Reacting to calls for cuts in entitlement programs, House
Democrat Henry Waxman fumed:
“The Republicans want us to repeal the
twentieth century.” Sound bites don’t get much better than that. After
all, the world before the twentieth century–before the New Deal, the New
Frontier, the Great Society–was a dark, dangerous, heartless place
where hordes of Americans starved in the streets.
Except it wasn’t and they didn’t. The actual history of America shows
something else entirely: picking your neighbors’ pockets is not a
necessity of survival. Before America’s entitlement state, free
individuals planned for and coped with tough times, taking
responsibility for their own lives.
In the 19th century, even though capitalism had only existed for a
short time, and had just started putting a dent in pre-capitalism’s
legacy of poverty, the vast, vast majority of Americans were already
able to support their own lives through their own productive work. Only a
tiny fraction of a sliver of a minority depended on assistance and
aid–and there was no shortage of aid available to help that minority.
But in a culture that revered individual responsibility and regarded
being “on the dole” as shameful, formal charity was almost always a last
resort. Typically people who hit tough times would first dip into their
savings. They might take out loans and get their hands on whatever
commercial credit was available. If that wasn’t enough, they might
insist that other family members enter the workforce. And that was just
the start.
“Those in need,” historian Walter Trattner
writes, “. . . looked first to family, kin, and neighbors for aid,
including the landlord, who sometimes deferred the rent; the local
butcher or grocer, who frequently carried them for a while by allowing
bills to go unpaid; and the local saloonkeeper, who often came to their
aid by providing loans and outright gifts, including free meals and, on
occasion, temporary jobs. Next, the needy sought assistance from various
agencies in the community–those of their own devising, such as churches
or religious groups, social and fraternal associations, mutual aid
societies, local ethnic groups, and trade unions.”
One of the most fascinating phenomena to arise during this time were
mutual aid societies–organizations that let people insure against the
very risks that entitlement programs would later claim to address. These
societies were not charities, but private associations of individuals.
Those who chose to join would voluntarily pay membership dues in return
for a defined schedule of benefits, which, depending on the society,
could include life insurance, permanent disability, sickness and
accident, old-age, or funeral benefits.
Mutual aid societies weren’t private precursors to the entitlement
state, with its one-size-fits-all schemes like Social Security and
Medicare. Because the societies were private, they offered a wide range
of options to fit a wide range of needs. And because they were
voluntary, individuals joined only when the programs made financial
sense to them. How many of us would throw dollar bills down the Social
Security money pit if we had a choice?
Only when other options were exhausted would people turn to formal
private charities. By the mid-nineteenth century, groups aiming to help
widows, orphans, and other “worthy poor” were launched in every major
city in America. There were some government welfare programs, but they
were minuscule compared to private efforts.
In 1910, in New York State, for instance, 151 private benevolent
groups provided care for children, and 216 provided care for adults or
adults with children. If you were homeless in Chicago
in 1933, for example, you could find shelter at one of the city’s 614
YMCAs, or one of its 89 Salvation Army barracks, or one of its 75
Goodwill Industries dormitories.
“In fact,” writes Trattner, “so rapidly did private agencies multiply
that before long America’s larger cities had what to many people was an
embarrassing number of them. Charity directories took as many as 100
pages to list and describe the numerous voluntary agencies that sought
to alleviate misery, and combat every imaginable emergency.”
It all makes you wonder: If Americans could thrive without an
entitlement state a century ago, how much easier would it be today, when
Americans are so rich that 95 percent of our “poor” own color TVs? But
we won’t get rid of the entitlement state until we get rid of today’s
widespread entitlement mentality, and return to a society in which
individual responsibility is the watchword.
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