Welfare Statism: Collectivism/Statism “Light”, and Democracy
#5 in a series of Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd Expanded Edition)
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4.3 Welfare Statism: Collectivism/Statism “Light”
The type of collectivism practiced in most countries today is called welfare statism. This includes the United States; the UK and Ireland; other Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; Western Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc.); the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc.); Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan; and many others that have been looking to Western societies for socio-political guidance over the past 100 years.
A welfare state is a statist social system in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the alleged economic and social well-being of the country’s citizens. The term normally implies some form of mixed economy, where statism is intertwined with a certain level of respect for and protection of individual rights.
Welfare statism puts great emphasis on government providing a “safety net” for its citizens. The definition and extent vary from country to country, but common elements include tax financed healthcare and education, subsidized housing, unemployment benefits, welfare payments, and a large amount of regulation to preventively “protect” you from harm. Individuals living in a welfare state willingly or not so willingly agree that government needs to be in control of parts of their life in exchange for “safety net insurance.”
In the United States, programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other welfare payments, and government (“public”) schools are examples of welfare statist programs. Social Security (retirement allowance) and Medicare (healthcare for people over 65) violate individual rights by forcing individuals and employers to pay into the system in exchange for a government-defined future retirement allowance and subsidized healthcare. Medicaid (healthcare for low-income households) and other welfare payments (unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc.) are redistributions to qualified individuals financed by federal and state income taxes. And government (“public”) education is paid for by local property taxes plus federal and state income taxes.
In addition, regulations intended to prevent harm imposed by federal, state, and local legislatures, departments, agencies, authorities, and boards limit your ability to be in control of your life. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates the food you eat, and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulates pharmaceutical drug development, marketing, and sales, and what your doctor can prescribe you. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates how U.S. companies trade both with foreign countries and with one another, and the Federal Aviation Authority regulates air travel and aircraft production. At the state level, public utility commissions (PUCs) regulate the electricity and natural gas that utility companies produce and distribute and that you consume. And departments of education regulate class sizes and curricula for your children. Locally, zoning boards and planning commissions regulate where and what builders can build, and building inspectors determine when your house is safe to move into. School boards regulate the same things as state departments of education do, just more so. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
No doubt, many of the rules and regulations imposed by these departments and agencies do prevent harm, at least narrowly conceived. But they also violate the individual rights of all parties involved. Scientists, producers, distributors, marketers and consumers of products and services—that is, all of us—are forced to act in accordance with the government-imposed rules and regulations. We will return to this topic later to discuss how these matters are addressed in a non-statist social system and how protecting individual rights appropriately promotes safety.
As a member of a welfare statist society, you are only in control of parts of your life. Freedom is restricted, but you retain control of some of your life and property. You’re in control of some aspects of your life, with the government dictating the rest.
Under welfare statism, people of different political persuasions may disagree on details. But they agree on principle that individual rights have to be violated for the “public good” through taxation, redistribution, and regulation, although not on the scale of the totalitarian (communism and fascism) and the authoritarian, flirting-with-totalitarianism (socialism, oligarchy, and theocracy) social systems.
Both today’s political right and left support welfare statism. On the right, all shades of conservatives—classical liberal (at least often), fiscal, compassionate, social, nationalist, etc.—subscribe to some level of welfare statism, which may vary greatly in degree. Likewise, many people on the left—center left, social liberal, social democrat, progressives, and democratic socialist—are more or less avid supporters of the welfare state.
That the political left favors government involvement restricting you from being fully in control of your life for the benefit of the “public good” may not come as a surprise. But isn’t the political right the great defender of individualism? Traditionally, conservatives have been viewed as somewhat less in favor of welfare statism than leftists. In many cases that is still true, but both fundamentally and in practice we’re talking about different shades of gray. For example, few conservatives seriously question the individual right violations of the big three welfare statist programs—Social Security, Medicare, and government (“public”) education—as we will see later. Furthermore, as the bipartisan 2020 $2.2 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package showed, conservatives are almost as happy as leftists to expand government involvement in a crisis at the expense of individual rights. And representatives of the political right with a nationalist bent are no strangers to advocating for more individual rights violating regulations when it suits their purposes, as recent debates about regulating or breaking up big technology companies have demonstrated.
Capturing the welfare statist spectrum in our Statism box looks something like this:
© 2022 Anders Ingemarson; from “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd expanded edition)”
We’re using leftism instead of the more common term “liberalism” to group the different welfare statist expressions on the political left. The traditional meaning of liberalism is associated with a greater respect for individual rights than what unfortunately is present among “liberals” on the left today.
Conservatism covers a somewhat broader welfare statist spectrum than leftism, as there is still a wider recognition of the importance of individual rights among some on the political right than on the left (although one may argue that it is currently in decline). This is represented by the conservative ellipse extending farther towards the individualist end of the morally Right to Wrong spectrum.
The positioning of the conservative and leftist labels in the two welfare statist ellipses is somewhat indicative of the degree of welfare statism they subscribe to. But exceptions are not uncommon. Furthermore, neither the position within nor the width of the ellipses are static in time but may change as the political landscape evolves.
Keep also in mind that the views of the different factions frequently overlap, and a person may sympathize with aspects of two or more of them. Other leftist and conservative labels exist as well. If a label comes to mind that is excluded here, it is a good exercise to ask yourself where you would put it on the welfare statist spectrum based on what its supporters stand for. And if you want to learn more about the labels listed here, Wikipedia is a good starting point. For example, the article on Conservatism covers different forms of conservatism, and the article on Democratic Socialism compares and contrasts it with Social Democracy and Socialism.
We can now add Leftism and Conservatism to the broader picture:
© 2022 Anders Ingemarson; from “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd expanded edition)”
The key message so far is that both the traditional political left and political right occupy the welfare statist spectrum. By our definition of the morally Right or Wrong—to which degree your individual rights are respected and protected—both are Wrong. Leftists and conservatives agree that, in the name of the “common good”, the “public interest,” the “will of the majority,” or the alleged “right of a minority,” your individual rights must take a backseat to the collective or the group. Both argue that you need to be subject to a welfare statist government’s taxation, redistribution, and regulation, even though this infringes your rights to be in control of your life.
4.4 Democracy
Perhaps you find the term democracy conspicuously absent from the discussion so far except for indirect mentions of “social democrat” and “democratic socialist.” The original meaning of democracy is unlimited majority rule; it is a statist social system where the majority is the ruling collective to which the rights of the individual are subordinated.
Isn’t America a democracy? Yes and no. Constitutionally, the United States is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic with checks and balances intended to prevent any collective or group, a majority included, from violating the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness that every one of us has. The framers intended the U.S. constitution to protect us against all forms of statism, including unlimited democracy. They knew their history and explicitly tried to avoid the fate of ancient Athens and other Greek city states where democracy descended either into mob rule or totalitarianism—or both.
However, the United States of the past century or so has more and more become a democracy. Statists on both the political left and right have chipped away at the constitutional checks and balances through a combination of legislative and judicial action.
For example, the constitution established election to the U.S. House of Representatives by popular vote every two years and election to the U.S. Senate by the state legislatures every six years, with 1/3 of senators elected every two years. The idea was that the direct “will of the People” would be represented in the House with its shorter terms, and that the Senate would balance this with its indirect election of senators for longer terms. Rash legislative action by the House would be checked by the less-populist Senate.
However, the 17th amendment ratified in 1913 established the direct election of U.S. senators by popular vote. This meant that both the House and the Senate were now elected directly by the people, removing some of the checks that the Senate had previously provided.
Because a popular vote is democratic in nature—the candidate with the most votes wins—the balance tilted towards democracy, opening the door for coordinated majorities to violate individual rights by popular vote. This, together with many other shifts toward more direct democracy over the past 120 years, contributed to paving the way for welfare statist programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the massive regulatory state that we currently live with.
Democracy and welfare statism are not synonymous, but, for the purpose of our discussion, we’re largely aligning them with one another under statism in the illustration:
© 2022 Anders Ingemarson; from “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd expanded edition)”
If both the political left and right subscribe to welfare statism, where do we find a social system that is an ally of individualism? Is there a social system that leaves you completely in control of your life? A system of limited government protecting and respecting your individual rights? The answer may surprise you.