Hello. I was recently in a conversation with a National Socialist internet acquaintance of mine who was kicked out of his house by his psychotic mother, but even after going to every home of anyone he ever knew for any appreciable length of time, none of them wanted to house him. None of his extended family members across the world wanted to help him, either.
So my question is: has there been any empirical studies supporting the idea that people are "generous"? When dealing with human action, Austrians always assert that you can figure things out by pure theory. But that's nonsense. Theory cannot tell you whether or not people will be generous. You have to look in the real world to get a sense of how humans act.
So, have there been any such studies on the subject?
To add to Nock's explanation of increasing state power corresponding with decreasing social power, consider that with the increase of state power (and state welfare programs) more people tend to view their tax payment as charity, in a sense of "why should I donate time or money when I already paid taxes to provide for food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, subsidized housing, etc?" Add to this the fact that many needy people are "hidden" from them. By this I mean that people go to the local Labor Office to get their welfare check, or food stamps, or whatever, instead of on the sidewalk begging. Hell, some places even have legislation against that kind of activity. So the "poverty problem" is sort of "out of sight, out of mind" for many people.
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
"Generosity" can be talked about in no such way.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Relevant material:
http://candlemind.com/projects/progclub/file/michael/getEducated.php?listID=24
The Costs of Public Income Redistribution and Private Charity: http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf
No, his political views are not known.
Clayton:@Meistro: I think you're assuming that the central problem of charity is stimulating the charitable impulse itself. I don't think that is the biggest problem, either way... the real problem is information-transfer... getting the information about people who have problems to the people who care about those problems and are willing to help. And the modern concept of stranger-charity deeply undermines this process by anonymizing the whole process... both recipients and donors are anonymous in the vast majority of charitable wealth transfer. In reality, every specific case of charity is an act of helping a specific individual. The worthiness of that individual for charitable assistance is best assessed by every individual who chooses to help, however he or she chooses to help. This can be everything from watching someone's children (free childcare) to donating a sum of cash to spending time chatting with them. In the mad rush to blindly apply industrial methods to charity, we have lost sight of the original essence of the thing which is intimate. When you think about it, modern charity has hanging about it the air of forced intimacy.
My point. Since people tend to associate with other people like them, poor people won't have wealthy people to draw on without welfare.
What solution is there to this?
Welfare before the Welfare State
gotlucky:Welfare before the Welfare State
I agree that mutual aid is a good solution to the healthcare problem, but there's still the problem of clothes, gas, food, and rent.
What of it? Do you know what college students and graduates do for housing? They either live with their parents or share a living space with others. This is because housing can be expensive, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper to split the rent with others than to rent a place all to yourself. You ever hear of carpooling?
There are plenty of ways people can cut back on costs, but if you want to rent an apartment all to yourself and have a different outfit for everyday of the year like they do on TV, prepare to go into debt.
I call bullshit! I am an American, I deserve 365 outfits a year and my very own living space. thats why we have troops fighting teh enumeez over "c's" anyway, you dont want their sacrifice to be in vain do you?
gotlucky:What of it? Do you know what college students and graduates do for housing? They either live with their parents or share a living space with others. This is because housing can be expensive, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper to split the rent with others than to rent a place all to yourself. You ever hear of carpooling?
So they will have to split rent with others their entire lives? Will this even be enough? Rent apartments are very small.
You must live a very sheltered life.
Said the bourgeois armchair intellectual.
Clearly you have no experience looking for apartments or renting houses with friends in their 20's and early 30's. Different cities have different costs of living. You have also clearly never shopped at thrift stores or looked for awesome sales anywhere.
As for people sharing rent their entire lives, maybe you could live with family...it's not like you have to live with strangers your whole life. My god you are sheltered.
Thanks for the positive feedback, Blargg... it's encouraging. :-)
Clayton -
"You have also clearly never shopped at thrift stores or looked for awesome sales anywhere."
I f***ing love Goodwill.