One of the things that makes thinking clearly about Social Security difficult is that the program actually blends together two very different issues: (1) how individuals prepare for old-age and (2) transferring income from those who earn it to those who allegedly need it.
In this episode of The Debt Dialogues, I talk to Ayn Rand Institute executive director Yaron Brook about the moral alternative to the welfare state: laissez-faire capitalism. Topics include how the welfare state harms recipients, why capitalism leads to prosperity and human flourishing, and Ayn Rand’s unique contribution to capitalist thought.
In a recent debate on the welfare state, I was asked whether I thought it was important to help others. That, I said, was not the right question. In a free society, people help others all the time — parents help children, neighbors help neighbors, private charities help orphans.
Elizabeth Warren and many of the other people recklessly seeking to expand Social Security, which is already on an unsustainable course, justify their crusade by claiming that America is facing a retirement crisis. Millions of older Americans, they say, cannot afford to retire: Social Security doesn’t pay enough and they haven't saved sufficiently on their own.
In this episode of The Debt Dialogues, I talk with philosopher Harry Binswanger about inequality, the motive behind egalitarianism, and why opponents of the welfare state should reject the idea of “equality of opportunity.”
One strain of argument for the welfare state contends that because you have benefited from the welfare state, you have an obligation to fund the welfare state.
Somewhere near the bottom of Dante’s nine levels of hell rest the “squeegee bandits.” These were the guys who waited for your car to stop at a traffic light, and then — without permission — quickly squeegeed your windshield “clean.”
In this episode of The Debt Dialogues, I talk with Cato Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell about how the welfare state undermines prosperity and economic growth.
This has been quite a month. We kicked off April with a debate on the welfare state at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that drew a live audience of 250 students and many more online.
In this episode of The Debt Dialogues, I talk to Hope about her experiences as a single mother on welfare, why she left the welfare rolls, and the benefits of self-reliance.
