The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 WHY SOME ARE POORER 21has actually been starving, we forthe time being probably increaserather than decrea.se his incentives.But as soon as we give anidle able-bodied man more thanenough to maintain reasonablehealth and strength, and especiallyif we continue to do thisover a prolonged period, we riskundermining his incentive to workand support himself. There areunfortunately many people whoprefer near-destitution to takinga steady job. The higher we makeany guaranteed floor under incomesthe larger the number ofpeople who will see no reasoneither to work or to save. Thecost to even a wealthy communitycould ultimately become ruinous.An "ideal" assistance program,whether private or governmental,would (1) supply everyone in direneed, through no fault of his own,enough to maintain him in reasonablehealth; (2) would givenothing to anybody not in suchneed; and (3) would not diminishor undermine anybody's incentiveto work or save or improve hisskills and earning power, butwould hopefully even increasesuch incentives.But these' three aims are extremelydifficult to reconcile. Thenearer we come to achieving anyone of them. fully, the less likelywe are to achieve one of the others.Society has found no perfect solutionof this problem in the past,and seems unlikely to find one inthe future. The best we can lookforward to, I suspect, is some never-quite-satisfactorycompromise.Fortunately, in the UnitedStates the problem of relief isnow merely. a residual problem,likely to be of constantly diminishingimportance as, under free enterprise,we 'constantly increasetotal production. The real problemof poverty is not a problem of "distribution"but of production. Thepoor are poor not because somethingis being withheld from them,but because, for whatever reason,they are not producing enough.The only permanent way to curetheir poverty is to increase theirearning power. ~IDEAS ONLIBERTYSelf-HelpTHE SPIRIT of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in theindividual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes thetrue source of national vigor and strength.SAMUEL SMILES