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Jewish World Review August 24, 2005 / 19 Av, 5765 Private charity would do much more — if government hadn't crowded it out By John Stossel
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When "Cheech," a street hustler, would stand outside my
apartment building begging, I'd ask him why he was begging. He'd tell me
about his gambling and family problems, and I'd repeatedly tell him,
"Someone who speaks as well as you could do much more with his life," and
I'd encourage him to consult New York City's Social Services agencies. I
could have done more for Cheech personally, but I said to myself, "Better
leave it to the specialists — my city spends billions on social services —
they have specialists to deal with people like Cheech."
Multiply that thought by 296 million Americans, and you see how
public assistance displaces private charity. And that's only the beginning
of the damage.
Twice we've brought ABC's cameras to Delancey Street, a mutual
aid charity in San Francisco. It's a collection of hundreds of former street
people and ex-cons (18 felony convictions is the average) who live and work
together and help each other out.
Delancey Street has been hugely successful. Thirteen thousand
people have been through its programs. The ex-addicts now run a dozen
businesses, including a restaurant and a moving company.
But Mimi Silbert, who started Delancey Street, says it almost
didn't happen, because government kept getting in the way. "We have had to
fight every bureaucracy that exists." Silbert doesn't employ certified
teachers and drug counselors, so welfare workers tried to smother her with
red tape. "If Jesus Christ walked in today and wanted to start Christianity,
he wouldn't be able to do it because they say to him, 'You need two
psychiatrists, you need one social worker, somebody has to sign the things .
. . '"
Silbert wanted to help some of the worst-off people in America
learn to be productive citizens. The government, which typically doesn't do
anything more productive with those people than lock them up, release them
and lock them up again, nearly stopped her with its complicated rules.
Fortunately, Silbert fought the bureaucrats and won, but many
others are beaten down by the bureaucracy. Government often makes private
charity so difficult, individuals stop trying.
I once thought there was too much poverty for private charity to
make much of a difference. Now I realize that private charity would do much
more — if government hadn't crowded it out. In the 1920s — the last decade
before the Roosevelt administration launched its campaign to federalize
nearly everything — 30 percent of American men belonged to mutual aid
societies, groups of people with similar backgrounds who banded together to
help members in trouble. They were especially common among minorities.
Mutual aid societies paid for doctors, built orphanages and
cooked for the poor. Neighbors knew best what neighbors needed. They were
better at making judgments about who needs a handout and who needed a kick
in the rear. They helped the helpless, but administered tough love to the
rest. They taught self-sufficiency.
Private charity develops a sense of personal responsibility for
recipients, and it does something similar for donors, too. If I hadn't
thought the government would take care of Cheech, I would've had to decide
whether I thought he was worth my money — money I could spend on myself and
my family, or on promoting freedom, or on any number of charitable causes.
When you rely on the government to help those who need it, you
don't practice benevolence yourself. You don't take responsibility for
deciding whom to help. Just as public assistance discourages the poor from
becoming independent by rewarding them with fixed handouts, it discourages
the rest of us from being benevolent. This may be the greatest irony of the
welfare state: It not only encourages the poor to stay dependent, it kills
individuals' desire to help them.
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© 2005, by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc. |
Mitch Albom | ||||||||||||
