LewRockwell.com has an absolutely EXCELLENT piece on the welfare state. Among the tremendous amount of insightful analysis in this piece, I believe this paragraph goes right to the heart of why most social programs are absolute rot to our society:
Government programs have not only created dependency, but have allowed people to escape the social norms that were the result of centuries of successful social behavior. The welfare state put in place a series of incentives that broke people free of the restraints of personal discipline. Before the advent of the full-blown welfare state, an out of wedlock birth was a familial disaster. The moral constraints of the time had some very good economic reasoning within it. Without a father, a single mother would have an extremely difficult time providing for the child, and her fitness for marriage would come into question for many suitors. The result was most likely to be either extreme poverty, an additional burden on the mother's parents, or adoption for the child. When the government steps in and subsidizes behaviors that in previous generations would have resulted in great hardship or even death, a sort of social Gresham's Law takes place where bad behavior chases out the good. Why have a father and husband around when the state will assure your financial situation? Why find a new job when you can collect unemployment for some time? The changes in societal incentives have resulted in a change in societal rules.
The rot of socialism isn't confined to the example of out of wedlock births (in fact, it runs across a broad spectrum of societal ills), but it is one of the most poignant examples of how families--the foundation of a stable and healthy society--are devastated by the institutional practice of doing for people what people should be doing for themselves.
Please take the time to read this entire piece. If you ever wondered why I'm so adamantly opposed to big government and socialism, you should thoroughly know why by the time you finish this article.
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