Hard core conservatives and virtually all Libertarians lament the existence of most social programs. Leg-up programs like Head Start and Affirmative Action are bad enough in their view, and full-blown entitlement programs like Welfare are wholly unacceptable.
On a good day, those on the far right put on their “compassionate conservative” hats and cite the ways that entitlements and even leg-up programs countermand the American dream, robbing the poor of the personal victory that can only be won when they pull themselves out of poverty or disadvantage without outside help.
On a bad day, though, the most blunt and least delicate of conservatives reveal their real philosophy. Survival of the fittest, baby! SOTF. It’s a hard, hard world, and not everyone can be rich. Heck, it’s not even possible for everyone to be middle income. Some folks will be always be poor. That's just the way it is. Life is tough.
At least subconsciously, these conservatives and Libertarians recognize what economists of the central tradition have known since the time of Adam Smith; inequity and misery are inevitable in our economic system. The system on which our economy is based allows for-- and in fact encourages-- great disparities in personal wealth amongst its populace, and the very design of this market-based economy ensures that all individuals will not start life with equal advantages of birth, family wealth, intelligence, culture and opportunity. Even Smith understood that true equity could only be achieved by artificially leveling the playing field.
Recoiling reflexively away from all things redistributive, fearful laissez-fair conservatives shun the idea that an un-level playing field might be unfair in some way. They cling desperately to the immutable law of natural scarcity like a philosophical life raft, and they regress to a bastardized version of Social Darwinism as a way to cleanse their collective conscience. Survival of the Fittest. It's the only solution. What else can be done without us all becoming socialists?
Such Social Darwinists see life as a kind of sporting event, in a way. It's a game, folks. Play like winning is the only thing. If you lose (i.e., failing to excel in life, remaining poor or homeless or without health care or an education), it is because you were weak and ill-prepared. Tough break.
And if you win (i.e. succeed in life, earning well, having health insurance, owning a home, having your kids in decent schools, taking vacations and sending those kids to college). . . well, you worked hard, by God. Unlike those who failed, you did what you had to do, and you deserve your success.
Survival of the Fittest is comfortable enough to most of us when we're watching documentaries on television about life and death on the Serengeti. But the moral rub comes when the lions and zebras in the equation are human beings. The Survival of the Fittest concept brings with it two suppositions that are problematic in my view. First, it assumes that those who don’t survive weren’t fit to begin with. And more troublingly, it assumes that those who aren’t fit do not deserve to survive.
That should be troubling to anyone. Anyone who might just find himself unfit some day, at least.
Those who rail against redistributive social programs as being anti-American or worse would surely denounce my claim that they do not care for the poor and disadvantaged. They'd point to charities or private enterprise as ways that the poor can be cared for without using the strength of the federal government to involuntarily redistribute wealth.
I argue that such "solutions" are empty of any applicability to life here in 2008. And I contend that those decrying social programs and touting the private sector as the solution don't really even believe that the solutions really lie there. I believe these are just vacuous responses to difficult questions, meant to ease the conscience of the Survival of the Fittest crowd while providing no real answers for those who, often through no fault of their own, come up short in life's fitness test.
Post Script: Charles Darwin didn't coin the phrase "survival of the fittest" as part of his evolutionary theory. It was a political theorist who formed that little gem, which seems about right. Look it up if you don't believe me.
1 comment:
Something to consider is the idea that social systems tend to create populations of people dependent upon the system. I'm not opposed to social programs that help people, but I'm not happy with the current systems we have in place. In my opinion they serve only to increase the problem.
Another thing to consider, last time I checked, and admittedly it was around ten years ago, something like 65% of the support for the needy came from the private sector. Churches.
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