Welfare and Charity in Society Essay

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Updated: Mar 16th, 2024

Welfare

Ever since the promoters of neo-Liberalism had taken over the designing of social policies in Western countries, their preoccupation with popularizing the concept of the “welfare state” assumed pathological qualities. Nowadays, the majority of people in these countries are made to believe that society’s proper functioning cannot be assured, without citizens becoming automatically eligible for various social assistance programs; every time they find themselves unemployed. However, under closer look, the very essence of this seemingly progressive idea appears to be utterly counterproductive; because, whatever illogical it might sound – modern social assistance programs do facilitate poverty. In this paper, we will aim at substantiating the validity of this suggestion and also at revealing the very concept of charity as not only metaphysically senseless but even socially dangerous, when applied practically.

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In their book “Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy”, Diana DiNitto and Linda K. Cummins provide us with the insight on historical origins of social assistance programs in America: “Originally, the Social Security program covered only retirement benefits for workers in about half of the labor force; many farm and domestic workers and self-employed people were exempted, as were state and local government employees” (DiNitto, Cummings 127). In other words, what initially used to qualify American citizens for welfare in the thirties was their previous extensive work record, because only people, who had proven their willingness to work hard in the past, were assumed as eligible to receive monetary assistance from the government, in order to be able to get back on their feet. This can be explained by the fact that ever since the founding of the United States in 1776, the designing of socio-political policies in this country was firmly based on Protestant existential ethics, which derive out of principle: “if you cannot help yourself – no one can”. Therefore, it is important to understand that originally, America’s social assistance programs were being conceived as “stimulus” rather than “help”. Nowadays, this is no longer the case, because the government considers welfare as simply a practical tool of building a “fair and tolerant society”, with American citizens being expected to “celebrate diversity” as their foremost priority. Whereas, before the outbreak of WW2, the issue of poverty has been viewed through the lenses of both: sociology and biology; today, the causes for poverty are assumed to be strict of environmental nature. In their book, DiNitto and Cummings make a perfectly good point when they state: “Although inadequate income has always been a concern during economic depressions, poverty has been a political issue only for the last 45 years” (DiNitto, Cummings 81). Even though that there is plenty of evidence as to the fact that biological factors play a very important role, within a context of defining people’s social status, the very thought that citizens’ racial affiliation affects the particularities of their lifestyle, is now considered taboo – it is namely this that results in modern social assistance programs being utterly ineffective. People are not being forced into poverty, as promoters of the neo-Liberal agenda want us to believe – very often, living in the state of poverty simply corresponds to their mentality. For example, the drop out-rate among Hispanic students in high schools accounts for 45%, and as practice shows, these students consciously choose in favor of dropping out of schools, simply because they want to pursue a career as drug dealers while understanding perfectly well the consequences of such their decision. They know that in America, only people with university diplomas have a chance of obtaining steady and well-paid jobs, yet the prospects of fast and illegal enrichment cause many Hispanic students to be willing to sacrifice their future. In its turn, this explains why Hispanics are being affected by poverty to a significantly higher degree, as compared to representatives of other ethnic minorities.

Today, it is being commonly assumed that it is practically impossible for an individual to meet ends while relying on welfare as the only source of income. However, as practice shows, many welfare recipients have a different perspective on this issue. They are quite satisfied to be getting $500-$600 worth in welfare checks on a monthly basis, without having to work, because it is more than enough to satisfy their primitive needs. And, in case they run out of money, they simply conceive more children, whose birth will automatically qualify parents for a substantial increase in welfare payments. It is not a secret that many Hispanic families have turned “child-making” into a full-scale commercial enterprise while thinking about the idea of looking for work as ridiculous. Therefore, even though that the concept of providing citizens with social assistance, while they are in need, is absolutely appropriate, the realities of multicultural living in today’s America and in other Western countries had deprived it of its beneficial effects on a nation-wide level. Nowadays, citizens are not being made eligible for welfare payments because they actually deserve it, but because their existence is believed to represent an objective value. Thus, the very concept of social assistance as monetary stimulus has now been replaced with the concept of welfare as charity. In its turn, this resulted in the welfare system becoming the agent of social entropy in Western countries. In their article “Work and Economic Outcomes after Welfare”, Thomas Vartanian and Justine McNamara argue that the negative effects of social assistance programs on society’s integrity are proportionate to these programs’ extensiveness: “There are many indications as to the fact that the likelihood of poverty and welfare use increases as welfare benefits increase. Moreover – the likelihood of employment decreases as welfare benefits rise” (Vartanian, McNamara 43). People that are being instilled with the idea that it is society’s responsibility to assure their well-being, become psychologically disarmed while facing life challenges. In its turn, this decreases their chances of attaining prosperity. This is why it is important to understand that the welfare system cannot be thought of as a “thing in itself” – social assistance programs can only benefit people for as long as these programs do not undermine society’s structural wholesomeness. However, the very neo-Liberal concept of “welfare state”, which is now being advertised as utterly progressive, can only be practiced at the expense of society’s members becoming “existentially atomized”. The only reason why, up until recently, Western societies have been strongly associated with the notion of cultural and scientific progress, is because these societies’ existential energy was being utilized for reaching external goals. Today, it is no longer the case – this energy is now serving the purpose of increasing the levels of equality among citizens. However, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the complete dissipation of energy within a system causes this system to collapse. Therefore, the existence of the state of inequality among people is vital, within a context of these people pursuing their evolutionary destiny – White people’s ability to put a man on the Moon is innately interconnected with the inability of members of many indigenous tribes, throughout the world, to evolve beyond a Stone Age, over the course of millennia. This is the reason why the concept of social assistance programs as the tool of facilitating equality among people is not only utterly unscientific but also potentially dangerous, as it increases the amount of energetic entropy, within a society. It is not by pure accident that the apparent slowing down of the pace of scientific progress in Western countries (with exception of the invention of the Internet, not a single scientific breakthrough of universal magnitude has been achieved, over the course of the last 30 years), coincided with the rapid increase of welfare’s popularity among citizens. In his article “Is Welfare Redeemable”, Randy Frame is making a good point when he states: “One clear failing of the present welfare system is its inability to provide assistance without creating harmful dependencies, diminishing individual responsibility, and eroding family cohesiveness and accountability… We are destroying human spirits and souls when we create a system which is focused totally on the elimination of deprivation, instead of a system which encourages autonomy, encourages people to develop their skills, encourages people to live lives of disciplined virtue” (Frame 45). Thus, it will not be much of an exaggeration, on our part, to suggest that the modern concept of social assistance programs actually facilitate poverty in Western countries, because politicians in charge of designing them, do not seem to be concerned with anything else but increasing their chances of getting reelected. In fact, turning America into a welfare state has become an official agenda of this country’s new Presidential Administration. However, given the fact that this agenda does not incorporate a scientific understanding of people’s biological nature, as its essential element, it will fail, just as it happened to numerous neo-Liberal social initiatives in the past.

Charity

As we have mentioned earlier, today’s concept of welfare programs is charitable in its very essence. Many people think of such a state of affairs as absolutely appropriate, without understanding that they could not possibly be more wrong. This is because the notion of charitable activities as such that is capable of providing qualitative help to people in need is scientifically fallacious, which is why people who practice these activities only add to the amount of pain and suffering in the world. In his book “The Death of the West”, Patrick J. Buchanan rightly suggests: “Great folly of

Christian doctrine was probably never as glaringly revealed as by the insane policies the Christian churches implemented in the Third.

World. The churches oppose contraception, sterilization, and abortion among their members. This results in exploding population growth which is further abetted by the medical care and food provided by the same churches” (Buchanan 125). Whenever we like it or not – people are subjected to the laws of evolution as much as plants and animals. Therefore, just as trilobites, which can still be found at the ocean’s depths, represent the “dead end “of aquatic evolution, people associated with primitive cultures; represent the “dead end” of human evolution. In its turn, this allows us to conclude that religious and political doctrines that promote the principle of egalitarianism are counterproductive, as they prevent the course of evolution from remaining on its natural track. Nowadays, the notions of conventional morality (sanctity of human life, equality, tolerance, etc.) serve as agents of social entropy, because it is due to the fact that such notions are being forcibly jammed down people’s throats in Western countries, which result in these countries being gradually turned into Third World slums themselves. Therefore, it is important to understand that, contrary to a popular belief, charity is not a virtue – it actually represents a transgression against the laws of nature. This is why we cannot agree with “professional moralists” as Jenifer Delton, who in her article “Charity State” insists that people must be willing to “give”, in order to make this world a better place: “Charity is valuable because it fosters social cohesion, contentment, and wealth. It is thus valuable to individual givers, their communities, and the nation” (Delton 25). The sheer ineffectiveness of charity, as a metaphysical concept, which implies the possibility that poor people can really be helped, by becoming the subjects of charitable activities, is best illustrated by U.N. inability to eliminate “world’s hunger”. For the duration of the last 30 years, not a single U.N. Session has been conducted, without delegates spending a great amount of time while discussing what can be done to eliminate hunger in developing countries. Yet, despite milliards of dollars being poured into these countries’ economies, over the course of decades, people in Africa did not become less hungry. The reason for this is simple – “developing countries” are not really developing, they are rapidly descending into primeval savagery. There can be no doubt as to the fact that citizens in Western countries have the right to “give”, in order to feel better about themselves, but only utterly naïve people can believe that charitable activities represent an objective value – only those who can help themselves deserve to be helped, but they do not require any help. It is a well-known fact that banks prefer giving credits to those who do not really need any money, as opposed to those who claim that, without being given a monetary credit, their lives would be destroyed. The same applies to “people in need” – the more they seem to require assistance, the less likely they would be able to benefit from it. This is why people that are chronically dependent on social security programs, as the way to make living, represent such a heavy social burden. Nevertheless, given the fact that Earth is already being three times overpopulated, only the countries that would be able to adjust their social policies to the notion of sanity (elimination welfare system altogether), are going to have a competitive chance in the future. Therefore, the hordes of welfare recipients in Western countries, 35% of which consist of newly arrived immigrants from the Third World, must be cut off from any monetary assistance altogether, if these countries continue to exist in the future.

References

Buchanan, P. (2001). The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization. NY: Thomas Dunne Books.

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Delton, J. (2008) Charity State. Salmagundi.158 (159), 24-33.

DiNitto, D. and Cummins, L. 2007. Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy. 6th Edition. NY: Allyn & Bacon.

Frame, R. (1994) Is Welfare Redeemable?. Christianity Today, 38(12), 44-45.

Herrstein, R. and Murray, C. 1994. Bell Curve. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

Rubenstein, E. (2003) Hispanic High School Disaster – The Evidence Mounts. Vdare.Com. Web.

Vartanian, T and McNamara, J. (2000). Work and Economic Outcomes ffter Welfare. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 27(2), 41-77.

Waller, B. 2005. Consider Ethics: Theory, Readings, and Contemporary Issues. London: Pearson.

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