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The moral and morality of the welfare state (Carlos Alberto Montaner, Firmas Press)

Americans are missing the point of the problem. They think they're involved in a technical discussion over the economic viability of Social Security, whereas the central issue is different and a lot more important: to choose between individual responsibility and economic responsibility.

That is precisely the core of a heated debate being held worldwide over a profound reexamination of relations between society and the state. The retirement system is just one more expression of that impassioned polemic.

Here, succinctly, is the historical background. Beginning in the mid-19th Century, an idea increasingly developed that the state should furnish people with certain basic services: free public education, medical care, unemployment compensation, sick pay and retirement pension. [...]

This vision of the role of the state, of the whole of society and the role of the individual underwent a crisis in the late 20th century. Why? Because of the extremely high costs it implied and because it created a growing inefficiency in the public sector. [...]

Today, it is well known that the road to the welfare state is no longer passable. The few available resources are squandered, frustration endangers the democratic system and opens the door to all kinds of adventurers and demagogues. At the same time, the welfare state fosters among people a harmful attitude of prostrate defenselessness: ``The state, not I, is responsible for my happiness. If I lack something, it's because someone has taken it away from me.''

It is against this cosmic vision that the voices rise seeking a resurgence of individual responsibility and a reduction of the state's perimeter. They expect that a revitalization of civil society and private-sector efforts will achieve the levels of prosperity that the public environment is unable to generate.

The real problem is not where the retirement funds come from but whether we admit or reject the moral premise that every able-bodied person should save to pay for his or her old-age expenses without having to depend on the solidarity of other wage earners. That's the true debate.

That acquired dependency was a feature not a flaw for the Statists who built the systems.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 28, 2005 8:27 AM