Mandated Welfare is not Charity

post I stole from

Latter-day Center for Moral Liberalism.

“For when aid becomes institutionalized, gratitude is replaced with a sense of entitlement, even of demands for aid, and deep resentment toward the wealthy who unjustly hoard the world’s wealth.”

“Christ’s plan is all about agency, and as such, persuasion, whereas the Adversary of Our Soul’s plan is about subverting that agency, and thus force.”

“Joseph Smith, the prophet, testified: “I teach correct principles, and the people govern themselves.” Exactly.”

I cannot see how this method of redistributing wealth has anything to do with the Gospel. Jesus never called on public authority to enact welfare programs. He never demanded that his followers form a political movement to tax and spend. Nor did he say that the property of the rich must always be forcibly expropriated. He called for a change in the human heart, not a change in legislation. There is a massive difference.

There are other grave dangers in confusing the welfare state with personal charitable obligation. The more people hear that the welfare state discharges their moral mandate to give, the more these programs crowd genuine charity. “I gave at the office,” becomes the attitude. This is essentially what was behind the comment by Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol when he dismissed his need to be charitable. “Are there no poorhouses?”

There are further problems. The programs are not effective over the long term. They generate dependency and bureaucracy. They create upside-down incentives. But leaving all that aside, the core message here is that, from a moral point of view, they do not fulfill the criterion that the Gospels specify for generosity, which must come from within and cannot be imposed from the top down.

Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, “Mandated Giving Doesn’t Come from the Heart.”

Read the full article.

Latter-day Center for Moral Liberalism’s president, Steve Farrell, responds: Reverend Sirico is right on target. Charity must come from the heart, while socialism hardens the heart of both giver and receiver.

The case of Scrooge is a good one. Scrooge, you see, gave the response that even Aristotle predicted well over two thousand years ago in regards to communist schemes in his day, “Are there no poor houses? Are there no work houses? My taxes go to support those institutions and those in need should go there. [Not an exact quote, but close]” There is a sort of callousness that develops when one is forced to give.

The callousness becomes worse under government mandated welfare when it becomes evident that those who receive have also become calloused. For when aid becomes institutionalized, gratitude is replaced with a sense of entitlement, even of demands for aid, and deep resentment toward the wealthy who unjustly hoard the world’s wealth. It is what Ezra Taft Benson, former President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said about a very prevalent sort of pride today, “of the poor looking up.”

Thus the rich give, and the poor receive, and were they to meet with the attitudes they’ve adopted thanks to Marx’s ill-inspired welfare plan, they would very likely be at each other’s throats – and if we tune into the political rhetoric of both parties, we know this is no exaggeration.

Is this what Jesus wanted? Did he ever make a call for such Robin Hood schemes? Surely, we know, or should know, that bread and circus socialism existed in Rome during Christ’s lifetime, and well before it (it was one of the keys as to why Rome fell); but the Savior only persuaded men to give, and receivers to be grateful, with rewards or punishments being reserved for the next life, and such rewards or punishments being meted out on an individual basis, by a God who knows the hearts of every man.

As Latter-day Saints, we especially have come to the belief – via the aid of modern revelation – that Christ’s plan is all about agency, and as such, persuasion, whereas the Adversary of Our Soul’s plan is about subverting that agency, and thus force.

If any of us have been duped into believing that schemes that forcibly redistribute the wealth are of God, and have anything to do with true charity, we might want to rethink our thinking, reread our scriptures, re-stretch our faith, and then go out and find a better way … one which focuses on love and truth, not fear and force.

Joseph Smith, the prophet, testified: “I teach correct principles, and the people govern themselves.” Exactly. It’s the best way, the Lord’s way.