This mirrors the argument in Albert Jay Nock's book "Our Enemy: The State" (1935). He argues that expanding government crowds out non-governmental social activity, giving the example of hurricane response. In his time he already saw the shift in the public mind from treating a disaster as a problem for the entire community to something that the government should handle.
If Nock is correct, there is a darker thesis that follows. Over the generations, dependent thinking becomes ingrained. It becomes impossible to think otherwise, as the examples we have of civil society solving problems fade into the past. In short, we become domesticated humans.
It was also the thesis of Marx that for socialism to succeed, a new Socialist Man would have to be raised, that human nature would have to be changed. This began in America with the reign of FDR, which coincided with the birth of the third American Republic - the Bureaucratic Superstate.
>> He argues that expanding government crowds out non-governmental social activity,
And yet if you look to the past you see that when government does nothing people die in the streets because charity in no way covers what government can now. Particularly for those on the fringes of society, those considered immoral or sinners in some way.
Private social activity absolutely does not do all we need it to.
FWIW I don't disagree with the premise, state intervention may well crowd out social activity.
But you'd have to be deliberately blind to hundreds of years of human history to make the claim that the social activity did anything like the job our current welfare models (for all their masses of imperfections) do.
Opt-in disaster relief led to farmers burning their excess crops to force "Okies" to move on in 1935. The New Deal was a response to the age-old prevailing attitude that it's only kin you should look out for.
It's one thing to think it inappropriate for the state to ensure that disaster relief happens (even clumsily), but the idea that the private sector would otherwise be picking up the slack is unprecedented and and far from plausible. Charity has always been more a symbolic gesture than a real influence.
>He argues that expanding government crowds out non-governmental social activity, giving the example of hurricane response
My house was ruined by Hurricane Sandy, I am grateful that our Republican governor went against the grain and backed a relief fund program.
Fuck you and your advocacy of disaster capitalism. Towns were wiped off the map, if you think the solution is a bunch of vultures looking to profit from a tragedy and not government intervention, you've been blinded by your ideology.
Here's a hint: despite locals' efforts to help one another out, all of our shit was wrecked, but we still did it. Everyone's everything was gone, we can only help ourselves so much given the fact most people didn't have a home, electricity, or running water.
We must be the domesticated humans you're going on about. What does that make you? Who benefits from such an disgusting ideology? Only people who are infinitely more wealthy than you'll ever be.
First off, I can tell you've never read Nock and have no intention to do so. I'm disappointed by this level of discourse.
Secondly, why do you assume that the only two institutions in the world are the government and the market? That itself is emblematic of the erosion of the social fabric in America.
If Nock is correct, there is a darker thesis that follows. Over the generations, dependent thinking becomes ingrained. It becomes impossible to think otherwise, as the examples we have of civil society solving problems fade into the past. In short, we become domesticated humans.
It was also the thesis of Marx that for socialism to succeed, a new Socialist Man would have to be raised, that human nature would have to be changed. This began in America with the reign of FDR, which coincided with the birth of the third American Republic - the Bureaucratic Superstate.