The more we spend on the poor, the harder it seems for them to attain decent, productive lives in loving families. The federal government has spent $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs since the beginning of the War on Poverty in 1965, but the poverty rate is nearly the same today as in 1969, fluctuating between roughly 11 and 15 percent over that time period.
As I argue in a new essay on “Poverty and Welfare in the American Founding,” these results are bound to continue unless we rethink welfare policy from the perspective of our Founders. Neither the contemporary left nor right in America properly understands their approach.
The left often claims the Founders were indifferent to the poor—suggesting that New Deal America ended callousness and indifference. Indeed, high school and college textbooks frequently espouse this narrative. Many on the right think the Founders advocated only for charitable donations as the means of poverty relief.
Neither is correct. America always has had laws providing for the poor. The real difference between the Founders’ welfare policies and today’s is over how, not whether, government should help those in need.
Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin believed government has an obligation to help the poor. Both thought welfare policies should support children, the disabled, widows and others who could not work. But any aid policy, they insisted, would include work-requirements for the able-bodied.
Rather than making welfare a generational inheritance, Franklin thought it should assist the poor in overcoming poverty as expediently as possible:
“I am for doing good to the poor.…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
As always, read the whole thing.
31 comments:
“The Founders’ Model…The Founders sought to…the Founders saw…”
And this backed up by selectively quoting two (2) whole founding fathers. Well, that solves that [rolls eyes].
Worst use of “what would the ‘Founding Fathers’ do” to support a personal ideology ever.
If Ben and Tom were brought back from the grave I doubt they would have any solutions; opinions maybe, but not viable solutions based on 18th century knowledge and cultural norms*. They at least had slavery, indentured servitude, poor houses, and asylums/hospitals for the insane to help the cause. Religious institutions were marginally effective but were subject to fluctuation and unequal distribution. There was also government service…, I mean handouts, in the form of militia/military service but the Continental and Confederation Congresses nearly starved even these possibilities. And there was much greater opportunity for hunting, fishing and farming to provide at least some meager subsistence – for the hardy, a living off the land could be eked out and lands were widely available. It’s harder to homestead in the city parks and vacant lots now days and just try finding a wild place that someone doesn’t already own.
Overall, this article is completely without meaningful substance.
* For some perspective (1):
“Mainstream economic thinking in the 18th century held that poverty was necessary and even desirable for a country's economic success.”
“’Everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor or they will never be industrious,’ the English writer and traveller Arthur Young wrote in 1771.”
“’To make the Society happy and People easy under the meanest Circumstances, it is requisite that great Numbers of them should be Ignorant as well as Poor,’ the 18th century economist Bernard de Mandeville wrote.”
1) http://oecdinsights.org/2013/09/20/poverty-then-and-now-part-1-rich-man-poor-man/
Actually you need to read his full article.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/05/poverty-and-welfare-in-the-american-founding
Jefferson’s and Franklin’s views were shared by most Americans during and after the Founding era. Burns suggested in the quotation cited on the first page of this paper that “conservatives” like Adams and Hamilton opposed government support of the poor. He cites no evidence to support that insinuation because there is none.
As noted, Trattner’s From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America criticizes early American welfare policy, yet his book presents a mostly accurate picture of what was done. Trattner shows that the earlier policies have much to recommend them: “Most communities [in colonial America] attacked the problem of poverty with a high degree of civic responsibility.”[21] The same is true, in his telling, of the Founding era and after. A historian of Founding-era welfare in New York State agrees: “Local communities attempted as best they could to assist their destitute neighbors, balancing compassion with economy, benevolence with discipline.”[22]
&c.
“Most communities [in colonial America] attacked the problem of poverty with a high degree of civic responsibility.”
But what was the physical and population size of these colonies? It would be impossible to assure a fair and measured and dependable response to poverty that is demanded by the shear magnitude of today's population and the distances separating us. Especially through periods of economic strife.
Look at smaller farm communities across the country, and I do, and I have traveled a lot through these communities and know them and the people that live there. Even these small, often close-knit communities can't provide adequate or sustained relief when they are wracked by an economy that's left most of them behind. And saying that charity belongs to the church ignores the economic conditions of the churches throughout the nation. Some are rich but most are poor and many are disappearing - not due to hateful secularists and zombies but by economics.
It's one thing to argue the metaphysics of poverty and it's another thing to keep from having a society where we just step over the poor on our way to collecting our daily bread.
If all the 18th- and 19th-century founding fathers thought that we should strap the poor to planks and send them off into the ocean is that what we would do? Or, if they all thought that the uneducated and poor were the necessary fodder for the good and righteous entrepreneur, is that the economic model we should want? If, as you cite on another blog, there are no skinny poor in America, then maybe the war on poverty is at least keeping people and children fed. Unless, of course, the extra apparent plumpitude is caused by malnutrition.
Did Jesus have any thoughts on the matter?
If all the 18th- and 19th-century founding fathers thought that we should strap the poor to planks and send them off into the ocean is that what we would do?
Did they say that? Do some research, come back with some facts. This is boring.
[rolls eyes again]
You came back without facts. Bad boy. Very bad.
[rolls eyes again]
Oy vey.
There's no way to know what "the founding fathers" would think today if they survived the shock. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, as they say.
B. Franklin at something they called the constitutional convention:
"I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being Oblig'd by better Information or fuller Consideration, to change opinions on important Subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own judgement, and to pay more respect to the judgement of others..."(1)
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
Turn and face the strange.
....
Time may change me.(2)
1) Borrowed for Joseph Ellis' The Quartet.
2) Also borrowed.
[preemptively rolls eyes]
Simply proving the point previously directed at liberal David Sehat:
"Then let the left be honest that it washes its hands of the Founders. Let 'the Tea Party Republicans of today' claim them--if they can."
Then let the right and the Tea Party be honest and own up to its love of idolatry and hatred of reality.
I love how the left turns incomprehensible when they busted by the truth.
Your interest in the Founders is purely polemical.
West's DailySignal blogpost/article seems to be full of evidence-free assertions. Please show us the evidence for this claim: that the poverty rate was "something like" 90% in the Founding era ("the poverty rate fell from something like 90 percent in the Founding era ... .") And please don't say, "read the whole [other] article."
Anonymous JMS said...
West's DailySignal blogpost/article seems to be full of evidence-free assertions. Please show us the evidence for this claim: that the poverty rate was "something like" 90% in the Founding era ("the poverty rate fell from something like 90 percent in the Founding era ... .") And please don't say, "read the whole [other] article."
Well, you should read all the articles if you're going to quibble about them. Articles aren't dissertations, they're a trail of bread crumbs for people interested in the truth, not for polemicists standing with arms folded playing Immovable Object.
Your approach to knowledge is not correct. Arguing with articles, excerpts and abstracts is sophistic.
I love how the right turns stupid when they are busted by reality.
Your interest in the Founders is purely ideological.
The left isn't interested in the Founders atall except to discredit them or declare them irrelevant. Now THAT'S ideology.
The right isn't interested in the Founders atall except to manufacture idols to enlist in battle against reality. Now THAT'S sophistry.
jimmiraybob said...
The right isn't interested in the Founders atall except to manufacture idols to enlist in battle against reality. Now THAT'S sophistry.
Yes, you admit th left's interest in the Founders is only polemical, to attack, in destroying your political opponents. Thank you. Cards are on the table.
You do not seek truth, only error. You seek to shut down discussions, not open them. Your agenda is clear.
Nothing posted here on this blog, nothing in Tom West's article, is presented as an entire argument, as a hill to fight and die on. It's presented for the sincere and curious seeker of truth to do more investigating of the issue.
This is clearly not you. Now that you've revealed your mission, your work here is done. You got your shot.
That’s a pretty nimble piece of projection as you retreat into the Truth Fortress, And coming from someone that makes everything and every comment a test of ideological adherence to their religious-political narrative. There was a time that I actually thought there was some sincerity to it but, as we know, it’s just another disingenuous rhetorical device used to disrupt, derail and disparage.
Back on track: There isn’t anything that I said that is out of line with the writings of many of the most influential and prominent of the FFs. They hardly thought that what they did was to produce a set of sacred texts or magical social models or that they were right about everything or even that their efforts would survive. Also, as the Declaration and Ben note, they recognized a need to heed the opinions of mankind and that those opinions change with time. As I indicated upstairs, there is no “the Founding Fathers” in the sense of some magical consensus or common intent – no mystical singularity. A very significant subset of the framers and ratifiers fought against one another over ideas and held their opponents in contempt.
What they did leave us was a framework for a revolutionary (for their time) framework for government and the possibility of a nation. And it’s neither a right nor a left issue to recognize the absurdity of wrapping a modern issue, such as poverty, in 18th-century founding garb for the purpose of wielding authority that doesn’t exist or to suggest that going back to earlier times is a solution. I am also not that interested in the “Founder's Model” for women or the “Founder's Model” for slavery. As they say, the past is a foreign land. The Founders lasting and real achievements in politics, law and governance transcend their own and their society’s flaws. And I find those achievements remarkable and fascinating and inspirational and cautionary. That, in part, is why I study the history.
Ah yes, slavery and women. Right on schedule.
I want the readers to see this tactic laid bare. It's the same every time.
1) The Founders didn't say that
2) and even if they did, the Founders don't matter because
a) They sucked: slavery, women, plutocracy
b) It's the 21st century and they're all dead and male and white and shit
Just save that, C&P it into the combox of every post, and save us all your misery.
Tom – how is my "approach to knowledge is incorrect"? Are you the "knowledge” police? Obviously, these blogposts are not dissertations, and I don't expect scrupulous detail or footnotes. But I do expect some verifiable evidence claims, rather than ideological bias. But back on March 7 you blithely dismissed Peter Manseau’s "America is not a 'Christian' nation" blogpost as, “Pretty fact-free.” I am making a similar claim about West’s blogpost.
There you go again with your mischaracterization and idolatry. Let the readers know that you are and have always been impervious to discussion without throwing in the argumentum ad hominem - the verbal attack designed to shut the conversation down - when you find yourself at a loss. Disingenuous and weak.
Anonymous JMS said...
Tom – how is my "approach to knowledge is incorrect"?
See above. Your approach is like Bill Murray's old riff of looking at 10 seconds movie clip and giving his review of the whole movie.
Except you do it for straight, not for laughs. if you're interested in opening, not closing dialogue, you need an expansive, not reductive approach to knowledge.
You dispute West's 90% figure. Fine. Did you do any work to find another figure? No. This is what I mean by an incorrect approach to knowledge. "No, it's not" is not knowledge, and closes, not furthers, the search for truth.
Are you the "knowledge” police? Obviously, these blogposts are not dissertations, and I don't expect scrupulous detail or footnotes. But I do expect some verifiable evidence claims, rather than ideological bias. But back on March 7 you blithely dismissed Peter Manseau’s "America is not a 'Christian' nation" blogpost as, “Pretty fact-free.” I am making a similar claim about West’s blogpost.
West had links to other pieces where he more fully develops his argument. Manseau's was a free-standing rant. Do you understand the difference?
jimmiraybob said...
There you go again with your mischaracterization and idolatry. Let the readers know that you are and have always been impervious to discussion without throwing in the argumentum ad hominem - the verbal attack designed to shut the conversation down - when you find yourself at a loss. Disingenuous and weak.
Another fact-free rant. At least when right-wingers rant, there's a point. ;-P
Tom – the burden of proof is on the “professor of politics” writing for a “research and educational institution” touting its “accurate research.” I am not scholar or expert like West, especially in economic history. But history is evidence-based, and it is up to the writer (not the reader) to support their claims (e.g., 90% poverty rate). I did not see any evidence for this claim in either West’s blogpost or the longer linked article, so I called him out on it.
Since you referred to the longer article, again West asserts that, “Two centuries ago, most Americans—at least 90 percent—were desperately poor … .” But there is a footnote, which comes from a 1964 Dept. of Commerce report, but it does not in any way substantiate the 90% claim. I assume you posted West’s blogpost because you believe that the Heritage Foundations’ “legitimacy rests on the systemic and replicable examination which we call research.” I only noted the absence of “replicable” research, so don’t shot the messenger just because you do not like the message.
Instead you or any AC reader should think about the absurdity of West’s claim. If the poverty rate was 90% circa mid-18th century, how did T.H. Breen sustain the thesis in his book, “The Marketplace of Revolution,“ why an “empire of [consumer] goods” transformed everyday life during the mid-eighteenth century when imported manufactured items from England flooded into the homes of colonists from New Hampshire to Georgia? People in poverty do not have the purchasing power for that to have happened.
Or how could 40-70% of free adult males be eligible to vote (for representatives to their colonial assemblies) when all colonies had property or tax requirements for voting (e.g., Delaware expected voters to own fifty acres of land or property worth £40. Rhode Island set the limit at land valued at £40 or worth an annual rent of £2. Connecticut required land worth an annual rent of £2 or livestock worth £40).
These are just two rather mundane examples, noted in just about every high school or college U.S. history textbook. If you want some “real” (i.e., not from an ideologically biased think tank) research on income and inequality in colonial British North America on the eve of the Revolution, consult the works of Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson (which are on the internet, although sometimes behind “pay walls”).
If you want a primary source that refutes West’s “Two centuries ago, most Americans—at least 90 percent—were desperately poor … .”, here is a direct quote from a Sept. 10, 1814 letter, where Thomas Jefferson touted America’s economic equity vis a vis Great Britain. “We have no paupers,” he wrote to Dr. Thomas Cooper, a frequent Jefferson correspondent. “The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families.”
Actually, he said
Two centuries ago, most Americans—at least 90 percent—were desperately poor by today’s standards. Most houses were small, ill-constructed, and poorly heated and insulated.
You're not arguing in the same language he is. He continues
Based on federal family income estimates, 59 percent of Americans lived in poverty as late as 1929, before the Great Depression.[28] In 1947, the government reported that 32 percent of Americans were poor.[29] By 1969, that figure had declined to 12 percent, where it remained for 10 years.[30] Since then, the percentage of poor Americans has fluctuated but has remained near the same level. As of 2013, the poverty rate was 14.5 percent.
In other words, before the huge growth in government spending on poverty programs, poverty was declining rapidly in America. After the new programs were fully implemented, the poverty rate stopped declining.
THAT'S his argument. Arguing against the 90% factoid does not engage his thesis. It's a quibble at best. Even if we stipulate your objection, the main argument is untouched.
And West is hardly saying anything that earth-shaking.
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2012/12/even-nicholas-kristof-recognizes-failure-of-government-antipoverty-program/
Though usually known for his leftist op-eds, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Sunday made a surprising admission of the failure of a government “antipoverty” program and praised a private charity organization.
In his column, Kristof reported that U.S. Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a federal assistance program for low-income disabled and elderly people, is fraught with bizarre incentives. According to Kristof, SSI discourages its beneficiaries from pursuing good job opportunities, because food stamps and disability offer more money. Also, because single women can draw more SSI assistance, female beneficiaries are less-inclined to get married.
In a particularly cruel consequence of the program, Kristof describes “parents . . . in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes.” “Moms and dads,” he says, “fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.” SSI, he explains, used to provide intellectual disability assistance only to families with mentally retarded children. Now, however, “55 percent of the disabilities it covers are fuzzier intellectual disabilities short of mental retardation, where the diagnosis is less clear-cut. More than 1.2 million children across America—a full 8 percent of all low-income children—are now enrolled in S.S.I. as disabled.” Many of these children are not permanently disabled (if disabled at all) and could be helped with education, but SSI assistance provides incentive for their parents to keep them “disabled” by withdrawing them from reading class.
Kristof continues, “This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency.”
Since we've left the Founding of America in the rear view mirror.... Kristof’s case is also quite anecdotal, which is not a rock solid foundation.
Kristof also goes on to say these things (1):
“THERE’S no doubt that some families with seriously disabled children receive a lifeline from S.S.I.”
“There’s a danger in drawing too firm conclusions about an issue — fighting poverty — that is as complex as human beings themselves.”
“I’m no expert on domestic poverty.”
“I don’t want to suggest that America’s antipoverty programs are a total failure. On the contrary, they are making a significant difference. Nearly all homes here in the Appalachian hill country now have electricity and running water, and people aren’t starving.”
Why didn't our Objectivist buddy include these quotes too? One wonders.
And there’s this:
“One reason antipoverty initiatives don’t get traction in America is that the issue is simply invisible.
“’People don’t want to talk about poverty in America,’ Mark Shriver, who runs the domestic programs of Save the Children, noted as we drove through Kentucky. ‘We talk more about poverty in Africa than we do about poverty in America.’”
Which leads to the main difficulty of relying solely on private charity, it’s totally dependent on an unsecured and vulnerable funding source – people donating of their own volition. Ask any non-profit charity what their biggest vulnerability is. Even if enough people that can afford to do so actually give money in good times then what of bad times? That’s why so many non-profits seek government grant monies to be able to function and that’s certainly no guaranteed ongoing source.
As for Save the Children:
”Save the Children is pleased to announce its support for S. 1086, the Child Care Development and Block Grant Act of 2013, which would greatly improve the safety of children in child care facilities in the event of a disaster.
“The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is the main source of federal funding that provides assistance to child care programs and families. For the last several years, Save the Children, along with numerous other organizations (including the former National Commission on Children and Disasters), has been advocating for quality preparedness planning at child care facilities.”
“Save the Children applauds Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Richard Burr (R-NC), Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) for producing this bi-partisan measure and we urge their colleagues to support it.”
Ouch! I think I just sensed an Objectivist head exploding.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/kristof-profiting-from-a-childs-illiteracy.html?_r=0
Which leads to the main difficulty of relying solely on private charity, it’s totally dependent on an unsecured and vulnerable funding source – people donating of their own volition.
If you'd read the links, you'd have found West reporting what government did for widows and orphans.
America always has had laws providing for the poor. The real difference between the Founders’ welfare policies and today’s is over how, not whether, government should help those in need.
But since your interest in knowledge extends only to attacking whatever's at hand, you go after the "Objectivist" whom I used only as a footnote to the Kristof argument.
Kristof continues, “This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency.”
THIS is the key graf, and in harmony with West's [and Franklin's] argument.
“I am for doing good to the poor.…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
I'm glad we got that cleared up. See you guys next time.
Hey, who turned out the lights?
Anyways, I’ll end with two points and some summary iteration:
1) The founders and framers lived in a completely different world – we call it the past. If you want to go shopping there to bolster a position on poverty because we should heed “the Founding Fathers,” which, as I point out, there is no “Founding Fathers,” then you have to argue in favor of their opinions on women and slavery (the whole package). Otherwise, you ruin the authority and credibility that you seek. As we all know though, there have been many attitude changes over the last couple of centuries. Worst use of FFs evah……excluding David Barton for the moment.
2) Our buddy the Objectivist is dishonestly selecting partial quotes to bolster a position that the FFs would and/or did agree with his modern opinion that government aid for the poor (and presumably everything else) is “immoral”….his words. Again, not relevant and also mucho selection bias. Just an opportunist.
West writes: ” Among the most destructive features of the post-1965 welfare regime has been….
My counter to that, having actual memories of the 60s, is that the most destructive features of the pre-1965 welfare regime were ghettoization, hopelessness and desperation.
I, as the apparent representative of all things modern and liberal, once again point out that I did not actually express opinions on government and policy regarding poverty and the poor. So, a corrective:
No one likes to see a system gamed but it will always happen. I believe that you would call that the fallen nature of man. But to gin up outright antagonism toward the whole of large-scale, effectively funded, and largely effective programs to thwart the cheats (real and imagined) and by fronting the argument with a meaningless appeal to apparent historical authority is cynical, anachronistic and not productive of any solutions. It’s not honoring them by pretending that some wouldn’t change their attitudes based on empirical observation and a sense of compassion and empathy, and seek a national solution to a national problem – assuming they acknowledged the legitimacy of an American Nation looking out for its own health and welfare. By the 60s, leaving poverty and the poor to charities and churches was not working.
The biggest plus for the argument being made by West is that providing a method to amend the bigger program to encourage people to leave is a great idea as long as there’s something to leave for that offers greater opportunity. And honestly, most liberals I know are fine with that concept. As to the idea that cutting things back so that women are more or less forced into marriage in order to merely survive, this is not necessarily going to lead them to a brighter future or into a loving and secure home for them and their children. There are far bleaker avenues available.
The biggest flaw in the argument being made by West, aside from dubiously appropriating “the Founding Fathers,” is that there is no actual viable solution being offered to a complex large-scale problem. Maybe that’s not the point.
Maybe, if the point is recognizing 1) that there is a problem, 2) the complexities of the problem and 3) that cooperation between those with different political and cultural ideologies is the solution, then bravo.
Now you can lock the doors.
OK, one last thing. No props for citing Bowie?
Props. ;-)
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