Welfare is NOT Charity

The public infrastructure including both public services and public utilities is NOT charity.

Nobles and church leaders were once responsible for the maintenance of roads, postal service, the organization of fire brigades and police, as well as ensuring that food, clean water and even housing were available to citizens. Taxes were levied upon citizens to pay for these public goods and services.

The forces of liberal capitalism overthrew these social, political and economic systems and replaced them with democratic republics and the burden of providing for the welfare of nations shifted as did the power to tax.

Every nation once prided itself on how well its program of public services and public utilities provided for the common welfare of the citizens, raised the standard of living for all and reduced demand for charitable programs to meet the needs of the poor.

A politically, socially and economically regressive generation has labeled every program meant for the common good and the welfare of the people in general as being socialist in nature but nothing could be further from the truth. Liberal capitalism has in our not-so-distant past created surplus sufficient not only to enhance the wealth of the upper ownership class but also of the working lower class creating something unheard of in history, a working middle class.

A more progressive generation that has NOT tasted the fruit of a liberal capitalism is now embracing what they are calling socialism, but they do not support the actual ownership of the means of production and distribution that is a hallmark of socialism. Instead, they are demanding of capitalism that which it once provided their grandparents and great grandparents … robust, well-managed and well-funded public services and public utilities that raised the standard of living for EVERYONE paid for in large part by taxing the profits of our most successful corporations, businesses and individuals and to a lesser degree by the working middle class.