On Steve Jeffrey’s Facebook wall, I found an opportunity to overview what I think the Christian view of government welfare ought to be. My brief overview of the long discussion confirmed a lot of the usual objections to libertarian Christianity – the idea that libertarian’s don’t believe in charity – the idea that government is the reason why are children aren’t getting their limbs blown off in factories, and we don’t all die from being sold lethal sandwiches – the idea that poor people are still poor no matter how rich they are (because it is a term defined relative to others). So I wrote a response which ended up being about as brief a sketch I could make of moral and economic arguments against government welfare.
So here we go:
I've never ever met a libertarian who didn't believe in private charity. Did Jesus ever take money by threat of coercion in order to help others? That is what governments do. Did Jesus ever carve out a moral exception for lawmakers and law enforcers? Never read it. Moral law is universal, and it doesn't concern itself with the labels people have given other people like "government".
Examples from the past of how hard it used to be are not relevant. General economic growth matters for these types of things. Risk reductions have a price. Improvements in working conditions have a price. Children moving from being hard laborers to students has a price. It isn't like all the bad parents happen to live in Bangladesh. General economic growth doesn't just take the form of more and cheaper stuff, it also takes the form of compensating differentials.
Defining "poor" relative to the wealth of a country is a mistake. Jesus helped poor people and people who couldn't help themselves, we should help poor people and people who can't help themselves. But that means actual poor people. Not people like me who live with under $15,000 a year. Actual poor people live with a fraction of that. Homeless people actually need help. People in third world countries actually need help. Children and the disabled actually can't help themselves. The general population of low income earners in a rich country, live well and can help themselves.
The fact that somebody else sacrificed in order for me to consume more is very real with private charity. I don't want to take advantage of someone who has personally sacrificed in order to help me. When the check comes in from some general faceless "tax payer" yes there is an attitude of entitlement and the reality that I'm living off of someone else is not real.
The foundational moral argument in the first paragraph points out that minimally we need a good reason before we coerce people. “I’m from the IRS” or “I’m a Senator”, are not good reasons. “He’s poorer than you” or “it’s efficient” are also not good answers. Good answers might include “he’s about to die” or “you’re acting violently”. Some say that Jesus didn’t even allow for that by calling for radical pacifism in Matthew 5:38-39. Either way, government activity is radically reduced by calling for law enforcers and law makers to abide by the universal moral law that we expect everyone else to adhere to.
