Political Compass #53: Charity is better than social security.

Many political debates here have included references to The Political Compass, which uses a set of 61 questions to assess one’s political orientation in terms of economic left/right and social libertarianism/authoritarianism (rather like the “Libertarian diamond” popular in the US).

And so, every so often I will begin a thread in which the premise for debate is one of the 61 questions. I will give which answer I chose and provide my justification and reasoning. Others are, of course, invited to do the same including those who wish to “question the question”, as it were.

It would also be useful when posting in these threads to give your own “compass reading” in your first post, by convention giving the Economic value first. My own is
SentientMeat: Economic: -5.12, Social: -7.28, and so by the above convention my co-ordinates are (-5.12, -7.28). Please also indicate which option you ticked. I might suggest what I think is the “weighting” given to the various answers in terms of calculating the final orientation, but seeing for yourself what kind of answers are given by those with a certain score might be more useful than second-guessing the test’s scoring system.

Now, I appreciate that there is often dissent regarding whether the assessment the test provides is valid, notably by US conservative posters, either because it is “left-biased” (??) or because some propositions are clearly slanted, ambiguous or self-contradictory. The site itself provides answers to these and other Frequently Asked Questions, and there is also a separate thread: Does The Political Compass give an accurate reading? [size=2]Read these first and then, if you have an objection to the test in general, please post it there. If your objection is solely to the proposition in hand, post here. If your objection is to other propositions, please wait until I open a thread on them. (And for heaven’s sake, please don’t quote this entire Opening Post when replying like this sufferer of bandwidth diarrhea.)

The above will be pasted in every new thread in order to introduce it properly, and I’ll try to let each one exhaust itself of useful input before starting the next. Without wanting to “hog the idea”, I would be grateful if others could refrain from starting similar threads. Finally, I advise you to read the full proposition below, not just the thread title (which is necessarily abbreviated), and request that you debate my entire OP rather than simply respond, “IMHO”-like, to the proposition itself.

To date, the threads are:

Does The Political Compass give an accurate reading?
Political Compass #1: Globalisation, Humanity and OmniCorp.
#2: My country, right or wrong
#3: Pride in one’s country is foolish.
#4: Superior racial qualities.
#5: My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
#6: Justifying illegal military action.
#7: “Info-tainment” is a worrying trend.
#8: Class division vs. international division. (+ SentientMeat’s economic worldview)
#9: Inflation vs. unemployment.
#10: Corporate respect of the environment.
#11: From each according to his ability, to each according to need.
#12: Sad reflections in branded drinking water.
#13: Land should not be bought and sold.
#14: Many personal fortunes contribute nothing to society.
#15: Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade.
#16: Shareholder profit is a company’s only responsibility.
#17: The rich are too highly taxed.
#18: Better healthcare for those who can pay for it.
#19: Penalising businesses which mislead the public.
#20: The freer the market, the freer the people.
#21: Abortion should be illegal.
#22: All authority must be questioned.
#23: An eye for an eye.
#24: Taxpayers should not prop up theatres or museums.
#25: Schools shouldn’t make attendance compulsory.
#26: Different kinds of people should keep to their own.
#27: Good parents sometimes have to spank their children.
#28: It’s natural for children to keep secrets.
#29: Marijuana should be legalised.
#30: School’s prime function is equipping kids to find jobs.
#31: Seriously disabled people should not reproduce.
#32: Learning discipline is the most important thing.
#33: ‘Savage peoples’ vs. ‘different culture’
#34: Society should not support those who refuse to work.
#35: Keep cheerfully busy when troubled.
#36: First generation immigrants can never be fully integrated.
#37: What’s good for corporations is always good for everyone.
#38: No broadcasting institution should receive public funding.
#39: Our civil rights are being excessively curbed re. terrorism.
#40: One party states avoid delays to progress.
#41: Only wrongdoers need worry about official surveillance.
#42: The death penalty should be an option for serious crimes.
#43: Society must have people above to be obeyed.
#44: Abstract art that doesn’t represent anything isn’t art at all.
#45: Punishment is more important than rehabilitation.
#46: It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals.
#47: Businessmen are more important than writers and artists.
#48: A mother’s first duty is to be a homemaker.
#49: Companies exploit the Third World’s plant genetic resources.
#50: Mature people make peace with the establishment.
#51: Astrology accurately explains many things.
#52: You cannot be moral without being religious.
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**Proposition #53: Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged.

SentientMeat** (-5.12, -7.28) ticks Strongly Disagree. (This cuts right to the heart of the difference between economic left and right, and so my response is rather longer and more detailed than usual.)
“Better”? The proposition appears to hinge on one’s interpretation of this word. Clearly, there must be some realistic element to the interpretation - I might just as well consider benevolent magical elves to be “better” than social security in principle since they could guarantee instant, voluntary, universal help of precisely the right kind. Of course, believing that they realistically could in practice would be ludicrous.

I propose separating the two issues: the principle and the practice. I will address whether charity could realistically address genuine disadvantage better than social security later. For now, let us explore the idea that it is somehow better in principle.

So it is that we come to the idea of “forced help”, which I consider to be a rather tired canard. The caricature of a government pointing a gun at one individual and forcing them to provide for another is a particularly inaccurate exaggeration. In a democracy (the least worst political system), the electorate chooses a government and a level of taxation. Taxation is the price of government. The electorate also has some say over how the government spends the revenue accrued thereby. Specifically, the electorate can decide to some extent how much is given over to “helping the disadvantaged”.

Now, how might one be “disadvantaged”? Well, other people might disadvantage me directly, and very gravely. They might assault me or commandeer cherished or essential objects I have surrounded myself with, by force or stealth. I might manage to protect myself from such threats, but instead I demand that someone else provides for me in this way. It is my right to be protected from such things. Gimme gimme gimme!

And so, the government helps the genuinely disadvantaged by providing protection from crime or invasion. When I see an old lady being mugged, the government “forces me to help” her according to that old misguided cliché, even though I might live in a private fortress free from such fears. Another example: what of the educationally disadvantaged? See those children struggle to read, write, or develop countless other skills essential to carrying out economically useful tasks later in life. They demand handouts from my pocket to meet their educational needs, whether I have children or not. Out comes the fallacious government gun again: Hand it over, punk.

Nonsense. The old canard’s bedtime is long overdue - let us retire it forthwith. Helping the disadvantaged is a legitimate function of democratic government: only an anarchist can disagree in good faith, wishing as he does to see the back of all governmental tyranny (including that of forcefully upholding property privilege).

Now, some contend that such a legitimate function should only be limited to certain kinds of “disadvantage”, namely those due to the crimes, invasions or perhaps educational needs described above, and that those covered by “social security” are not the concern of government. I must admit, I have never found this distinction between “positive” and “negative” rights particularly compelling, and the idea of upholding my property rights or right to an education before protecting me from poor health, starvation or exposure seems positively absurd. Sure, it would be nice if everyone provided the necessary funding voluntarily, but if they did that, well, why do we even need such an enormous apparatus protecting their monopolistic use of property if they’re going to donate it so charitably anyway? I simply do not accept that charity is “better in principle” than social security, in the same way that I do not consider economic coercion to be substantially different to other kinds of coercion. Nevertheless, the idea is popular (although, curiously, only particularly so in the US) and so we should proceed to consider how charity or social security addresses disadvantage in practice.

What if the government simply flipped off the disadvantaged and left them to private charity? If I wanted to help, the government is no longer “forcing” me to do so. I could tend to the sick, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless - why, I could be a veritable Saint Meat! Any sick untended, hungry unfed or homeless unsheltered would simply be my will - if I thought they needed help, well then, why didn’t I help them, or at least pay for another to do so in my place?

Here, again, a useful parallel with addressing other forms of disadvantage by private funding can be drawn. I could also dash to the assistance of those old ladies being mugged, repel foreign invasions, teach those disadvantaged children, and all the rest of it: old ladies which went unsaved, or children untaught, or civilians undefended, would be my “will” also. Clearly, I could not save, teach and heal every genuinely disadvantaged person myself even if that was my will. That people still got mugged and died of preventable conditions would be due to the inadequacy of my charitable endeavour, noble though it was in principle. In practice I would be sadly inadequate, no matter how “efficient” my man-hours.

And here lies the rub. Welfare economics, as practised in most of the industrialised democratic world, has shown that social security can provide universal help for the genuinely disadvantaged, whatever the cause of their plight. To believe that charity could get anywhere near that coverage seems to me to be as naive as believing in benevolent magical elves. The moment that private charity fails to help the genuinely disadvantaged where social security succeeded is the moment when that society develops indifference to the suffering in its midst. Charity becomes a band aid upon a cancer, its function being more to ameliorate the guilt of the giver than to actually, realistically address the plight of the recipient.

This is essentially the same argument as for many other publically funded institutions: they universally guarantee what private or voluntary funding can merely hopefully offer selectively. (If only the opportunity is guaranteed, people are bound to miss out: what of them?) Again, this proposition boils down to what one considers to be the concern of government. Some propose what I consider to be the false dichotomy of “negative/positive rights” in this regard, focussing solely on upholding property privilege even to the point where it engenders economic coercion, with the bargaining power of the unemployed reduced to so near zero that they must practically beg for a job or meal, no matter how exploitative the conditions, like the medieval serf and his feudal lord. Woe betide me if I believe that tyranny and coercion can arise from capitalism just as easily as from over-authoritarian government, and threaten to withhold those taxes which fund the property-privilege-enforcement apparatus allowing a tiny minority to take and hoard so many slices of pizza that many are left only with the box, which they must live in. One can seemingly complain about (or even threaten to withhold) funding which addresses hunger, exposure or ill health in bien-pensant comfort, but do the same with policing and defence and one is suddenly assailed by all kinds of arbitrary arguments for why they have to be funded compulsarily rather than voluntarily.

When the rich become the new government, the lives of the poor are restricted just as much as in any Communist state: Plutocracy and autocracy look identical from the bottom up. In a democracy, the electorate chooses a taxation revenue and spending plan thereof. If we find ourselves in disagreement with the electorate then we either stay and accept that plan, refuse it and go to prison, or move. Were the government chosen by the electorate to ever declare the suffering of its genuinely disadvantaged people “outside its concern” I could not in all conscience voluntarily remain under its influence. I thank fate that I am a member of a social democracy which guarantees a threshold of security to its people, wherein the likelihood of such upheaval appears vanishingly small.

Mangetout (-4.75, -3.38) Ticks ‘What SentientMeat just said’

(-5.50,-4.05) Strongly disagree. The OP was incredibly well-written and I can’t improve on a word.

Agree
I don’t agree to the extent that I’d get rid of social security, but I do think charity is a better thing than social security, it just doesn’t happen enough.

The real meat of my post is against SentientMeat’s diatribe for taxation and spending. Your system can never distinguish whats enough taxation, enough goverment, enough bleeding of the rich. There’s no point at which you can say, well now, this isn’t the price of citizenship, this is too much tax, under your system. (I will start a thread someday asking leftists if there is any tax rate up to 100% they’d disagree with).

Most tax today is paid by the middle class, not the rich anyway, and the young like me, especially back when I made 6-7 dollars an hour paid more to social security than federal income tax. All for a social security program that never paid much to my grandma from what I remember. It was never enough to actually live on and my grandma’s done well only because of charity from her own family. Another reason charity can’t be replaced by an all-invasive government that tries to fix every problem.

It is called democracy - we let the people decide what level is too little or too much.

What, pray tell, is the point at which you say “this is too little tax”? I argue my threshold, you argue yours. As I argued in other Compass threads, I consider 100% tax too much because it retards progress in a manner which, IMO, progressive taxation does not.

It sounds like it is the US version of social security which requires a radical overhaul such that the working poor earn more than slave wages and those without a supportive family don’t become bankrupt for phoning an ambulance, wouldn’t you say?

+4, -4.1

Disagree.

It’s hard to expand on Sentientmeat’s points, but I’ll try.

Social security and charity are not an either/or proposition. The question assumes, I believe, a false dilemma. Social security serves a basic state purpose - to ensure that the nation is not afflicted with a group of people incapable of supporting themselves with basic necessities.

There is an impression some people seem to have that welfare exists because us taxpaying folks are just so nice. That’s just not the case. We don’t have welfare programs just out of the goodness of our hearts; we have welfare because it serves the purpose of preventing the spread of absolute, crushing poverty, the kind that leads to social unrest, the spread of disease, crime, etc. I know some will point out we have ghettoes anyway, but believe me, it could be a LOT worse.

I am interpreting “social security” here as meaning “the basic apparatus of a welfare state,” not the American program called “Social Security,” which I think is how MindWanderer interpreted it. I’m pretty sure that is a misinterpretation, and that the authors of the quiz meant what I mean by it.

If we went with a European style policy, we’d end up with the same crushing burdens they have. I don’t like the way ours is set up, but I’d rather not live in a society with 60% tax, I don’t believe government can provide me, a middle class person within anywhere near the value of that 60% lost. People don’t know how to save, so its I suppose inevitable that you have to have such a system, but I personally have been putting away 10% whenever I can for the future.

I’d say there is too little tax when we can not support the things that we believe should happen in government. I support drastically cutting military spending, but that can’t happen until we get out of Iraq. I would think that’d save us alot of money. I oppose deficits, because I believe in trying to have fiscally sound personal finances, and I think the government should do the same. Its not today’s tax levels I fear, but the levels considered ideal to many on the left.

Despite all this, I still believe if we had more charity society would be better. So I agree, but I think the question have an implicit (Do you want to destroy social security?) which is what they should have asked.

60% tax is rather a myth, at least for the vast majority of Europe: I pay nowhere near 60% and have an above-median salary. It is true that the US is more productive, but as I ask whenever it is relevant:

What is the point of progress if vast millions derive so little benefit from it? If an expensive new cancer treatment is only ultimately made possible by denying far simpler medical treatments to those who can’t afford it, is that really progress?

I’m not defending the US, the debt levels here are unbelievable. But from what I’ve heard and I could be wrong, Europe is going to suffer a much bigger budget crunch to its social security programs than america because of how large the entitlements are.

How do most Europeans view their taxes when it comes to politics? Is there a support for much more government than you have or the same as now?

Firstly, may I politely request that this comparison of EU and US tax levels be moved to a dedicated thread? I strive to keep these threads as rigorously on-topic (ie. proposition only) as possible.

But to briefly answer your question, Europeans in general realise that taxation is the price of civilisation, and that to suggest that charity could replace social security is about as realistic as proposing that we do away with private property in toto. If an error in the judgment of what the appropriate level of taxation is to be made, I’d suggest that Europeans would far rather it be on the side of inefficiency or “slacker rewarding” than some poor, genuinely disadvantaged bastard suffering because their government will not help them for want of funds.

I’ll tell you this. If the governments of the Euro countries I’m familiar with tried to bring in a system like the current American system it would be political suicide. The people would not stand for it. They’d be voted out in a landslide the next time the people had a chance to vote.

Almost surely that is how this was meant. Note “social security” is in lower case. And, this test was aimed at an international audience. Many outside the US likely are unaware of what the US “Social Security” system is.

+7/-3 Disagree.

I, like SM, think the answer hinges on one’s definition of better. But first, I’d like address the “canard” in the OP. Helping the disadvantaged certainly CAN be a legitimate function of a government, but it doesn HAVE to be. The OP is basically saying that a libertarian philosophy can be DISMISSED OUT OF HAND. I really don’t see how that adds to open debate. Rather, one should state one’s premises about government and operate from there.

Now, is social charity better than social security? I think so because the person giving it is likely to feel better about the giving part than the tax part. Charities also have to compete for funds, unlike government, which is a monopoly. Competition leads to innovation and efficiency whereas monopolies lead to stagnation and inefficiency. Governments do have the advantage of ensuring (ie, mandating) a broader level of coverage, though.

So one might ask: How can we take advantage of both systems? I would prefer a system where I had some choice as to where my tax dollars were going. A quasi-liberterian approach* would be to mandate a certain level of charitable giving but let individuals choose which charities to give to. The government could serve the purpose of certifying and auditting the charities to ensure that Ken Lay doesn’t give his “charity taxes” exclusively to the “Help the CEO’s Charged with Fraud Charity”. This is similar in concept to a quasi-private Social Security System (ie, retirement plan) such as is found in Chile and, IIRC, some European countries as well-- don’t the UK and Sweden have some private, but mandated, aspects?

*Jonathan Chance likes to use the term “practical libertarian”, which I like and think might apply here as well.

And in private charity, the decision is left to the person who is much more directly affected - the one deciding whether or not to spend the money. It is thus inherently more just, since it eliminates the temptation to spend someone else’s money on something on which you would not choose to spend your own.

People spend their own money more efficiently than they do other people’s money, since they have to bear their own losses. If I can simply assuage my own conscience by throwing someone else’s money at a problem, it matters much less whether I am doing any good or not. Even if the spending doesn’t “work”, I have suffered no loss and therefore am not motivated to change. Hard on Joe Moneybags whose money I just wasted, hard on the poor person who does not benefit, but no skin off my nose.

No, it is a fairly accurate description of the dynamic.

Fallacy of the excluded middle, obviously - the fact that I support the government carrying out some functions does not imply that I must support the government carrying out others. This is decided on a case-by-case basis.

The political position you have not addressed is that of the constitutional republican (note the small ‘r’). Such a person would support taxation, even under duress, for strictly delimited functions like the police and military, regulation of interstate commerce, and so forth, but only reluctantly, and always with a bias towards centering authority for decisions affecting people’s lives with the people themselves, or at least at a level as close to the individual as possible.

Thus the constitutional republican would prefer a state-level locus of authority over a national one, a local level over a state, a family-based level over the local, and the individual level above all.

It’s not based on a distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ rights, but ‘limited’ vs. ‘unlimited’ functions of government.

The government should do, IOW, only what the Constitution explicitly defines, and nothing else. Note the word “explicitly”. It can be argued that the preamble’s mention of “providing for the common good” means that the power of the federal government to assume power for the common good is unlimited. I disagree. The general bias in favor of limits on governmental scope, I would argue, means that there must be a more much specific granting of constitutional authority to the federal government than is really present in the text.

The rest of the OP seems to me to boil down to the argument that “anything private organizations can do will usually be done better by the federal government” - a proposition I find to be, at the least, problematic.

Regards,
Shodan

This, of course, being predicated on the premise that we need property rights, which we wouldn’t if everyone is so charitable anyway, yes?

Of being forced to pay for policing too, yes? Would it not be just as accurate to say that property is theft, if social security is forced help?

Very well, let us limit taxation only to social security rather than policing/defence etc., since only an utterly arbitrary separation cleaves such concerns, yes?

Oops. I goofed in my response-- I meant to say AGREE [with a signficant caveat]. Voluntary solutions are always preferable to coerced solutions, but the caveat is that this is a false dichotomy. As I said in my original post, the private sector is good at some things and the government is good other things. The key is to use both systems in such a way as to take advantage of the inherent superiority of each in it’s area of competence.

No, not at all. The opposite, in fact.

Again, no.

No, it is not arbitrary at all. You have fallen into the trap of moral relativism. Not everything is arbitrary. :wink:

No, property rights are not related to charity in any way. The meanest miser on the face of the earth has the same right to keep what he has legitimately obtained as Mother Teresa did.

But we need property rights because lots of people want what I have. Some out of a desire to steal from me and keep it, some from a desire to steal from me and spend it on others, even charitably.

If I don’t consent to the transfer, neither have any right to take from me. Robin Hood was a thief just as much as the worst Enron executive.

It is an accurate description of being forced to pay for policing, yes, but that is not related to the idea that “property is theft”. Property is not theft; theft is theft. Even, you might say, “well-meaning” theft, with the alleged purpose that the money will be spent for someone else’s good, is theft, if I haven’t consented.

The difference between being forced to pay for policing and being forced to pay for charity is that I have consented to taxation for police functions. This was part of the deal when I agreed to a constitutional form of government. I did not consent to the principle that government was entitled to my money for any reason it saw fit.

It’s that stuff in the Declaration of Independence about government “deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed”. I have given consent to the police function, interstate commerce, and so forth. I have given consent to no other purposes which are not expressly put forth in the Constitution.

No, since it is not arbitrary, but spelled out in the Constitution. Only and solely those functions delimited to the federal government are legitimate purposes for which I can be taxed, and no others.

You have it exactly backwards. Taxation for policing is licit, since I have consented to it by ratifying the Constitution (and electing officials who agree to be bound by the Constitution). Taxation for unlimited charity is not, since I have agreed to no such thing (and the Constitution does not establish this).

I frankly don’t see your logic in any of this. Sorry.

Regards,
Shodan

Strongly Agree.

I don’t see the statement as a false dichotomy. It’s asking the reader to make a choice. That the two aren’t mutually exclusive doesn’t matter.

The test could say: “You prefer a slice of apple pie to a sportscar.” Of course, these two things aren’t mutually exclusive, but that’s not the point if my goal is to find out about the comparitive driving and eating habits of the reader. The test actually does have lots of nonsensical questions that I really don’t see how they relate to the politics of the test taker. This isn’t one of them. If given a choice between social security and charity, which is “better”. Better really is the key word here. It can mean anything that the reader wishes. Better for the taxpayer? Better for the poor? Better for the country as a whole? Better because it’s more fair? Better because it’s more efficient?

I read the question and think of the American Social Security system. Is this system a better way of helping the genuinely disadvantaged than charity? I say no. First of all Social Security doesn’t even target the genuinely disadvantaged. It goes to everyone. There isn’t a means test on it, and many people aren’t helped by it at all. There’s plenty of genuinely disadvantaged people that can’t work at all, and therefore aren’t even in the system. Lots of people are disadvantaged and still have to wait until they get to be 65 before SS helps them in any way.

There is a ton of private charity that helps people out there. Soup kitchens, church groups, can collections for the hungry, etc. However, why limit the “charity” spoken of in the statement to only mean private charity? Isn’t food stamps, welfare, and other government programs charity also? Certainly, when you compare all this to just SS it is “better” by just about any standard.

Plus, there are all the problems with Social Security. By nature the program is a ponzi scheme, with payments coming and going from workers to retirees and the disabled. Because the system wasn’t designed to benefit from compounding interest, it’s very limited to how much it can actually help. In reality, it doesn’t help anyone who isn’t disabled. The money that people collect reflects the money they paid in. The returns are so paltry that they are an insult. If the system invested in the stock market and 12% compounding returns were given to retirees than the system would be formidable indeed. I’d be much more inclined to call such a system “better” than charity. But, sadly this is not the case.

Is a system of purely voluntary donation of money a better way of supporting the needy than a purely controlled state-wide collection of money.

Would I rather:

  1. pay a large fraction of my earnings on a voluntary basis and hope that every one else did the same, so that I would not be disadvantaged by my charity or,

  2. pay the same fraction and be assured that my peers are doing the same through a compulsory system.

Definately the later. Strongly disagree with the OP proposition.