“But what about the poor?”
It’s a question that libertarians are very often asked. The inquiry is usually made by someone who believes that libertarianism works well for those with the means but ignores those who, through no fault of their own, are not in such a fortunate position.
There are really two challenges within this question– first, that libertarianism isn’t good for the poor, and second, that libertarians don’t care about the poor.
While there is a wealth of empirical data and inductive theory proving that libertarianism is good for everybody, including the poor, it will not be my topic here. Instead, I seek to exonerate libertarians from charges of cold-heartedness.
Libertarians are not cold and uncaring. Our hearts bleed, we just prefer different band-aids.
The truth is that there are different ways to be charitable. This fact was recognized by the great 12th century philosopher Moses ben-Maimon (aka Maimonides, The Rambam). Writing in the Mishneh Torah (an authoritative discourse on the legal principles of the Torah), Maimonides elucidated a hierarchy of charitable acts called the “Eight Levels of Giving.” In order of most noble to least, these levels are:
- Moses ben-Maimon
- Giving a poor person work so he will not have to depend on charity
- Giving charity anonymously to an unknown recipient
- Giving it anonymously to a known recipient
- Giving it to an unknown recipient
- Giving it before being asked
- Giving adequately after being asked
- Giving willingly, but inadequately
- Giving unwillingly
Note that the absolute lowest level is to give unwillingly. That is precisely how charity is given when it is done by the state: unwillingly. The money for state-run anti-poverty programs comes from tax money, which was taken from people under threat of criminal punishment.
Now notice that the absolute highest level is giving to a poor person work so he will not have to depend on charity.
Misneh Torah
It’s not much more than the basic “give a man a fish, teach a man to fish” argument, but it seems to be too commonly overlooked by those who think that capitalists are evil and that government is good. According to Maimonides, those who provide employment are the most charitable people. It isn’t the politicians and the bureaucrats who have the moral high ground, but the innovators and the job creators. They are the ones who make the world a better place and give people the tools to improve their own lives. They are the ones we ought to praise.
Don’t get me wrong, there is still an enormous place for charity in the traditional sense– that is, giving time and money to support another and asking nothing in return. But charity should be given willingly; it should be private, not public.
And the moral dubiousness of taking resources through force is not the only problem with government-run charity. This article from the Cato institute illustrates the many ways in which private charity is more effective in addition to being more ethical.
So, the next time you hear someone claiming that libertarians don’t care about the poor, flip it around on them. According to Maimonides, the libertarian solution is the most caring, and the statist solution the least.
Excellent; thank you.
But as an aside, we should realize that Maimonides himself, and the Talmud upon which he relied, were *not* laissez-faire economists (contrary to the claim of a well-intending libertarian friend of mine). See Walter Block, "Jewish Economics in the Light of Maimonides": http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/pub…
But as an Orthodox Jew, I say this: true, the Talmud and Maimonides lamentably believed in government-imposed price-controls (as Block shows), but of course, they also believed in blood-letting. I do not blame the Talmud for erroneous economics; I (as an Orthodox Jew) blame people who *today* follow the Talmud's economics. Following the Talmud's economics is like following its medicine. Science was not delivered at Sinai, and there is no reason for an Orthodox Jew to consider the Talmud's economics any more sacrosanct than its medicine.
Let us look at what Maimonides says about the Talmud's reliance on, and belief in, astrology, in his letter to Marseilles/Montpelier (http://www.scribd.com/doc/27122444/Moses-Maimonides-Letter-on-Astrology): "What we have said about this from the beginning is that the entire position of the stargazers is regarded as a falsehood by all men of science [madda]. I know that you may search and find sayings of some individual sages in the Talmud and Midrashoth whose words appear to maintain that at the moment of a man's birth the stars will cause such and such to happen to him. Do not regard this as a difficulty, for it is not fitting for a man to abandon the prevailing law and raise once again the counterarguments and replies [that preceded its enactment]. Similarly it is not proper to abandon matters of reason that have already been verified by proofs, shake loose of them, and depend upon the words of a single one of the sages from whom possibly the matter was hidden. Or there may be an allusion in those words; or they may have been said with a view to the times and the business before him. (You surely know how many of the verses of the Holy Law are not to be taken literally. Since it is known through proofs of reason that it is impossible for the thing to be literally so, [Onqelos] the Translator rendered it in a form that reason can abide.) A man should never cast his reason behind him, for the eyes are set in front, not in back."
And what Rambam's son, Rabbi Avraham ben ha-Rambam, said about aggadah (Talmudic homiletics), in the introduction to the Ein Yaakov (http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Ein_Yaakov/Introduction): "According to this preamble, then, we are not in duty bound to defend the opinions of the sages of the Talmud, concerning medicine, physics and astrology, as right in every respect simply because we know the sages to be great men with a full knowledge of all things regarding the Torah, in its various details. Although it is true that in so far as knowledge of our Torah is concerned, we must believe the sages arrived at the highest stage of knowledge, as it is said (Deut. 17, 11) In accordance with the instructions which they may instruct thee, etc., still it is not necessarily so concerning any other branch of knowledge."