The author has chosen to use a question-answer format in order to make the often complex subject matter, easier and more enjoyable to read. Q and A is not a dialogue bewteen real people -- the author has provided the dialogue for both Q, standing for Quaero, which is Latin means "I search for" and A, Auctor, which in Latin means "person responsible."
Q- Stephen Solarz, a New York congressman, chaired the Joint-Economic Committee hearing on Poverty in August, 1991. He claimed child poverty had risen by 2.2 million from 1979 to 1989 despite the booming economy.
I wonder what you think of the following statement made by the congressman at that hearing:
"Clearly no nation that allows so many of its children to live in poverty can be either competitive or compassionate."
A- Of course such a statement belies our heritage. Many of the greatest figures in our nation's history grew up in poverty, Abraham Lincoln being the perhaps the most visible. Perhaps it is my own pioneer stock---my family came to California by covered wagon long before the civil war---that prompts me to remind the congressman that those people were spiritually rich; they possessed things like character, honor and fortitude. People who grew up in a poverty that can hardly be imagined today, were the engines in the drive that led to our competitive position as the most powerful nation in the world.
Now if Mr. Solarz were referring to poverty of character, values and role models, I would agree. But, if I'm not mistaken he prescribes more dollars and government programs, and that is at best, only a poor prescription for material poverty. As for compassion, I defy anybody to show that Americans are not, and have not always been the most compassionate people on this planet.
Q- Are you familiar with historian Gertrude Himmelfarb's recent book, Poverty and Compassion?
A- I would highly recommend it, especially to every member of congress. It is a continuation of her earlier history of poverty as it occurred in England in the 19th century, titled The Idea of Poverty.
In this latest work the parallel between the poverty in Britain's inner cities one hundred years ago and the poverty in our own inner cities today is striking. Ms. Himmelfarb details the various public policies that Britain wrestled with and reinforces the truth of that old saying that "There's nothing new under the sun".
Q- You mean the English had the same problems and proposed the same solutions that are being proposed in America now?
A- I wouldn't say the same, but would you settle for similar? Technology has advanced so much in a hundred years, plus the fact that Britain has always had structured distinct classes, unlike America. The USA strives to be "the classless society" and although that is probably not possible, we have attained a very broad middle class.
Q- Also we have mobility among the unstructured classes that do exist in this country. It is possible to go in and out of upper, middle and lower classes several times during a single life time, and quite common for the second or third generation of America's upper class to fall into the large middle class. Also I've heard that Americans emphasize volunteerism and philanthropy to a greater extent than other countries.
A- In Poverty and Compassion Ms. Himmelfarb discusses the clashes between private philanthropy and government programs, workfare and welfare, children, the elderly, those incapable of caring for themselves because of physical infirmities, because of economic conditions and because of their own behavioral choices. It seems the English, over a hundred years ago, found that government programs could not change behavior and that underlying most poverty was lack of character and virtue.
Q- I thought socialism was prevalent in Britain at that time?
A- Not during the 19th century. Although I suppose you could say socialism had its beginnings in the mid 1880s with the founding of the Fabian Society.
Q- What is the Fabian Society?
A- It was an organization that took its name from the delaying tactics of the Roman general Fabius Cunctator, who harassed Hanibal and his Carthaginians but avoided pitch battle until Rome had gathered its strength. The society's goal was to "delay" violent revolution by seeking, via government programs, to change society gradually. The socialist state was their ideal and the British Labour Party, founded in 1906, was largely due to their efforts. George Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb and Beatrice Potter Webb were perhaps its most famous founders.
The Fabians tried, and pretty well succeeded, in replacing Herbert Spencer whose thought had prevailed in Britain and America, even after his death in 1903.
Q- Spencer was a philosopher, if I recall correctly, who emphasized individualism and social Darwinism, which held that society evolved on Darwin's biological model. He explained social inequalities by evoking the law of "survival-of-the-fittest".
A- Exactly. Spencer opposed any form of state intervention in the economy. The socialists blamed Britain's poverty and other social ills on Spencer's philosophy. They decided that private schemes cannot work and that only government is capable of eradicating poverty in society.
Q- That does parallel the debate that started during the Great Depression in this country and continues today. "What is the proper role of government?"
A- The welfare state got a good foothold in England about twenty years before it caught on here with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. It took Margaret Thatcher about eight years to subdue it in England, although the Labour Party is still a very strong influence.
Q- The Reagan Revolution was suppose to trim the welfare state in this country with it's cry of "Government is the problem, not the solution." The media has been claiming for quite some time now that the Reagan Revolution is dead-- and thank goodness. Do you agree?
A- Not only do I not agree but I believe the challenge facing us now is to complete the revolution. The Reagan Revolution barely got started and never really progressed beyond rhetoric.
Q- But do the majority of citizens want that?
A- I have a very real contempt for people who go around proclaiming what the American people want but I guess I have to put myself in that category if I'm going to answer your question. Let me preface my opinion by admitting it is an opinion. I believe the American people are sick of paying more taxes with less results, but on the other hand they want a return to compassion and caring which means an effective and efficient form of aid for the unfortunate.
Q- Programs like what?
A- Programs that save money while saving people which means market oriented programs. Programs that are flexible and give folks choice and a sense of control.
There are countless alternatives to the old way of doing things and we must find those alternatives and put them into practice. It is extremely important to bring power closer and closer to the individual by transferring it whenever possible to a lower rung, as from the federal government to the state, to the county, to the town, to the neighborhood to the family and finally to the individual.
Let me share an interesting program with you. In August 1991 C-SPAN invited viewers to call-in and discuss poverty with a panel consisting of John Tucker, an attorney and author; Kent Amos, a community volunteer and George de Vincent, a renowned photographer of people living in poverty.
One caller told of her personal experience in community settlement homes in Honolulu.
Q- What is a community settlement home?
A- A type of community center for the whole family. Mothers learned how to cook, had classes, games and care was provided for the young children. A swimming pool and athletic field was available as well as a dental clinic and well-baby clinic. Doctors and dentists gave their day offs, maybe once a month. Then the government came in with their rules and regulations. Now, she sighed, it is different. What thrived under the community (neighborhood) languished and became inefficient under government funding and heavy regulation.
Q- Sounds like a bit of nostalgia.
A- Exactly John Tucker's response. He answered the caller:
We kind of have to resist the idea that we can go back to the good 'ol days when everyone took care of his neighbor. It would be wonderful if that were true but we now have sections in the major cities of the USA that are essentially abandoned by the middle class and the working people. I'm not sure that there is any way that the old-fashioned settlement house can solve that problem. But what is true, is that whole idea---the wholistic approach is exactly what the old settlement did.
Kent Amos said the role of government is to support the community efforts instead of heaping bureaucracies upon them. He had no desire to go back in time but wanted to go forward in a productive way. He favored having churches, with family-life centers dispensing government services.
Q- Doesn't Mr. Amos belong to an organization called One to One where wealthy corporate executives try to connect with the economically deprived who need help?
A- That's right. A caller said we (taxpayers) now provide free lunches, free books, subsidized housing---where does it end---it does no good.
Mr. Tucker answered that recipients are without hope. He wanted to bring ordinary citizens back into contact with ghetto residents.
George de Vincent agreed that the country needs hope. He spent a few minutes bashing President Bush and praising Lyndon Johnson.
Then Mr. Amos said real vision doesn't come from government. He questioned how role models are created and pointed out that in 1958 the family was the number one influence in a child's life, the number two influence was education and number three was church, with peers bringing up the number four space. "Today TV is number one for all Americans!" He believed we should focus on positive role models---many people have been able to wind their way through the drugs and crime and have become successful citizens. Actually, he reminded us, few Americans, no matter where they live, are drug dealers.
George de Vincent told the story of a mother with two girls and a boy living in a one room basement apartment in Chicago. The boy had a collection of books lined up on the wall--he took the books from the library and kept them---his dream was to be a writer.
Q- Was that suppose to be admirable? I wouldn't like to see Mr. de Vincent's idea of a role model!
A- An irate caller from West Virginia said she was ninth of seventeen children and the eight above her could read and write and the eight below could not. Her point was the deterioration of our educational system. Her father had a sense of responsibility--the family ate beans and rice and paid for their own broken bones, tonsillectomies, pregnancies and her dad had money set aside to bury his wife, himself and three children. (He died in 1979) Now people won't even pay $30 or$40 dollar for a health plan sponsored by the government. Kent Amos agreed with the caller that responsibility is the key---only he twisted it to mean "government must meet its responsibility." He was interested in how the government delivers the resources back to us.
Q- I'm sure there must have been some callers in sympathy with the views of the panel members but I was struck by the-anti government attitude of those you mentioned and the failure of any panel members to talk about meaningful reform. If you had been a panel member what would you have said?
A- I guess I put my foot in that one. Well---let's take on a toughie. The medicaid program, all by itself, provides an incentive to remain in poverty. How about requiring modest payments in all but catastrophic cases? As for housing subsidies, why doesn't the government pay rents directly to landlords who are easier to supervise than hundreds of thousands of welfare clients, many of whom get the government money but forget to pay their rent. This would cut down on evictions. Many people make a practice of leaving one apartment after another in shambles, always one step ahead of the landlord and the sheriff. The members of the welfare culture tend to consume more housing in terms of its financial value and depreciation than does the middle class.
Q- What do you think of the idea that poverty doesn't cause crime but crime causes poverty?
A- I buy it! Businesses don't want to operate in the ghettos because of the high risks, people cannot go to schools because of fear and so forth. The entire community may be held hostage to criminals.
Q- In September, 1991 San Francisco was held hostage. This is speculation on my part, but the city may have been so afraid of the costly law suits frequently filed by people arrested in demonstrations, that the San Francisco police had orders to let the destruction occur and video tape the offenders who were to be arrested after the fact.
A- You must be talking about the riots that occurred in San Francisco after California's governor vetoed legislation expanding gay rights. Approximately $250,000 worth of damage occurred to public property and no arrests were made. This is a very unsettling turn of affairs, but I don't see how it can cause poverty.
Q- A Chicago neighborhood group asked its low-income residents about their skills rather than inquiring as to their needs in a variation of the quotation JFK made famous: "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." Only in this case the idea was to get "your country" and its excessive government out of the picture entirely by emphasizing the potentially profit-making skills of the residents rather than the services they might need. It was found that the most common work experience of residents was in the area of health care. With that bit of information the organization was successful in placing fifty of the unemployed in jobs within a few blocks of their homes.
A- In Rhode Island, Opportunities Industrialization Center had been working with federal money since 1967 in an attempt to find jobs for minority and disadvantaged people. When funds dried up in 1980, in order to achieve self-sufficiency OIC decided to train clients to work in their own workplaces. It was able to gain ownership of half a machine-metal company and a company to produce high-protein fish products. The ventures are used to provide skills, and jobs and generate taxes instead of absorb them. OIC's director, Michael Van Leesten is a firm believer that the only way to gain economic power is through your own efforts.
Q- In his highly recommended 1988 book When Government Goes Private, Randall Fitzgerald hits the nail on the head:
Profit motives can be merged with moral imperatives to produce quality services for the disadvantaged. With government agencies continuing to assess needs, set contract standards, and monitor performance, human-service entrepreneurs can relieve government of many of its provider burdens.
A- Most people believe government spending and incentives will be needed. Head Start, housing vouchers, tax credits for the working poor are on the top of their agenda. They seek to find a proper balance at each step of the way between security and risk taking. Their goal is to encourage nurturing and caring values as opposed to competitive, individualistic and selfish ones. They emphasize community and are fond of declaring "We're all in this together."
Q- And you?
A- My top priority is to encourage the poor to help themselves. Thank goodness we have made progress since the judgmental 19th century, as evidenced by the many individuals and organizations in the field that incorporate nurturing and caring values in their ministries. The job is to get on with the work of building a society that is open, diverse, and free. To me that means equal opportunity and allowing results to depend on individual responses to those opportunities.
Q- Robert Kuttner, the antithesis of Randall Fitzgerald whom I know you admire, believes those who think as you do are living in the past. His recipe for reversing the decline of the middle class is a more progressive tax policy and stronger unions. He would love to discourage speculation and its chance of "unearned overnight fortunes". Mr. Kuttner wants tax policy to redistribute income and to do away with windfall gains and speculators. He points to S & L speculation to back up his point. He urges "strategies" (central planning) to improve quality of workers and the types of available jobs. He is a strong advocate for more policies that include things like Head Start, a full employment economy, wage subsidies, on-the-job-training. Mr. Kuttner claims there are no hard-core poor in Western Europe because there is no free market. A century ago America, in the robber-baron era was more unequal than now.
A- You've got that right when you suggest that Robert Kuttner is one person I have disagreed with---pretty near always, in everything!
Q- Mr. Kuttner blamed the increasing gap between rich and poor on cheap foreign labor, the poorly paid service economy, demographic changes in the work force, deregulation, anti-unionism and shifts in tax and spending by the federal government. Robert Kuttner says no one wants to believe in a declining middle class, because if it were true it would be an indictment against capitalism.
A- Ronald Reagan is Mr. Kuttner's whipping boy. To him, RR stands for Reverse Robinhood. Mr. Kuttner characterizes the 1986 tax reform that was steered through the congress by Dan Rostenkowski and many, many Democrats, as a system that gives special breaks to the very rich and withdraws subsidies from the poor. He believes deregulation can do no good---it provides new opportunities for speculation and makes the rich, richer. He ignores all the jobs that were opened up, thanks to deregulation.
Q- He doesn't exactly ignore those new jobs. Low wage jobs were created for the bottom half of the labor force, isolating the underclass even more, according to Robert Kuttner.
A- I believe rapid economic growth is the best way to eliminate poverty. Government programs have made many Americans immune to economic growth. So much is done in the name of helping the poor, but it is evident that more harm than good is done in providing incentives which encourage dependency. Like tough love, rather than trying so hard to lighten the burden of poverty, perhaps it should be recognized for what it is; rather than making poverty more palatable, people should be helped to escape from it. Poor people are not as stupid as policymakers suppose.
Q- Steven Wineman falls somewhere between Randall Fitzgerald and Robert Kuttner, and may be someone you would like to encourage. He has been described as a "radical leftist social worker and critic of the centralized welfare state." He would like to see urban neighborhoods treated as the primary social units. He believes cooperatively organizing nonprofit health-insurance plans among workers would eliminate the need for public funding of medical care. Another unlikely ally might be found in Ted Koderie of the Hubert Humphrey Institute. He claims the debate is not community versus individualism and wonders that anything can be accomplished in a society where more than half of its members have their incomes determined politically. He believes the status-quo human services bureaucracy champions laws and regulations that virtually deprive the private sector of the right to care for themselves and each other.
A- "Laws and regulations that virtually deprive the private sector of the right to care for themselves and each other." You're saying that because of what I wrote in my book dealing with the social security system---right?
Q- You've lost me---what do you mean?
A- During the interview with Loren Dutton at the back of Social Security: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed, first published in 1985, I said the following in response to Loren's question of why I studied law:
I was confused by a system which prevented me and others from responding to social need without first checking in with an attorney! My heritage is Berkeley, California--four generations---and I'm fiercely proud of the intellectual stimulation and tolerance fostered by that environment.
I used to shop at the Co-op grocery store on Shattuck Avenue and one day I saw an 18 month old baby girl "advertised" on the bulletin board. A San Francisco mother was trying desperately to give her away. There were two pre-adolescent children in the family and this baby was the result of the mother's extra-marital activities and had become the lightning-rod for discord within the family.
The presence of another man's child was a constant affront to the husband and he took his hurt out on the rest of the family. The poor woman had tried to give the child to the state but felt she could not ask her husband to contribute to the child's welfare on an on-going basis (a state requirement) so she had tried to lose the child; abandoning her first in a department store and then in a bus station but the police traced her both times. She had tried giving the child away before, but each time the baby was brought back. The child had a slight physical deformity, crossed eyes and as one might expect, some emotional problems.
The situation almost repeated itself a year later. This time I was contacted because I had volunteered to take the children of young couples so they could get away on a special weekend or in an emergency. However, on one occasion the mother wanted more than help for a day or two for her baby---she believed she was unfit to care for the child and that she was in the midst of mental breakdown.
The baby could no longer be left with a mother-in-law who was too frail and old to care for him. She felt she had nowhere to turn. Of course we suggested government agencies and foster care, but the mother was deathly afraid that once she gave her child up to the state she would never meet their standards for getting him back. She was afraid, and I believe justifiably, of government interference and control over their lives.
In all this human suffering, misguided laws were prohibiting a human solution to the problems.
If those aren't examples of what Ted Koderie means by "laws and regulations that virtually deprive the private sector of the right to care for themselves and each other", then I don't know what he is saying.
Q- I never read your social security book, but I do think those are the types of human problems to which Mr. Koderie was referring. Other experts favor private delivery of publicly funded social-welfare services and prefer to see non-profit, rather than for-profit entities involved.
A- Why?
Q- They say that for-profit entities need well defined goals in order to perpetuate a return on any investment. An opposing view is represented by the Alpha Center in Minneapolis. Although it is itself a nonprofit group, it wants to speed up the privatization of human services by fostering the expansion or creation of for-profit businesses in roles traditionally played by government or nonprofit organizations. The organization has a lot of corporate backers who have contributed $50,000 a year for a minimum of four years as seed money to help create profit-making service providers.
A- I'll buy that, and let me show you why. A short case history should illustrate that government is not the solution---it can't be depended on for a rainy day.
A 64 year old disabled cook in our area had been getting $417 a month from social security and working three days a week and making $10,000 a year. Social security rules limited his outside earnings to $6,000 a year and so his payments were stopped and Medicare coverage was cancelled also. The Social Security Administration even tried to get the man to refund $11,000 it had paid him. His $600 a month take-home pay doesn't begin to cover the $550 he pays for a studio apartment, utilities, car and health expenses. He overcharged his credit card and has payments to make to the bank which he thought would be handled when the mess with social security was straightened out.
Q- More people are beginning to see that government has overreached its area of competence. Mario Cuomo once said, "It is not government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they're provided."
A- Even one of Ralph Nader's right hand men has advocated privatization claiming "the private sector can be held more accountable to the public for clean water than can government. " (Larry Silverman, anti-pollution lobbyist) Instead of an era of greed, as opponents of Reagan's presidency often refer to the eighties, both President Reagan and now President Bush, with his "points of light" agenda, have awakened a sense of individual responsibility in people that hasn't been apparent since the Kennedy era.
Q- I think you're right. The Great Society program and the elevation of the welfare state made most people think government had the welfare of the poor and unfortunate under control. All government seemed to want during the late sixties and through the seventies was our dollars, and they got that with a huge expansion in government spending and entitlement programs.
A- I've got examples to prove the correctness of your assertion that a variety of activists are searching for alternatives to government dependency.
Lupe Anguiano, former nun, migrant worker and labor organizer for Caesar Chavez, became disillusioned with the possibility of transforming an unresponsive welfare system from within. She created a private-sector group to rescue mothers from welfare by taking up residence in a public housing project in San Antonio, Texas and organizing many of the women there. She and a 100 of the women stormed a local welfare office and demanded jobs in exchange for their welfare checks.
Q- I wouldn't think you'd favor demanding jobs from a government agency?
A- Hold on a minute. The media had a hey day and the business community, within six months, found jobs for 500 former welfare recipients.
Q- That's more like it---and goes to show that people are anxious to help those who show they are willing to put forth some effort to help themselves.
A- Ms. Anguiano had screened and trained these women in basic job skills using local colleges and volunteers from the participating businesses. Her program (National Women's Employment and Education, Inc. ) was able to train a participant for $671 in private funds, compared to the $3,000 to $15,000 costs per trainee for the local public-sector programs. Her follow-up-once-a-week monitoring lasted a year instead of the three month follow up provided by government.
The extensive and sensitive support system which distinguishes Lupe Anguiano's methods, many believe is responsible for the ninety percent job placement and eighty-eight percent job retention rate achieved the first year. She accepts no government funding because she is unwilling to abide by government rules. Even when unemployment was twenty-three percent in Tacoma, Washington, her group had no difficulty in finding jobs for clients.
Q- Why don't others adopt her methods if they are so successful?
A-In 1978 her program was used as a model in eight communities in five states, using a combination of federal, state and private funds. Surprisingly the groups that took state and federal money ended up with worse results than the privately funded groups, even though they all used the identical program.
Q- That's something to publicize. Why haven't I heard this before? It is a terrific example for anyone who is attempting to show government funds are not needed to solve society's ills.
A- Better than that, Lupe Anguiano attributed this phenomenon to the strings attached to government funds in the form of regulations that diverted too much management and program time to compliance, diluting the program mission. Ms. Anguiano claimed that if her program was spread nationwide, she could liberate eighty-five percent of the poor from welfare within five years.
Q- As if the government human-service bureaucracy and welfare "rights" organizations would simply step aside.
A- That's the obstacle, all right. And it's easy to understand that people aren't anxious to sacrifice their own agendas and desert the already established delivery systems even though there is proof that those systems patronize and degrade the poor. This is another case of conflict of interest where the elimination of poverty would mean the elimination of the welfare professional's job. And then there's opposition from a good segment of the uniformed public that still cling to the mystique of LBJ's Great Society.
Q- Have you heard of Macler Shepard?
A- Wasn't Macler Shepard the upholstery shop owner in St. Louis who organized residents of an economically disadvantaged neighborhood when their homes were threatened with urban renewal?
Q- Right. After getting no response from an application addressed to the Office of Economic Opportunity he decided to take matters into his own hands His rallying cry was, "Renewal means our removal!" Together with a handful of like minded residents he formed a non-profit entity named Jeff-Vander-Lou, or JVL, after three of the streets bordering the neighborhood. The purpose of JVL was restoring the neighborhood and keeping government do-gooders at bay.
A- I remember he had some initial help from a local Mennonite church organization which gave JVL a $30,000 interest-free loan and volunteer craftsmen to help renovate abandoned buildings.
Q- And after awhile a successful businessman and one-time resident of the old neighborhood, formed a nonprofit foundation which injected a million dollars in grants and more interest-free loans into renovating JVL. The next job was to lure job-creating businesses back into the community.
A- Didn't they purchase some land at a bargain price and offer it to a private firm, hoping the manufacturer would consent to build a plant on the site, which would, they hoped, provide jobs for local residents?
Q- The Brown Shoe Company took JVL up on its offer and in less than two years trained and employed 150 JVL residents. Over the next twenty years JVL rehabilitated 800 housing units and 80 houses were renovated and sold.
A- That's right. Mr. Shepard was honored as the instigator of one of the most amazing inner-city success stories.
Q- He wasn't deterred by lack of money, power or influence and his project prospered without the help of any government entity or official.
A- Robert Woodson, president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, calls people like Macler Shepard and Lupe Anguiano, anti-bodies---those who "precipitate or advance that healing process by magnetizing the creative strengths and productive energies of those around them." Woodson's group is trying to energize hundreds of other communities. He believes that occupational licensing promotes monopolies at the expense of consumers, even though the stated motivation may be to protect public health and safety. He blames social-service professionals for having encouraged government to legislate strict standards and certifications that prevent voluntary organizations from being effective.
Q- I've always wondered what the difference is between charity and philanthropy?
A- As I see it, charity is aid to the needy whereas philanthropy could be defined as an attempt to improve the quality of life and culture of all mankind. And speaking of philanthropy, a survey of 315 large corporations found that their philanthropic contributions leaped twenty-six percent to $1.2 billion between 1984 and 1985. Contributions to the United way totaled $2.3 billion in 1985, a ten percent rise over 1984 and a 130 percent increase over the decade.
Q- Most Americans have come to regard aid to the poor as a proper role of government.
A- I think it is not only an improper role for government, but it is a role that government cannot perform well. It promotes a certain hardness as ordinary citizens are relieved from the necessity to feel compassion or responsibility for the fate of strangers in need.
Q- What do you think about the motives of a clothing manufacturer in New York who offered a $20 credit at its factory outlet for old suits that have been dry cleaned? The trade-ins were then given to the Salvation Army and Bowery Mission, providing homeless men with clothes appropriate for a job interview.
A- That's great. He combined his own marketing interests with the interests of the homeless. I believe private individuals are really creatively trying to help and that it doesn't have to hurt the giver in order to benefit the recipient.
Q- What do you think would happen if each of the tens of thousands of churches in America adopted just one welfare family?
A- Public-assistance rolls would diminish. Instead of a burden on government, helping the less fortunate could become a privilege for the millions of people in the private sector with an intense desire to be useful and make a difference in the life of their fellows. America is the land of perpetual-potential-do-gooders. Besides religious institutions, they can be found in service clubs and other civic groups and among individual citizens on the local level.
Q- With women as well as men working to make ends meet, you may be overestimating the supply of willing volunteers and contributors out there. Why not require some form of public service?
A- National service is an idea that is being actively debated throughout the country. In fact in a recent book (Taking A Stand On U.S. Competitiveness) I discussed the idea at great length. Let me say briefly here that I am categorically against national service.
Q- But already hospitals are required to care for a minimum percentage of what used to be called "charity patients" in order to maintain their tax exemption. The Texas legislature proposed laws in 1991 that would force all members of the Texas Bar to satisfy the "unmet legal needs" of the poor by offering free services. The New York State Chief Judge surveyed 3,500 attorneys to determine whether to require that all lawyers licensed in that state be forced to provide free legal service on behalf of the poor and not-for-profit organizations.
A- These proposals are based on the false premise that the rich have a moral obligation to provide for the poor.
Q- Well, at least, doesn't the government have that obligation?
A- In my opinion, no. Not in a capitalist country such as the United States of America. Government here was meant, I believe, to have a very limited role in the lives of citizens. No matter how loud the denial, it is nevertheless true that this country was built on a Judaic-Christian foundation.
The separation of church and state meant, and still means, I believe, that the state with its police power and the church with its impulse to encourage good work and charity among all people, should each play a separate, but distinct and equal role in the lives of the inhabitants of the nation.
In the America that I envision, the nurturing, compassionate side of society would have equal billing with the police state---church and state balancing one another. That, I believe, is the way it was meant to be--- that is the only way capitalism could work.
There was to be no favored "state" religion, all religions were to be tolerated, even those without a deity, such as humanism. "Church" is a symbol of the good and noble impulses in all mankind. A catalyst to bring out man's better nature and appeal to his higher self was essential to balance the laissez-faire and caveat emptor aspects of capitalism.
That's why obligation is out---obligation and duty can be enforced and belong to the sphere of the police state. Over the years government has usurped the good impulses in society signified by "the church". Government---the police power--- has known no boundaries in its growth, and the country has suffered as a consequence. Character, courage, morals, responsibility, discipline. loyalty, honesty, perseverance, integrity---all have been stunted as the jurisdiction of "the church" has been forcibly stifled and curtailed.
Q- Don't you think that's just a mite out of touch with reality?
A- I suppose you mean it's an outdated ideal---not at the moment "politically correct". I would remind you that religion enjoyed the full scale support of the population only a hundred years ago in this country. It wasn't until 1947 that religion was outlawed in public schools by a supreme court ruling. I can even play some of those "every other country does . . ." games that I despise so much.
Q- What are you trying to say? That the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't support religion?
A- Sweden is the only major industrial country that doesn't subsidize religious schools---the governments of other countries underwrite these establishments. They believe that underwriting is a way to guarantee religious freedom, to protect, preserve and extend religious freedoms. Maybe it's time for us to reconsider.
Where would we be as a nation, as a people----without our ideals?
Q- Not in this nation, at least not in the rest of this century!!
A- Values and character are pivotal to the health and success of all people and essential to our understanding of poverty. Attitudes, beliefs and actions are far more important that policies and programs when it comes to escaping poverty. As columnist William Raspberry put it, "What people do matters more than what is done to them."
Q- That may be, but I still think if hospitals are required to engage in public service in order to hold on to their tax exemptions, then other tax exempt organizations should be required to offer some kind of service for their tax exemptions also.
A- Most do so without being required. No matter what anyone says, Americans are the most generous and charitable people in the world----without being forced! Take New York City---more than $1 billion in charitable donations is given annually by the private sector and about 2,500 nongovernment agencies in that city provide health and human-resource services, enlisting hundreds of thousands of volunteers.
I once wrote a column about Malcolm Forbes' 70th birthday bash which was celebrated in a style reminiscent of the late Shah of Iran. When accused of extravagance Forbes protested that the eats were a bargain at close to $750,000 and the real expense lie with jetting his 1,000 guests round trip from the United States to Morocco.
The over $3 million party tab left Forbes, capitlist extrodinaire, with neither guilt nor shame. But even though I count myself among the staunchest defenders of capitalism, I could not escape, if not guilt, then embarrassment. Perhaps because the capitalist birthday bash shared headlines with the success of Giant pitcher Dave Draveky, that warrior against cancer, in his efforts to raise $250,000 to buy a new lease on life for a little boy in his fight against leukemia.
How proud I would have been if Malcolm Forbes, to the glory of capitalists everywhere and in honor of his 70th birthday, had donated $2 million dollars to help leukemia victims and spent only $1 million on his bash.
Q- Do you think he should have made a donation?
A- No, of course not. G-d knows he gave more to charitable causes than any million of us ordinary capitalists, but I only wish he wanted to do so. To publicize his success and happiness in such a manner would have won converts, to what I consider the most honest and benevolent system in the world---capitalism.
Q- I see what you mean. By throwing a big party for his friends, he played into the hands of the enemies of capitalism.
A- Altruists perpetuate the myth that wealth is the culmination of some undifferentiated, collective activity that somehow we are all responsible for and therefore some sort of egalitarian distribution is justified. Wealth doesn't just happen! The truth is, ordinary men, often through extraordinary effort and deprivation, are responsible for the creation of wealth. Only daydreamers view wealth as a free gift of nature, never grasping the fact that capital is created and increased by saving, innovation and investment on the part of individual human beings.
Q- It is difficult to sustain the claim that capitalism is benevolent when Forbes' press coverage portrayed the capitalist as self-centered and indulgent.
A- Under capitalism all who participate in society benefit but those on the bottom rung benefit most from the creativity and hard work of those on top.
Q- Not everyone would agree with that assessment. Professor Jonathan Wiener of the University of California at Irvine suggests that those that work the hardest and are most creative are not the most wealthy in America.
A- However he offers no figures or other statistics which can be refuted but only what appears to be a hunch that the wealthy were merely lucky or had wealthy parents.
Q- I admit there are different kinds of wealth just as there are different kinds of spending---productive and draining, and the worst type of wealth is the wealth created by legislated privilege.
A- Capitalism is the only system of government which can protect individual rights. All other forms of government place society and society's rulers above moral law. Past governments derived power by appealing to the Divine Right of Kings, as did the Pharaohs of Egypt. Others, like the Greeks, succumbed to majority rule. Ancient forms of government regarded society as an end in itself and individual man as only a means to that end. It was therefore easily accepted that society could dispose of man, his talents, his labor, his property, the fruits of his labor and his very life and that what an individual man had, was his by the generosity of society as a whole. America broke away from this kind of thinking and experimented with a bold idea; capitalism.
Q- But the idea was never perfected in practice.
A- I admit it has been sidetracked over the past fifty or sixty years. Today in the USA, at the drop of a hat, politicians speak of what man owes his country, what it costs the government to allow an individual or group to keep some of what they have earned in the form of a deduction or credit on their tax bill; as if all dollars were the government's by right.
Q- Many politicians claim that to reward people commensurate with their efforts is to revert to the uncivilized concept of the survival of the fittest.
A- Our leaders sometimes forget that government has no purpose other than to protect the rights of each individual and these rights are not to be sacrificed involuntarily for the good of the whole.
Q- Not long ago the Catholic Bishops took their concerns about human greed to the media. They were incensed that corporations seemed more intent on maximizing profits than on meeting human needs.
A- Whoa! The desire and opportunity for profits is the best way to satisfy human needs. When the public wants meat and potatoes those needs are met by Idahoans and Texans intent on profit. The tragedy and human suffering of socialism is visible all over the world. Look back---the horrors of the second world war were an outgrowth of socialism. Hitler emphasized the importance of putting the common good before the private good. Why can't we learn?!
Q- Americans accept, even embrace the concept that income inequality is essentially fair however eighty-one percent in a recent gallup poll said the wealthy don't pay their fair share of taxes. They may not believe in each according to his need but they do believe in each according to his ability to pay. Somehow they link equality with communism and failure.
Kevin Phillips book, The Politics of Rich and Poor has data showing the increase in the gap between rich and poor increased dramatically during the 1980s. He looks for an anti-wealth backlash in the 1990s.
The Democrats try their hardest to claim the Republican party really stands for, not the average guy, but the wealthy and the Wall Street speculators. While Americans may admire entrepreneurs, there must be a tangible product involved, as in manufacturing. It is easy to hate money manipulators and speculators and Senator Robert Byrd, and other Democrats have been cashing in on that fact.
A- I'm not going to attack or defend Kevin Phillips---I think I'll ignore him and tackle the issue from a slightly different angle.
Government began measuring the distribution of income in 1967. Average real income of the bottom twenty percent increased eleven percent in the eighties even though the gap increased between the bottom and the top. Reaganomics was not the culprit; there were many reasons. Demographics, fewer young people entering the work force from college, was responsible for some of the gap. Earlier there had been so many college graduates that supply often outstripped demand and wages were lower for white collar workers. This meant the ratio between these higher paid college graduates, relative to their lower paid high-school-only graduates, was narrower. Not because the lower got more, but because the higher got less in the seventies.
In the eighties, the education level of new workers continued to rise, but there weren't as many new workers--supply and demand meant their wages rose. Unions lost power because manual labor was not in demand--there was too much supply. As world competition becomes more keen and there is less demand on physical labor, brain power will become even more of a premium. Competition forces companies to offer higher pay for top talent. Also there is a disparity within professions. For instance the salaries of new lawyers range from $42,000 to $110,000. Electrical engineers start on average at $40,000 and go to $65,000.