Greg: My Failed Attempt to Answer Every Concern

Jack,

I think you're right.  I think that I need to respond very directly to the points that you made several posts ago and I can see that I've left you unsatisfied.  Perhaps we actually agree on more than we think we do since I actually do consider myself a capitalist and believe it to be the best way to generate wealth.  So this response will be divided into two sections.  First, I will pull some quotes or points from your most recent e-mail, offering a brief response and then, second, I will return to the post of your blog dated September 5 in order to respond directly to the seven answers you gave.

Part 1

First, you claim, "the level of poverty is stunningly low in our nation."

My response:  Of course American poverty is low if you compare it to underdeveloped or so-called "third-world" countries!  And I am sure you'd attribute the difference between the "first world" and the "third world" to the form of capitalism that has dominated in Europe and North America.  In part, I'd agree (although I'd also point out that our systematic exploitation of native peoples -- both in North America and in the subaltern world -- might have even more to do with our modern prosperity and their poverty).  

Yet in our own nation I'd hardly call poverty "stunningly low" in light of the facts.  According to the most recent census data, 16% of Americans currently live at the poverty level and 20% of children do.  These are our highest poverty levels since 1993.  In fact, 1 out of 6 children live in homes that cannot provide consistent access to adequate food.  And without government programs such as SNAP, WIC, subsidized school lunches, etc. these children might literally have nothing to eat.  Astonishingly, most Americans (58.5%) will spend at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.  And currently there are an estimated 643,000 homeless people living in the U.S.  These are not "stunningly low" numbers; I'd call them "stunningly high."

You also said, "In order to find even the small amount of poverty we do, and to make it seem large enough that we would need government's forceful hand to correct it, we have to keep on redefining poverty upward.  Where once it meant widespread lack of food and shelter; today it means not feeling confident that these will continue, or receiving less material goods than others."  I am not knowledgable enough to know if the standards used to define poverty have shifted as you say.  But let me be clear:  I am not calling for more than a minimal safety net to meet the very basic needs of those in the most desperate of circumstances.    Yet I would ask, Jack, at what point exactly do you go from saying that there is a "stunningly low" level of poverty to an amount worth our collective attention?  When the number of homeless tops a million?  When the number of food insecure children rises from 15.9 million to 16 million?  Because to me, our poverty already seems quite noteworthy.  

Meanwhile, you praise the entrepreneur as the real hero of the story.  Yet if we are to witness the emergence of those meritorious entrepreneurs from among said 15.9 million, is it not fair that we as a society ensure that the 15.9 mil are provided with a stable learning environment, quality education, basic healthcare, and similar (dare I say "equal"?) opportunity to that of their middle and upper class peers?  Otherwise, the expectation that these unfortunate children (who simply, it would seem, lost the lottery at birth) will be able to participate in the free market at the same stratum and with the same wherewithal as their peers will be able is unrealistic.  The game is rigged.  The starting lines are uneven.  I can't beat you in a game of Monopoly with an inheritance of one house on Mediterranean and Baltic while you inherit hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, no matter who ingenious I may be.  The proposition that seems so scandalous to so many laissez-faire libertarians is actually rather modest: Let's be proactive a making sure the game isn't rigged before it starts.

Second, you state, "The process of hiring the labor puts more income into the laborer's pocket than he could earn elsewhere, and so his wealth has increased.  That is how people escape poverty, and there is no other way."  I agree with that statement.  But why are there so many who are willing to work in the inner cities who have no businesses willing to hire them?  I'll answer that.  Because those who live in impoverished locations are oftentimes unreliable, difficult to work with, untrained in the etiquette and basic manners of the middle class, sometimes mentally ill, and even tend to be felons, etc.  So we have a quandry:  1) Poverty is alleviated when laborers are hired, but 2) those who can hire chose not to hire in the places of the greatest poverty.  The only solution that I can see is that profits must not be the primary goal of the businessman and businesswoman.  Of course, we do see some examples of this taking place, but they are precious few.  The truth is that, left to self-interest alone and the guidance of the invisible hand (and when we say "the invisible hand," do we not mean basic human nature?), the businesses go elsewhere.  What proposal then, based upon the free market, do you offer that will help people "escape poverty" since "there is no other way"? 

As for point three, you point out to me that hospitals were originally created by Christians -- which is why so many bear the names of saints and biblical characters.  Yay!  We're finally on my turf.  I am a church historian.  And you are exactly right.  The irony in the context of our conversation is that these hospitals you point to were not created for the generation of profit.  In fact, the idea that someone might profit from the care of one who is ill would have been considered unthinkably immoral.  Hospitals were originally set up as agencies of Christian hospitality, a tradition dating back to Abraham which demanded care for the guest because the guest her/himself is an end in and of her/himself.  To treat the guest as a means to another end (i.e. profit) was inconcivable to early Christians yet it is the reason the modern medical-industrial complex exists.  If only we had some Christians today who were more committed to treating people ends in and of themselves as opposed to putting profits first (whether in the insurance industry, the medical field, or all those jobs in between). But the system has made us all guilty and made it impossible to treat individuals as ends in themselves.  In other words, I believe Capitalism has offered an alternative religion.

As for your forth point, which states, "There are two kinds of compassion:  one which speaks compassionately and likes to persuade or compel others to behave benevolently but gives little personally; and the other which actually gives, from their own means, to those who suffer.  The first we call "liberal Democrats"; the second "conservative Republicans."  Wait now, that sounded snarky, you're thinking.  It comes from a recent census study by economist Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University, currently president of the American Enterprise Institute; published in his recent book, 'Who Really Cares.'"   Yes, I do think it is snarky.  And, worse, I think it falls into the logical fallacy of a false dichotomy.  Nevertheless, I won't argue with you on this.  Republicans are generous.  I know many who are -- including most of my family.   I'll just points out that it is logically possible to hold the position that for the sake of the poor it is necessary to BOTH give generously from your own wallet AND also advocate for a progressive tax.  I, and many I know, fall into that category.  I think these dichotomies (and stereotypes) are unhelpful.

Fifthly, you state, "When I say government is inefficient I mean that government has wasted resources that could have done far more for these poor had they been left in the hands of those who created the resources.  The government action, in the big picture, has left the poor worse off than they would have been."  My response is quite simple.  Those resources that would have been saved would simply not be in the hands of the poor.  To claim that they would have been is a tremendous leap of faith.  Such resources would be in the hands of those who control the means of production.  Without "directed" distribution of resources, we know that the bottom 40% of the people control only 0.2% of the wealth while the top 5% of the population controls 61.9% of the population.   So when you talk about how the social safety net "wastes resources," you're right.  But it just wastes the resources of the top 5%.  (Link to the academic paper -- it is from 2007 so things may have shifted a bit:  http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf).  It is far more likely that dollar X would go for a yacht for someone making six figures than it would go for a childcare payment for the single mother trying to make ends meet on about $20,000 per year, and given the extreme wealth disparity in our nation, it seems disingenuous to me to suggest that the "waste" caused by reallocating funds for the poor actually damages the poor by, in essence, "wasting resources that could have done more for [them]."

On your last point you say, "[P]oor families, over spans of a decade or two, cease to be poor.  Only a few of those in the lowest quintile of family income--maybe 3-5% of them--remain there after a US census or two.  And that fact does, in fact, come from the US census."  Now that's odd.  First, because it doesn't line up with my experience at all (or the that of my many, many friends who work in the inner city), but, hey, if you have the data, then who am I to argue?  But secondly, it seems strange, in light of that data, for you to make the claim on Sept. 5 that when "poor people come to depend on government support, they sometimes set up multi-generational behavior patterns and forget what it might be to be a productive, self-supporting person."  After all, you can't have it both ways.  

Now, at this point, Jack, I just want to say that this debate is not personal.  I may sound very passionate and that I because I am and it is because I care very deeply, but it is not because I am angry at you or at any other of my conservative family or friends who genuinely believe that the government should not have a role to play in poverty alleviation (beyond what you have suggested such as enforcing private property laws, etc.)  That said, I will move on to the second section and try to address, very briefly the points you made in the blog of September 5.

Part II

1.  The primary point here seems to be that 1) welfare programs de-incentivize people from working and 2) it wastes valuable resources.  As for the first, I believe that is entirely untrue when you consider who very low the standard of living is for the person who lives off of the system.  This is why I believe that welfare and unemployment benefits should remain low (as they are) so that there is still plenty of incentive for such people to find work.  (SSI and Disability is different and I think those should be higher since those are people who CANNOT work even if they wanted to).  It boils down to the question of how much incentive you think is appropriate.  Let's take two scenarios.  In the first, if you don't work, you starve and your kids starve.  End of story.  In the second, you don't starve, but you also don't enjoy the delicious foods you see others eating around you; you don't get to clothe your children in new, quality clothes for schools so that they avoid insults; you don't get to s occassionally plurge and celebrate a birthday or vacation; you don't get to buy that car you've always dreamed of.  Now, in my opinion, the first scenario is just plain cruel.  Does it provide incentive to work?  Of course it does!  It provides very strong incentive.  The second scenario also provides incentive though.  Does it provide as much as the first?  Perhaps not.  And yet I believe it provides plenty of incentive for any able-bodied man or woman to try to find work and become a productive member of society.  

As for the wastefulness of resources, I believe I've already discussed that earlier.  In my view, a somewhat wasteful program that cares for the vast needs of the poor is better than no program at all.  You counter that it is wasteful and that this actually hurts the poor because the resources that are wasted could actually end up back in the hands of the poor themselves.  I counter with that:  yeah, right.  When the top 5% of the population controls 61.9% of the wealth and the lower 40% of the population controls 0.2% of the wealth, I'm highly skeptical that much of that those "wasted resources" are going to "trickle down" to the lowest of the low.  Those facts, combined with the church's pitiful efforts at poverty alleviation in our own nation -- let alone around the world -- leave me gladly accepting the crumbs that fall from the government's table.  I believe it's the best option that the poor have right now.

2.  You write,  "It was good for both sides, since the business owner got low priced labor and the new workers got the best pay they'd ever had.  They're both exploiting each other; but for some reason only the employer is accused of 'exploitation.'"  First off, I think you misunderstand me terribly.  I never have and never will accuse a businessman or woman who deliberately enters the inner city to create jobs of being an exploiter.  Yet your answer baffles me since I was involved in many conversations for many years, trying (begging) businessmen to set up shop in the inner city, but to no avail.  The last sentence of this quote aside, this investment in the inner cities simply is not happening at all in our nation today. And where it IS happening, it is happening by Christians who are deliberately setting aside the pursuit of profit as their number one agenda (a violation, I might add, of capitalism's rulebook).  Either that, or the businesses are being built in areas of cities that are being gentrified, which is an entirely different endeavor.  

The first part of your answer though, I agree with.  I think you are right that the ability of people to set up their own businesses and begin to sell and trade is a wonderful solution to poverty.  One problem:  As you know, setting up a business requires capital.  Where does that come from for a typical inner city family?  Problem 2:  You must have consumers:  Where do they come from?  And where do they get the money to buy your product?  In other words, I really like your answer in theory, but what does it look like in practice on a large scale in modern urban America?

3. Perhaps we need to have a discussion about the word "free."  I think we use it in different ways.  The way that the word "free" and "freedom" is used by John Locke and the Post-Enlightenment thinkers such as those who drafted the American constitution (Jefferson, etc.) had a very different understanding of freedom than did the authors of Scripture.  When Jesus speaks of freedom, he means something very different than the economic freedom you speak of in your posts.  We should discuss this because we could easily start talking past one another and equivocating on our terms.  That's not a response; just a reflection.


Know what? I think I'm going to stop here.  First of all, because I'm tired and I think I've addressed a lot of material already, but also because as I look ahead I see some topics coming up that will take some posts in and of themselves.  So I've tried to response more directly to your ideas.  If I still am too indirect, I apologize.  I'm not an economist and so you'll have to give me some grace for writing outside of my academic discipline.   But, beyond that, I'm not a logical positivist not even a foundationalist.  So perhaps were are dealing with some differences in our epistemological assumptions.  I suppose any discussions of this nature must begin with defining the philosophical and epistemological methods, mustn't they?  And perhaps that is part of our problem.  I read history different than you.  I imagine I have a very different theology than you.  And I likely have arrived at a different idea of "the good" than you.  And perhaps that is precisely what makes our conversations so interesting.  Till next time...

- Greg

(And I really MUST stop neglecting my Ph D studies for this.  Paul Ricour, Hamid Dabashi, and Achille Mbembe are calling my name and they won't stop until I appease them).

Jack: "The Level of Poverty Is Stunningly Low in Our Nation"

Hi Greg.  

Took me awhile.  As I sketched in my mind what to say, my original plan was just to ask you to take out my last letter or two and look again.  I had broken your previous statement into its implied component questions; got your agreement that I was reading you clearly; and then offered responses to each.  But what I thought (and still think) would help us would be for you to give at least a quick response to each numbered point.  If on some of your points you believe I've successfully answered your question, you could gratify me by so stipulating.  And then for those points where you remain unsatisfied, you could focus your logical firepower and ask for further response.

The alternative, which I'd prefer to avoid, is one in which I respond with my best to each point you make; and then without comment you simply come back with yet another point.  "But what about this; but what about this?"  So I was going to reiterate my previous answers and then ask you how well each of them satisfies you.  And I would have put off my response to your most recent, holding that off as an incentive to getting you at the same table with me.

But I do see some things in the most recent that I'd like to respond to now.  So:

To quote you again, you say, "I think history shows that the private means would address poverty more efficiently and effectively. (and permanently!)"  Now that's a fascinating statement to me.  If that statement were true, then why do we in America have such an obscene level of poverty in our nation?  

Your argument begs the question.  In fact, the level of poverty is stunningly low in our nation.  We, and a few other capitalistic states, have become a historical anomaly, in which poverty is the exception rather than the rule.  And that reduction of poverty has come about almost entirely by private means.  By that I mean that entrepreneurs have created ways to make us far more productive of the things we desire.  In order to find even the small amount of poverty we do, and to make it seem large enough that we would need government's forceful hand to correct it, we have to keep on redefining poverty upward.  Where once it meant widespread lack of food and shelter; today it means not feeling confident that these will continue, or receiving less material goods than others.  Even a glance at most people in the world, or at most people in our country prior to the last century or so, show how little poverty we have by comparison with either.  Did you maybe mean "obscure" rather than "obscene"?

One would also expect... that an unregulated economy like ours would witness wealthy philanthropists, profitable corporations, and the private sector freely utilizing their funds to eliminate poverty, but that is very far from the reality on the ground.  (I do not mean to dismiss the incredible generosity of some wealthy philanthropists.  My point is that what is given does not meet the level of need.)

The US economy has a huge rate of private giving, compared to that of any other country.  The more socialistic the country, the less private giving there is, as a percentage of income.  But when a commodity is free, the quantity demanded will always exceed the quantity supplied; this applies to philanthropic gifts as much as to anything else.  

However, you want to know why profitable corporations don't do more to eliminate poverty.  And once again I point out that elimination of poverty, wherever it has happened, as resulted from companies engaging in the earning of profit.  To earn profit, you take resources and convert them in to products and services whose value exceeds that of the resources.  "Resources" here includes labor, and in fact labor is the predominant resource in business.  When we convert labor into products worth more than the labor, we create wealth.  The process of hiring the labor puts more income into the laborer's pocket than he could earn elsewhere, and so his wealth has increased.  That is how people escape poverty, and there is no other way.  (Unless you count Taking by Force, which is how Royal Families get their wealth)

We could add that the profitable company also is producing good we desire at lower prices than previously achieved; which means that this poor laborer, now with higher wages, finds that each dollar of his wages goes a bit further in exchanging for the things he desires.  As they say in math, Q.E.D.

Because, as you know, to compete in today's marketplace you gotta keep spending money to make money.  (I've never been quite sure about this: when does a business have enough?  When do corporations get to a place where they are content with their current level of profit?)

Turn your questions around; you're still seeing people (and by extension corporations) as consumers rather than creator/producers.  As (businessman) Oskar Schindler asks himself in the movie, "How many more could I have saved?, so we could ask "When has a business created enough new wealth to be shared by its workers and customers and owners?  Or "When do corporations get to a place where they are content with how much better off they have made their society (and their owners)?"

As you express your sincere frustration over being unable to find resources to solve a $65,000 medical problem; think about how odd that is.  If not for all the great wealth creation of American corporations, you wouldn't even be able to find this woman among the vast hordes of people in similar positions.  The very fact that she stands out attests to what our economic system has done for most of us.  And it allows us the "luxury" of being able to look at the isolated problems of ones like her and trying to find solutions for them, too.

And lest you think that there aren't enough well-off people willing to help, look in the yellow pages for a big city's hospitals and notice how they're spelled.  A huge number come under "S" for "Saint-something."  They exist because of Christians who wanted to give their own money to establish a facility that would help everyone, especially the poor.  (The rich, remember, would have had doctors and nurses come to their home a century or more ago.)

Call it the lesser of two evils.  Prying taxes away from people is less evil than watching people starve.  Of course, I wish we didn't live in a world where that was necessary.  

We do live in such a world.  First, because capitalists love to set up business arrangements that benefit both themselves and their prospective laborer.  (If it didn't benefit the laborer, he wouldn't stop doing whatever else he would have been doing.)  Second, because as people grow wealthier they love to give more to those who suffer.  

We might point out something about that, however.  There are two kinds of compassion:  one which speaks compassionately and likes to persuade or compel others to behave benevolently but gives little personally; and the other which actually gives, from their own means, to those who suffer.  The first we call "liberal Democrats"; the second "conservative Republicans."  Wait now, that sounded snarky, you're thinking.  It comes from a recent census study by economist Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University, currently president of the American Enterprise Institute; published in his recent book, "Who Really Cares."

Therefore, even if the government is less efficient, at least the job gets done, or partly done.  It's better as a poor person to have some inefficient help than to have no help.

I need to clarify the meaning of economic efficiency here.  I mean much more than it seems.  When I say that government is less efficient, it leaves you to think I mean that even though they were a bit slow and wasteful, they still achieved a positive result that is better than no result at all.  But that's not what I mean.  When I say government is inefficient I mean that government has wasted resources that could have done far more for these poor had they been left in the hands of those who created the resources.  The government action, in the big picture, has left the poor worse off than they would have been.

I'll strain for an example.  Say, a major flood has numerous families clinging to their rooftops, while some of the local boat owners drive around rescuing them.  Now the government confiscates all their boat fuel to power a government barge that creates huge waves that wash the families off their rooftops as it lumbers around.  Those in government who sent the barge and grabbed the fuel feel very compassionate; but they are the definition of inefficiency:  They do a poor job; and they waste resources that could have been used to do a good job, and they have reduced the condition of those they said they wanted to help.  And they took resources by force from their rightful owners.  

But that isn't happening in America's inner cities.  Sure there are the occasional rags-to-riches stories but, it simply isn't happening on a grand scale.  In this nation -- the freest market in the developed world -- we still see masses of the poor who try to climb out of poverty and cannot.  

That sounds like saying that medicine isn't working because the hospitals are still full of sick people.  Poor people who emerge from poverty cease to be visible as poor people.  What you see are those that remain.  But poor families, over spans of a decade or two, cease to be poor.  Only a few of those in the lowest quintile of family income--maybe 3-5% of them--remain there after a US census or two.  And that fact does, in fact, come from the US census.  It's hard to picture the people who have ceased to be poor, because they have escaped from the inner cities and reduced these masses of the poor from what they would have been.

Greg, I hope that my selection of quotes from you is a fair sampling of what you were saying.  It may be that I cherry-picked statements I thought I could most readily answer, and omitted some compelling points you think I should have addressed.  If you think that, be sure to try not to do the same to me!  Oh, and tell me.

Greg: Another Try

Jack,

I'm going to give this another try.  I think you're right that I didn't address the points you were making as directly as I could have.  In my defense, it was very late and my brain was throwing fits that I was trying to make it write to you that evening.  Nevertheless, I do think much of what I had to say is relevant, if perhaps tangential.  For example, the statistics that I shared with you about how only 7% of those on welfare have stayed there chronically speaks to how "efficient" and "effective" welfare actually is -- presumably it is doing what it is supposed to do (i.e. provide people with a temporary safety net until they can get back on their feet).  It also presents evidence against your claim, "When poor people come to depend on government support, they sometimes set up multi-generational behavior patterns and forget what it might be to be a productive, self-supporting person."  If my professor's data is correct, that is a far smaller problem than you make it out to be.  But, you say, that is not the heart of your argument.  Fair enough.  Let's address your argument.

The core of what you are saying seems to be:  welfare is inefficient.  It would be more efficient for the poor to be cared for by the private sector.  To quote you again, you say, "I think history shows that the private means would address poverty more efficiently and effectively. (and permanently!)"  Now that's a fascinating statement to me.  If that statement were true, then why do we in America have such an obscene level of poverty in our nation?  This is the most unregulated and least taxed free market in the developed world. I've included a cart below that illustrates how low our taxes really are in the U.S. when compared to the GDP.

Corporate tax rates are also comparatively low in the U.S. (especially once you consider all the loopholes that are available.  See examples here:  <http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/slideshows/top-10-corporate-tax-breaks>).  And yet in this nation that so values the unregulated market, what do we find?  Massive unemployment, severe poverty, homelessness, sick children left without insurance, and the like.  One would also expect, according to libertarian theory (and I believe what you are arguing for), that an unregulated economy like ours would witness wealthy philanthropists, profitable corporations, and the private sector freely utilizing their funds to eliminate poverty, but that is very far from the reality on the ground.  (I do not mean to dismiss the incredible generosity of some wealthy philanthropists.  My point is that what is given does not meet the level of need.)

And this is a nice segue into another of your points.  You mention how the work of my former church in the inner city illustrates the effectiveness of voluntary poverty alleviation efforts, even without lots of funding.  Well, you're certainly right about that -- we had almost no funding!  Know why?  Because the wealthier Christian businesswomen and men that I pleaded with to help save our little preschool -- the one that we had to close -- simply couldn't allocate the resources for it.  Their cash was tied up in capital used to grow their businesses.  Because, as you know, to compete in today's marketplace you gotta keep spending money to make money.  (I've never been quite sure about this: when does a business have enough?  When do corporations get to a place where they are content with their current level of profit?)

Were we effective in what we did with little to no money?  Yes, we were.  We were extraordinarily efficient with the money that we had -- and I know that you love efficiency.  However, we simply lacked the resources to make a large-scale difference.  We couldn't provide housing, clothes, jobs, food, health care, legal advice, psychological services, low-interest loans, utility assistance, transportation, education… we were, after all, a church of 70 people.  The only way to provide those vital services would be to tap into a massive source of income.  

Let me illustrate with one story from my time as pastor.  And this is just one story among hundreds.  One Monday morning in food pantry, a middle aged woman came to me to ask if we provided financial assistance with paying for medication.  I told her sadly that we could not afford to do that.  I told her that our little church channelled its limited funds into the food pantry that had brought her there that morning.  She was understanding and did not make me feel guilty in the least, but she did start to cry.  I asked her what was going on and she told me a bit of her story.  She had been a working woman up until the recession that hit in the fall of 2008 (thanks to the greed of unregulated banks -- but that's for another email, isn't it?).  When she lost her job, she also lost her health insurance (because, you see, in this country we have this funny system where your health insurance is tied to your job.  Weird, isn't it?).  And yet she had recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  My memory is foggy here and I cannot recall exactly what she had, but I think it was cancer.  The illness was treatable, but she could not afford the treatments and medication.  She did not quality for medicaid because her income had been too high on the year (since she had until recently had a decent job).  And so she was stuck.  Here was a medicine that she could take that would literally save her life, but she didn't have the money to buy it.  She had spent weeks on end going from one charitable organization to another -- even to some based in hospitals -- begging for the funds to purchase the treatment she needed, but to no avail.  When I asked her, out of curiosity, how much money we were talking about, she gave me a figure that was larger than our annual church budget -- and that amount was what she needed monthly!  What could I do?  I prayed for her and told her I would continue to pray that she would find the help she needed.  But after she left I became angry.  Here I live in the richest nation that has ever existed in the history of the world and yet we had in our midst a woman in her late forties who was dying from a treatable illness for lack of funds.  No one was there for her, but my little church.  And our little church simply could not meet that need.  It was far too big, and we were far too small.  If that woman is to live, there has to be funding from somewhere.  And that somewhere wasn't coming from the private sector (or from the public sector, for that matter, but that's because we don't have universal healthcare here).  I share that story simply to illustrate the constant struggle that workers in the inner city face:  vast human need and a paucity of resources to meet that need.  

Just imagine what we could do if we did have resources!  Imagine what a First Church could do if, instead of having an annual budget of $65,000, it had the annual budget of, say, a Greenville Free Methodist Church (I often dreamed of this).  The sad thing is, there isn't that much interest out there in finding out what would happen (and, believe me, it isn't for lack of trying to drum up interest).  So if even Christians -- Christians! -- are unwilling to make radical financial sacrifices to alleviate the poverty that exists right in their own backyard (and within their own little denomination), then how can we expect that the general populace will voluntarily pony up the cash to eliminate poverty in the world as we know it?  No, my doctrine of original sin teaches me that we as humans are not prone to generosity, but to selfishness.  And while some wait around for people to open their wallets voluntarily and out of free will, others starve.  The free market has simply not met the demand.

And so I judge a progressive tax which coerces money from the hands of those who benefit greatly from this system to be worth it if it feeds those starving people and pays for their life-saving medication.  Call it the lesser of two evils.  Prying taxes away from people is less evil than watching people starve.  Of course, I wish we didn't live in a world where that was necessary.  I wish we lived in a world where the rich really did live by the principle "live simply so that others may simply live," but we don't.  Heck, I wish even Free Methodists lived by Wesley's dictum to "gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can," but we don't.  Today Christians (to say nothing of non-believers) build for themselves huge mansions with swimming pools and three-car garages while others on earth sleep on the streets.  It shouldn't be this way, but it is.

I'm being too verbose.  So let me sum up for the sake of clarity lest you conclude that I've not addressed your points.

Your claim:  The private sector is more efficient than the public at eliminating poverty.  Or, in your words, "People operating voluntarily, alone or in company with others, Christians as well as others, have demonstrated both great generosity and efficiency in helping the poor."

My claim:  Yes, but those of us in the private sector who commit our lives to doing just that do not have the resources necessary to carry out the task.  If we wait for "voluntary" giving, it doesn't come -- at least not in the amount needed to meet the demand.  Therefore, even if the government is less efficient, at least the job gets done, or partly done.  It's better as a poor person to have some inefficient help than to have no help.

Your claim:  The free market, by creating incentives to work and by rewarding innovation, will lift people out of poverty.

My claim:  But that isn't happening in America's inner cities.  Sure there are the occasional rags-to-riches stories but, it simply isn't happening on a grand scale.  In this nation -- the freest market in the developed world -- we still see masses of the poor who try to climb out of poverty and cannot.  There needs to be a modified free market, a "free market plus" so to speak, since the free market alone isn't doing the job.

I realize I have not addressed everything, but I hope I have at least addressed some of what you write.  I appreciate your patience and willingness to carry on this dialog because, as you can see, I care about these things a lot.

Blessings,

Greg