfarism and to the high taxes that end up funding dole programs do not signal a dismissive attitude toward the needy. In fact, the flip is true. The best way to help people is to teach them how to help themselves.
Liberals presuppose that government intervention is the best means of combating inequality and alleviating poverty. They could not be more wrong. Far more effective is private charity and social entrepreneurship.
In the preface of The Tragedy of American Compassion, Charles Murray notes that money is not a social cure-all. It would theoretically take just $60 billion a year to raise every American above the poverty line. So why do millions still suffer while welfare and associated entitlements consume a staggering $190 billion per annum?
Before the advent of the American social democracy in the 1930-40s, welfare was not the product of a centralized state-dominated bureaucratic. Private goodwill projects and religious charities tended to the poor with admiral efficiency. These enterprises often sought to engage on the community level. They strove to uplift the poor not just financially but also morally.
When Alexis de Tocqueville visited our fledgling republic, he witnessed the vibrancy of civic association. He was astonished to find that “general compassion” existed in conjunction with a vibrant sense of community. In fact, the “existence of small communities and strong religious ideas” led de Tocqueville to conclude that Americans “feel compassion for the sufferings of one another, when they are brought together by easy and frequent intercourse.”This concept of little volunteer societies addressing specific ills stands in stark contrast to today’s notion of society as paternal monolith, comprising all and responsible for everyone.
A remarkable feature of such charities is their ability to engage on the individual level. Jerry McAuley was a former thief who found God and made it his goal to “establish a mission and help others who were as he had been and still, to some extent, was.” His approach was radical: McAuley set his mission in the heart of the slums, reaching out directly to criminals and street toughs.
He leveraged his own past to establish genuine connections with his fellow humans. By not accepting any excuses, McAuley was successful in forcing change and making the criminals take ownership over their own lives and actions. He instilled in them a sense of responsibility and an urgency for good, orderly direction. By the time of his death, McAuley had inspired a multitude of similar missions.
A more recent philanthropic innovation is the much heralded “social entrepreneurship” phenomenon, which has produced organizations like the Aravind Eye Hospital, led by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy. Over his lifetime, Dr. V has helped more than 2.4 million impoverished Indians regain sight. He found a low-cost way to manufacture cheap eye lens and to deliver high-volume and high-quality eye surgeries. Through a graduated schedule of payments differentiating between those who can pay and those who cannot pay, the Aravind Eye Hospital has managed to help and extraordinary number of people while still running financially sustainable.
The successes of this movement have also brought us Muhammad Yunus and the great wave of microfinance. Microfinance has helped millions of poor around the globe and even thousands in the United States thus far maintain financially sustainable livelihoods, all without ever handing over unconditionally a cent.
In Muhammad Yunus’ Nobel Prize speech, he speaks of these social businesses:
“Young people all around the world, particularly in rich countries, will find the concept of social business very appealing since it will give them a challenge to make a difference by using their creative talent. Many young people today feel frustrated because they cannot see any worthy challenge, which excites them, within the present capitalist world.
“Social business is important because it addresses very vital concerns of mankind. It can change the lives of the bottom 60 per cent of world population and help them to get out of poverty.”
The dominant themes underlying social entrepreneurship and private charity are choice, self-authorship, and responsibility to one’s self and one’s fellow humans. Government intervention has atrophied the muscles once used by our society to power organically the relief of poverty and deprivation. However, America’s generous spirit is as alive today as it was in de Tocqueville’s time. Consider that Americans ponied up nearly half a billion dollars in relief for Haitians, a distant and foreign people. If we invest greater faith in each other, if we hold one another to higher standards, then we need not rely on the coercive paternalism of the state.
