The Immorality and Failure of "Welfare"

Yeah, well, maybe the title is a little overbearing, but it's a) really true that welfare the way it is often imposed by governments is immoral, and b) it's worse than a failure, it's an addictive trap. The first generation born into a welfare dependency begins to develop a sense of entitlement that simply grows as future generations are born. Why is it immoral? A system that creates dependency undermines a person's ability to help themselves. You rob people of their ability to do for themselves... and they don't even know it, most times. You just take it. Powerless-ness and dependency then become unconscious habit, and the self eventually turns on itself. "I can't" becomes the default self-image, and psychological homeostasis cements it, on the personal and social level.

Over at CATO Unbound, David Schmidtz has a great essay, "When Inequality Matters" (thanks, Instapundit!). From individuals to societies, these things matter... please read this excerpt carefully:

"Here is a truism about the wealth of nations: Zero-sum games do not increase it. Historically, the welfare of the poor always—always—depends on putting people in a position where their best shot at prosperity is to find a way of making other people better off. The key to long-run welfare never has been and never will be a matter of making sure the game’s best players lose. When we insist on creating enough power to beat the best players in zero-sum games, it is just a matter of time before the best players capture the very power we created in the hope of using it against them. We are never so unequal, or so oppressed, as when we give a dictator the power to equalize us. By contrast, the kinds of equality we have reason to care about will be kinds that in some way facilitate society as a positive sum game."