Poverty
What about the poor under capitalism?
The other side of that question is: what about those who are not poor? [I will talk about
the poor in a minute] What of them? Let us not forget that the "rich" are people
too, and they also have the right to their life, their right to liberty, and their
right to their property, and their right to pursue happiness.
Is the fact that one is poor, a justification to rob the rich?
That a man does not have riches and another does, is no excuse for the first to rob the
latter -- neither is it a moral justification for the state to rob the first for the
benefit of the latter.
What is welfare?
Welfare -- the extortion of wealth from those who produce by the "humanitarians"
in government, to be distributed to those who consume (but do
not produce), is to render the producers slaves and the "humanitarians" thieves.
Whether the thief is wearing a ski mask, or is a dressed in a pinstripe suit with the
letters IRS labeled on it, does not change the nature of their actions in principle: both
are looters as both are initiators of force. With one exception,
the man wearing the ski mask is more honest: he is not a big enough hypocrite to tell the
citizen that he is robbing him of his hard earned wealth "for his own good", or
even worse "for the good of the people." [Hitler's and Clinton's favorite
phrase]
What of the poor under capitalism?
As for poverty, under capitalism, no poor man is prohibited from creating a
fortune -- observe that in late 19th century and early twentieth century America how
hundreds of really "poor" immigrants, who could not even speak a word of
English, came to America and within a generation were America's newest elite -- and they did
it without the government on their backs, or on the backs of
others. Even today, in semi-free America, many such immigrants come here starting with
nothing and create fortunes -- though this is a rarer occurrence due to the vast weight of
the volumes of incoherent and irrational regulations that punish
those who have an urgent need to accumulate capital (the poor).
Your question accepts the collectivist premise that wealth is a
static quantity owned by that amorphous super-organism the "collective" to be
looted from those individuals who create it. The
"poor" don't need government handouts -- they need government off their backs and
most importantly off the backs of those who can really help them -- the "rich."
Who is the poor man better off under: Mother Teresa or Bill Gates?
A Mother Teresa who hands them bowls of slop every day, so they can barely exist -- or a
genius like Bill Gates who creates a fortune
for himself by helping others to create fortunes for themselves, i.e., "where the
first feeds them for a day, the second helps them feed themselves." Observe that it
is the Bill Gates of the world who are not allowed to exist in India -- and the Mother
Teresas who are.
What do you mean by "rich"?
Now when I mean "rich", I do not mean those scabs who gained their fortunes by political pull, by having government grant them favors and franchises
at the expense of their fellow-men. When I mean "rich" I refer to businessmen
who who achieved their fortunes by economic means -- through
production and trade.
What is the cause of mass poverty?
To answer the question, "What about the poor under capitalism?"
one must first answer, "Why are there poor people in the first place?" The
source of all poverty is the lack of wealth, which must be
produced. The source of production (and thus wealth) is man's mind, which politically has
only one requirement: freedom. Politically, this is the single
cause of mass poverty: the lack of freedom. Observe the poorest
countries are those where capitalism is lacking.
What is the solution to mass poverty?
Capitalism did not create poverty, but it inherited it. Far from being a cause of poverty,
laissez-faire capitalism is the only solution to solving it.
Observe that the freedom that a rich man needs to maintain and add to his wealth, is the
same freedom a poor man needs to create his wealth -- and the creation of wealth for both, has the same root -- reason. The only requirement of
reason from the state is entirely singular in principle: freedom,
that is, the banishment of the initiation of force from all social
relationships. Yet, this is precisely the freedom that the "humanitarians" do
not wish to give either of them, since this "right" to freedom and liberty, can
only come at the expense of the alleged humanitarian's "might."
"Those humanitarians who claim to help the poor, but oppose capitalism, do not really
have the interests of the poor in mind." [AR paraphrase I think, need to check.]
Since all men are free to create wealth under capitalism, no one is forced into poverty,
as in non-capitalist countries. In a capitalist country, the only poor are those who
choose to remain so of their own free-will (such as many of the "back to nature"
types who wish to live like hippies).
Keep in mind that the moral justification of capitalism is not the it serves the
"needs of the many", but that it protects the rights of every individual -- in particular, it protects the individual from
the "many" (majority). Capitalism is not
egalitarian, nor "compassionate"; Capitalism is just.
What of those who cannot truly help themselves?
The few individuals in a capitalist society who are
incapable of taking care of themselves -- such as the retarded, crippled, and orphans (which
are a small and tiny minority in any free country) -- are provided for through voluntary
means, i.e., private charity.
Suggested Reading:
Hunger and Freedom in Ayn Rand's in The Voice of Reason.
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