Because Libertarians oppose government operated health care, education and other state services, many people conclude we have no sympathy for the underprivileged. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The hidden assumption is that the present system does help the poor. In fact, it is the current system that creates the poor! When our government schools turn out illiterates, they go on welfare. When the Milk Marketing Board refuses to provide enough milk and a cheese factory closes, its employees go on welfare. When government monetary policies cause inflation that wipes out savings intended for retirement, the elderly go on welfare. When licensing laws and minimum wage laws destroy jobs, the jobless go on welfare. When the tax and regulatory structure stifles economic growth and dries up risk capital that might have built new businesses, the jobless stay on welfare. And when a poor family looks at its options, the best one the government offers is for the father to walk away from his family so the mother and children can go on welfare.
Clearly, the poor fare the worst as government power increases. Governments have always served those with the most power and taken advantage of those with the least. Only in a free society do the underprivileged have the opportunity to improve their lives.
Out of compassion for the enormous human suffering brought about by these government-created problems, Libertarians are working to reverse the trend towards authoritarian government – in the full knowledge that GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM and only human rights and liberty can be the solution
Additional Reading
The Fraser Institute is a Canadian Free Market think tank based in Vancouver. It's motto is "A free and prosperous world through choice, markets and responsibility." One of its research topics is Poverty and Welfare. Check the related articles and publications. For example;
- Economic freedom reduces poverty.
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An Effective Poverty Alleviation Organization
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Welfare Reform in Ontario: A Report Card
Frontier Centre for Public Policy is an independent, western Canada based public policy "think tank." Its mission is to develop and popularize policy choices that will help Canada's prairie region live up to its vast but unrealized economic potential. Check out its
Policies on Poverty. For example;
- Which Best Helps the Poor? recommends increasing the personal exemption on Income Taxes as a superior to increasing minimum wages and expanding tax credits.
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), one of the oldest free-market organizations in the United States, was founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read to study and advance the freedom philosophy. FEE’s mission is to offer the most consistent case for the “first principles” of freedom: the sanctity of private property, individual liberty, the rule of law, the free market, and the moral superiority of individual choice and responsibility over coercion.
The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
is its flagship publication. Search for "Poverty" or "welfare" and find articles such as the following
- Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It: The Freeman, December 2007
- Does Welfare Diminish Poverty?: The Freeman, April 1984