Is Welfare a Moral Obligation?

The left claims welfare is a moral obligation.  The right says it is not.  Ignoring the mountains of scripture from nearly every conservative religion explicitly stating that welfare is indeed a moral obligation, and addressing this from a purely secular point of view*, is welfare a moral obligation?



(*Technically speaking, from the purely secular point of view, morality is purely man made, and thus is completely artificial.  But let's pretend morality is a legitimate thing, even from a purely secular point of view.)

The biggest argument in favor of morally mandated welfare is that if a community is producing enough for everyone, then everyone should have enough.  This is a poor argument, because it is merely a claim without backing evidence.  Another major argument is that poverty causes suffering and suffering is wrong, thus to avoid this wrong, poverty must be eliminated if possible.  This is also a poor argument, because it is based on an argument, suffering is wrong, that is a claim without evidence.  The problem here is that all of these arguments are based on assumptions that have not been universally established.  It is truly right that because a community produces enough for everyone, everyone deserves a share?  What even is this "deserving", and what are the people of the community doing to have this property?**  And what about suffering?  Is suffering truly wrong?  The common consensus seems to be that pain is bad, but without pain we would not know when something was harmful to us.  The fact is, none of these arguments are truly secular.  They are all religious in nature.  They have no foundation in logic, only in the personal beliefs of individuals.  There is some wisdom in thinking this way, but if logic is not applied at some point, this is a purely religious way of thinking, even if it does not necessarily involve a higher power or a formal religion.

(**This highlights the problem with a purely secular point of view on morality.  Who gets to decide who deserves what?  Who gets to decide what is fair and what is not?  Is it a king?  Is it a religious leader?  Is it the wealthy elite?  Is it the majority?  Keep in mind that this is the same majority that tolerated or even endorsed slavery for so long in the U.S..    If the majority gets to decide morality, than slavery was legitimately not wrong until the majority decided otherwise.)

From the purely secular point of view, there is one thing that matters.  That thing is survival.  Every species on Earth has evolved with the exclusive motive of survival.  Humans, in this quest for continued survival, evolved sentience.  This gives us the power to reason logically, and it gives us the power to think in complex ways that can supersede instinct.  This is true as individuals, and as individuals we thus have the capacity to override this evolutionary motive of survival.  As a species though, survival is still our greatest instinct.  There may be individuals who don't want to survive.  There may be individuals that would prefer the human race not be in a position of dominance over nature.  As a collective though, we are no different from bacteria, plants, or other animals.  We have a motivation to survive, and because of our superior intellect, we have a much greater capacity for survival.  How is this relevant?  It is relevant, because in the evolutionary quest for continued survival, we evolved an instinct for cooperation.  We evolved this instinct because cooperation improved the ability of the species to survive.  Further, studies over the last few decades have found similar cooperative instinct in many primates, especially in the more intelligent species. From a purely secular point of view, all that matters in this argument is whether or not welfare improves the ability of the species to survive.

Now we have a starting point.  The question of whether or not welfare is a moral obligation from a purely secular point of view can be rephrased: Does welfare improve the ability of the human race to survive?  Natural evolution takes place as a function of survival of the fittest.  Essentially, nature kills off those who poorly suited to survival, reducing bad genetics and concentrating good genes.  This results in species slowly becoming more capable of survival over time.  Does welfare help to eliminate bad genes?  Obviously not.  Welfare is pretty indiscriminate it its effect of improving individual survival.  Welfare also does not hinder reproduction in those with inferior genes.  Given this, it is probably important to ask if welfare maybe increases the survival of bad genes, on average.  To answer this question, we must ask another one: Do poor people who need welfare have worse genes on average than everyone else?  If so, then welfare may actually be harming our ability to survive as a species.  Thankfully, the evidence does not support the idea that poor people have worse genes on average.  Physically, poor people are often more fit than middle class and rich people, because poor people are more likely to do a lot of physical labor.  This is not a genetic trait though, so it does not matter.  Poor people do tend to be less healthy than middle class and rich people, but this can be tracked down to poor eating habits that are the result of very limited income and lack of time for preparing healthier meals.  This is also not a genetic trait.  Poor people tend to measure as less intelligent and less well educated, but again, these can be traced back to poor health and lower quality public education for the poor.  In fact, the only genetic differences the poor could reasonably have, given the evidence, is actually better genetics, because poor people with serious genetic diseases are more likely to die before reproducing due to lack of quality medical care.  Yes, our poor may actually be genetically superior, which should honestly not be surprising, given that genetic disease has consistently been more common among nobility and royalty for most of human history (probably more due to inbreeding than quality of medical care, though medical care almost certainly played a role).  It is clear that even in the worst case, welfare does not increase the survival of bad genes on average.

Let's consider what would happen if welfare was eliminated.  Obviously, a lot of people would die from starvation, exposure, and medical problems.  Food is the easiest necessity to get, so discontinuing food stamps would not cause everyone relying on them to starve, but food banks, religious charities, soup kitchens, and others would easily be overwhelmed by the increase in need, and a lot of people would starve to death.  The current state of subsidized housing is pathetic.  That means that kicking everyone out that could not pay full price would not affect the majority of the poor.  Still, a lot of newly homeless people would freeze to death in the winter.  We already have problems with medical welfare, because it leaves such a large gap between who is able to afford their own medical and who qualifies for medical welfare.  Getting rid of medical welfare entirely would significantly impact the bottom of the lower class.  Many people would die due to lack of care.  Many would survive with permanent disabilities.  Many would survive but spend a significant amount of time sick.  In addition, many older retired people would die fairly quickly without their medical care and expensive medications.  So, how would all of this affect our ability to survive as a species?  Well, the lower class covers a significant portion of the labor required for producing things necessary for our survival.  If they are dead or otherwise incapacitated due to starvation or illness, we are going to have a serious problem.  The death toll would likely be so large from a change like this that we would not have the time or manpower to clean up all of the bodies, which means decaying sick corpses everywhere spreading disease.  Even the parts of the lower class that were able to get by without welfare will be getting sick from this.  The middle and upper classes will have a difficult time surviving without the food, clothing, and other necessities provided largely by lower class workers.  Retail stores won't be able to keep up with demand on either side, because on the supply side there will be shortages, and on the service side most of their employees will be dead or sick.  I could go on, but I think it is pretty clear that without welfare, our immediate ability to survive would be dramatically reduced.

We also need to ask what other things poor people provide.  It turns out they don't just provide low end labor.  More and more people in the tech industry are coming from poor areas.  This is true of other industries as well, though not, perhaps, as much.  The tech industry has always struggled to find sufficient skilled labor, so losing this source would certainly harm it.  Evidently, the lower class is actually a source of very intelligent people for the middle and upper classes.  In short, poor people provide a lot of value that improves our collective ability to survive.

In addition to that, poor people provide a lot more than just labor to the economy.  For the economy to function, there must be people to buy stuff.  This is part of the reason general population decline is harmful to the economy, even without considering the effect retired old people who need care have on the economy.  If we suddenly lost most of our poor, our economy would almost certainly crash very badly, and then everyone would be poor.  Our economic health depends on our poor.

The answer is, the left is right, even from a purely secular point of view, because the survival of our poor is critical to the survival of everyone else.  If we don't support our poor, our ability to survive as a species will be reduced considerably.  Most other social species seem to recognize this.  The only time most species that are similar to humans will hoard resources for the "upper class" is when they are so scarce that the only choice is to distribute the resources and have everyone slowly starve to death, or give all of the resources to a few in the hope that they can survive through the scarcity and repopulate.  Humans seem to be the only social species that will allow its lower classes to live in poverty even when there is plenty.  In short, yes, we have a moral obligation to make sure everyone is provided for.  The conservative religious argument has been clear for over 2,000 years.  Even the purely secular argument is well backed though.

Post-need United Order

For the non-LDS (aka non-Mormon) reader, the United Order is a wealth distribution system/social order designed by Joseph Smith Jr..  He took inspiration for the idea from the Bible, where Christ's disciples attempted to implement a very similar system after Christ's death.  Thus far all attempts at the United Order have failed.

The United Order is, in its initial form, a need based wealth distribution system.  Some people have compared it to communism, though many LDS people balk at this description, claiming that it is different because it is voluntary and communism is not.  (This is actually not true.  Marx, the inventor of communism, specifically described it as something that the people imposed, not as something a government imposed on them.  In addition, during Joseph Smith Jr.'s time, he told his followers that God had said they would face severe divine punishment if they did not participate in the system.  Strict Marxian communism is voluntary, while the United Order was imposed as a commandment from God.)  In the United Order, as it was practiced by Latter-day Saint communities, a religious leader (typically a bishop) was in charge of all of the community's resources.  Due largely to the timing and location, the United Order was almost exclusively practiced in agrarian communities.  The bishop was in charge of a warehouse (the origin of the term "bishop's warehouse", now used mostly in reference to LDS welfare buildings where food is distributed to those in need) where all of the community's production was stored.  Resources were then distributed on an as-needed basis.  This ensured that United Order communities had no poverty.  In most instances, the United Order broke down when one or more members of a community started trying to abuse the system.  There are stories of a man in one community who would go around claiming other people's property (a pocket watch, on one occasion) on the grounds that he needed it more than they did.  Now, to be clear this is not how the United Order works.  It does not abolish personal property.  It does not allow individuals to claim the property of others.  All it does is places all resources produced into a central pot and distributes them in an ostensibly fair distribution among the people, with filling needs being the highest priority.  The only time the United Order expects personal property to be donated is on creation or entry.  The idea is that when a person commits to live in the United Order, that person contributes everything he or she has to it, and then is returned only sufficient to be on approximately even ground with everyone else.  "Everything" has often been subjective in this, typically including primarily things of significant value in the context of the community.  For example, low value family heirlooms would not typically be expected to be donated.  If one donated one's house, it would probably immediately be returned, unless it is excessively large for the number of people occupying it and another family needs it more (in which case a more suitable home would be provided in exchange).  In United Order communities just starting out (a vast majority of them), moderately valuable items might also be expected to be donated, either for use by the community or to be sold for funds to buy other things the community needs.  To be clear though, this was not just about money.  United Order communities typically owned farms, farm equipment, tanneries, and other productive facilities, with the goal of being 100% self sufficient.  According to Joseph Smith Jr., he had done the math, and it indicated that a community living the United Order could get to a point where it was producing many times what the people needed, allowing it to become incredibly wealthy fairly quickly.  Unfortunately, this never happened, but it was not because Joseph's math was wrong.

As it has been practiced, the United Order needs buy in from everyone.  (It could be practiced differently, but in the religious setting of the early LDS Church, under hostile Federal, state, and sometimes local governments, there really was no other option than purely voluntary participation with minimal repercussions for reneging on the contract.)  All it takes is one greedy person abusing the system to disillusion everyone else and cause it to collapse.  I am only aware of one instance where it lasted a significant amount of time.  I am not sure how long it lasted, but one community lasted at least a few generations.  Last I heard, it had eventually disbanded, but it was probably the most successful instance of the United Order.  It was not as successful as it could have been though.  The problem is this: The United Order has never been carried to its conclusion.  It has only ever gone through the early phase.  In most cases it failed there, but in a few it lasted longer but stalled at the culmination of the early phase.  The problem is this: The United Order was never intended to be a need based system.  It was intended to be a system of labor and wealth distribution that was both fair and profitable for everyone.  Because it never got past the early need-based phase though, few people actually understood this.  Joseph Smith Jr. never had the opportunity to establish the full potential of the system, because greed destroyed his attempts at it before it ever got that far.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the United Order.  The idea that it is a need based system is one of the worst.  It was never intended to only fill the needs of the people.  Joseph Smith Jr. was clear about that when he claimed that any community practicing it correctly would become extremely wealthy.  The United Order was first and foremost about fairness, and it was second about highly efficient industry.  It is well known that cutting out middle men can result in substantial savings due to increased efficiency.  A system without profiteering at every corner is going to cost far less to run than one where there is someone at every level taking a share, especially when half of the "levels" are not necessary in the first place.  This is what the United Order was about.  It was about increasing efficiency and reducing opportunity for greed to rob the community of its profits.  Obviously, however (or, at least, obviously to Joseph, because many modern businesses don't seem to get this piece of common sense), a society cannot run efficiently when the needs of its members are not being met.  And thus, the first priority of the United Order was to meet the needs of the people.  Any community stopping there, though, was no longer practicing the United Order, because it was never intended that meeting needs should be its only priority or even its highest priority.  No community has ever successfully practiced the United Order, because even the most successful stopped practicing it as soon as needs were met.

Joseph Smith Jr.'s United Order was intended to work very differently in the long run from how it was ever practiced.  Meeting needs and establishing self sufficiency were indeed the first goals.  Several instances managed to get this far, but they were either torn apart by dissension or just stopped there.  Only one that I am aware of lasted very long, but its later problems really highlight its own failure.  This community, once self sufficient, continued to isolate itself from the outside world.  There is a story floating around about a teenage boy who was given some money and sent outside of the community by the leaders, to find things that the community did not have.  The goal, specifically, was for him to go out and find some decent quality modern clothing.  He did this, and he returned with some nice jeans, a fairly high quality shirt, and a few other things.  These items were turned over to those members of the community who made the clothing.  They examined the clothing and took from it sufficient knowledge to recreate it.  The items were then given to the boy as a reward for successfully completing his task.  Now, here is the problem: This was most of the extent of the trade between this community and the outside world.  Sometimes the community would sell stuff, but there was not a lot of demand for most of their more primitive productions.  The community was self sufficient, but it was not wealthy, by any means, largely because it did not participate in sufficient trade to gain much wealth, and further, any wealth they did have was spent almost exclusively inside the community, thus isolating it from modern conveniences that gave the outside world a significantly higher standard of living.  This is not what the United Order was supposed to be like!

The United Order, practiced as intended, would have rapidly achieved self sufficiency and met the needs of its members, but it would not have stopped there.  It is true that true self sufficiency requires the ability to be self sufficient even in isolation, but it does not require that a state of isolation be maintained in the long term.  One can have all of the land and labor required to produce enough food and be self sufficient, even if one is choosing to buy food from someone else because it is cheaper than growing it.  Self sufficiency is about ability, not about actually doing.  The second phase of the United Order, which to my knowledge has never been attempted, is finding ways to increase efficiency, without sacrificing self sufficiency.  For example, you can't sell the farm to increase efficiency somewhere else, but if it is cheaper to buy food than to grow it, definitely do that.  The farm land might be more valuable growing some cash crop than growing food, but so long as the land is capable of growing sufficient food, self sufficiency is not compromised by using this more efficient strategy.  Efficiency almost requires engaging in trade.  A self sufficient community has a lot of flexibility in what it can produce, and being able to obtain necessities cheaper through trade increases that flexibility.  Thus, a United Order community that has achieved self sufficiency must emerge from isolation to progress to the next phase.  Sadly, this has never been done.  The second phase is the generation of wealth.  Once needs are met and self sufficiency has been achieved, focusing on the generation of wealth is not wrong, nor is it harmful to the community.  In fact, it is quite valuable.  Such a community can afford to expand its capabilities, allowing it to produce more and more value to trade for wealth.  But, it must also trade some of that wealth for efficiency.  Upgrading factories and automating processes will increase its capacity for generating wealth and its ability to be self sufficient.  Once this process has gotten to a point where the community is generating a significant income, it is time to move on to the third phase.  The technological and efficiency progress of the second phase is not abandoned here, just like the self sufficiency and need goals of the first phase were not abandoned upon moving to the second.  What is different is that the wealth begins to be shared with the members of the community, instead of all being put back into improving the community, and this wealth is not merely distributed in the form of more needs.  It is distributed in the form of money that can be spent within or outside of the community.  If the community can provide for some fairly universal wants significantly more cheaply than individuals can buy it themselves, then this may be done to improve the efficiency of the system, allowing more wealth to be retained and distributed than might otherwise be.  Attempting to do this for all wants, however, is a poor and maybe even oppressive strategy, because either the system is stocking up on wants that may end up with surplus, or the system is determining what wants the people are allowed to have and what they are not.  For example, if only a few people want video game consoles, either the system has to guess how many it will need (of each type), or it will decide that because the majority does not want it no one can have it.  This is a poor strategy that money distribution avoids.  A successful United Order is a community where everyone has significant buying power even outside the community.  This is the kind of United Order Joseph Smith Jr. intended, because what is the point of a wealthy community where the individuals of the community are still poor, having only their needs met and nothing else?  (Joseph Smith Jr. and the primary book of scripture for the church he created are both very clear on the fact that God wants his people to have the blessing of material wealth.)

The fact is, the United Order has not been proven to be a failure, despite how many times it has failed.  Even the few cases where it has lasted to the point of self sufficiency, it was never allowed to progress beyond that.  Joseph Smith Jr.'s claim that the United Order is a path to a very successful and wealthy community makes perfect sense to anyone with a modern understanding of supply lines and general economics.  The problem is not the system.  The problem is that no one who truly understands it has ever managed to get it to the post-need phases.  The system itself is probably one of the most well designed systems for economic equality and fairness, and it is a shame that it has never been given a fair chance.