What's a Good Alternative to Socialism?

Last week, I wrote about socialism and all the things that are wrong with it. This week, I hope to write about some practical things that stand a much better chance of doing something better—some things that might even work. However, don’t look for easy answers from me. The evils of capitalism and the inequalities it produces will never be remedied by easy answers. Socialism’s outlandish popular ideas just won’t work miracles. Today’s current politicians would have us believe that society’s ills can all be countered by throwing money at them—and the more money the better. Free college tuition, free housing for everyone, a basic financial income for all citizens supplied by the government, more social security disability payments, and a single payer health care system that pays for all that ails the public, etc., etc. All that stuff is just so much nonsense. Throwing money at the problems will not solve America’s difficulties.  

Subsidizing single moms, as it was done in the Great Society programs of the 1960’s drove fathers out of the home and gave mothers excuses to demand more welfare payments and quit their education prematurely. TANF (Temporary Assistance For Needy Families), AFDC (Aid For Dependent Children), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children), food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, etc., etc., all helped human distress temporarily, but they all produced welfare dependency and substituted money for responsible fatherhood and impaired the establishment of healthy homes for children. These welfare programs all contributed to the breakdown of responsible, two parent households. America’s current politicians have included in their ideas about socialism ideas of outlandish give-away programs, e.g., free college tuition, a basic financial income for all citizens, even free housing for everyone. The American families were damaged by these welfare programs.  

Now, we are hearing about the latest fad in government give-away programs, e.g., reparations for evils endured over 100 years ago by the institution of slavery. The slaves are long gone; the slave holders are long gone. However, with the enactment of Civil Rights laws of the 1960’s more opportunities for social advancement and economic security are present in our society.  

I have some personal experience with government give-away programs from the days when we lived in Detroit in the late 1980’s. At the time, Michigan had a welfare program called General Assistance. That program aimed at helping the poor, especially in Detroit, by funding any and all the poor and unemployed people by giving them a government check every month. There were no strings attached to the give-aways. Anyone could get money just for the simple reason that he did not have a job. Thousands of people took full advantage of the program; and unemployment understandably soared.  

There was a man in our church who was receiving General Assistance. The church people prayed long and hard for him to get a job and become more productive and gain a better standard of living for himself. Our prayers seemed to have no effect—he was firmly on the dole without a job or any sign of taking care of himself.  

Finally, Nancy and I decided we should add to our prayers some concrete action for him.  We decided that we all three should search for a job so he could better himself. We went to the city unemployment office, and there we found that he was making significantly more money on General Assistance than he could earn at any job we might find for him. So…understandably, he did not get a job. He wouldn’t even try! 

Finally, a Republican was elected to the governor’s desk in Lansing; and the first thing he did was to discontinue General Assistance. Our friend promptly found a job; and when he earned his first paycheck, he proudly brought it to church to show it to us. We all rejoiced with him. Getting a worthwhile job was possible but only practical when the government assistance was discontinued.  

Social mobility up and out of poverty is possible, as our friend found out, but only after he became more productive. Productivity can and should be increased in our society, but it never will be until the poor become more productive. That can only will happen when the level of human capital increases, and, therefore, the poor become more valuable to businesses that make money. 

Human capital is the stock of habits, knowledge, social and personality attributes (including creativity) embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value. It includes the moral attributes of a society that allow a large radius of trust among its participants. Human capital can be built only by the training of young people from the cradle to the grave in a love for learning and the value of considered risk taking. For purposes of the U.S., human capital also includes the ability to communicate in English. 

Needless to say, human capitol needs to be nurtured by good home training beginning in early childhood. It requires the loving attention of two caring parents who are willing to give of themselves to teach good habits to their children. Our current generation of “welfare experts” claim that government wealth transfer programs will give the poor among us a “hand up rather than a handout.” That is a myth that has been proven wrong over and over, again. 

Thomas Sowell pointed out in the pages of Newsmax in July 2019 the give-away principle was proven wrong in the 15^th Century when wealth was confiscated from the Jews in Europe in order to give the wealth to a population of people who were lagging behind them economically. It was again proven wrong in the 1970’s when wealth was confiscated from Asians in Uganda in order to enrich another lagging population. In both of these social/economic experiments, only disaster resulted; nothing   of lasting worth came of it. It has proven wrong again and again in other contexts. He pointed out that like anything else, wealth gets used up. And when it’s gone, and there’s nobody there to replenish it, you’re worse off than before. The only thing that will prevent unearned give-away wealth from disappearing is if the recipients have enough human capitol to replenish the loss.  

As I mentioned above, there is no easy answer to the problem of unequal distribution of wealth. But…I would point out my opinion that a good starting point would be if our society would do something constructive about repairing the problem of broken homes where there is no productive father in the home. More government give-away programs including reparations will never help the situation.