I think I will be continuing with a lot of quotes from  Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist as his writing is full of quotable passages that are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them more than 100 years ago.

In today’s selection, he discusses the negative effect that government welfare programs have on the people.

I ought to show that all great uniform systems–clumsy and oppressive as they must always be in their rude attempt to embrace every part of a nation–clumsy and oppressive, for example, as our education system and our Poor Law system are—are always tending (sometimes in very subtle and unsuspected ways) to stupefy and brutalize a nation in character; and, as far as the richer classes are concerned, to destroy those kindly feelings, that sympathy for the pains of others, and that readiness to help those who need help, which grow, and only can grow, on a free soil. If by official regulations you prescribe for me my moral obligations toward others, you may be sure that in a short time my own moral feelings will cease to have any active share in the matter. They will soon learn to accept contentedly the official limit you have traced for them, and to drowse on, unexercised because unrequired, within that limit. Indeed, I believe that if you only taxed us enough, for so-called benevolent purposes, you would presently succeed in changing all the really generous men into stingy men.

(I should point out that I don’t agree with Herbert’s belief in a “moral obligation” to help those in need. If you are able to do so, and the people are of a value to you, then it is perfectly fine to do so, but there is no obligation involved.)

Luckily I don’t believe this has fully come to pass in the United States, but that is due in large part to the uniquely generous, the United States routinely tops the rankings of most charitable countries, American sense of life that has managed to survive through one hundred plus years of growing statism, though not without effect. The level of charitable giving as a percentage of GDP has dropped about 40%, from ~3.5% to 2%, since 1921.

Without a change in direction this sense of life cannot long survive. As it fades, we see a rise in people who either cannot give much to charity, although interestingly the poor tend to give a higher percentage to charity, or who feel that they are already giving through their taxes. As the pool of potential donors gets smaller, more demands are placed on them, not only from non-profits chasing the dwindling pool of donors, but also by governments seeking to raise their taxes which reduces the amount they have to donate. If such a course continues, we will certainly see the situation Herbert describes come to pass, a world where those of modest means cannot afford to give, those of middling means feel they give enough in their taxes so there is no need give more, and those of significant means become stingy from the demands directed at them from all sides.

How much better would it be if the government left people free. Free to live their lives as they see fit. Free to donate money freely where and how they saw fit. In such a world charities would not only receive a higher percentage of the available pie but the pie itself would be much larger.