Way, way back in 1981, a then-40 years old Bernie Sanders, barely 6 months into his first elected gig as mayor of Burlington, VT, put forth a bit of stark honesty:
said Mayor Sanders, bringing a shocked silence to a packed hotel banquet room. The Mayor, who is a Socialist, went on to question the
fundamental concepts on which charities are based
and contended that government, rather than charity organizations, should take over responsibility for social programs.”
Bernie Sanders, now a Senator and candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the 2016 presidential election, may or may not still hold the belief he shared back in 1981. His quote, however, distills the socialist mindset down to its deepest essence. Why would someone oppose private charity, even if he believes that the government has a fundamental duty to provide charity to the needy? After all, wouldn’t private charity supplement and unburden government?
Yes, it would, but in doing so it undermines government and erodes fealty.
First, realize that the government hates competition. Competition can demonstrate how problems that the government insists it alone can solve can be solved without it. Competition can demonstrate how there are better ways to solve problems. Competition can demonstrate how inefficient and dysfunctional government can be at the things it does. Competition can undermine blind loyalty to the state, and can defeat the Manichean straw man argument that, if government doesn’t do something, it won’t get done.
Second, realize that the government loves control. In New York City, food shelters are banned from accepting food donations because the city can’t verify their nutritional content. Private charities aren’t (at least until government regulates them) beholden to obeying the rules that government sets for its redistributive programs. Private charities might help the poor in ways that the government doesn’t like.
Third, realize that the goal of socialistic government is to convince the public to forego its autonomy and independence in favor of reflexive deference and loyalty to the state. David Mamet called socialism the abdication of responsibility. Here it is, writ large. Giving to or working for a charity is taking on a responsibility to help those who are worse off than one is. In calling for the state to fulfill that role, one lets one’s self off the hook, and transfers the responsibility to the state. That mindset suits the government just fine, because it can infect thought regarding countless other aspects of life. Rather than individually negotiate terms with an employer, one can demand the government set those terms. Rather than do one’s homework regarding doctors, hospitals, medicines and treatments, on can demand the government establish a ruleset for everyone. If one’s taught to first look to government, one is less likely to object to things that government does.
When a good or service is monopolized, people will, over time, start to lose the sense that the good or service could be provided in any other ways. The United States Post Office is a giant money pit, but too many people reflexively defend it against suggestions it be privatized or that it lose its monopoly on certain types of mail (e.g. first class), simply because they’re convinced without evidence that it’s the best way to provide postal service. People object to calls for cutting or reforming public welfare, because they’re convinced without evidence that, without it, people would starve. Furthermore, monopolization allows socialists to fear monger that, were it not for government, people would be starving or dying in the streets or not getting their mail. If government prohibits alternatives, people won’t be able to see that alternatives can, in fact, provide that which the government insists it alone can and should.
The Bolsheviks banned religion in part because they didn’t want people’s loyalties divided. Belief in and loyalty to a higher power gets in the way of devotion to the state. We’re not at that point here in this country, in part because the Bill of Rights still stands and in part because even the periods of conservative majority in America’s recent history didn’t have a fraction of the intertwining of church and state that Russia had before her revolution. But, the principles remain the same. In order for socialism to be accepted (I won’t say “to work,” because it doesn’t, hasn’t and never will), individual liberty and freedom of choice need to be subordinated to loyalty to the collective. Keeping people from knowing alternatives and seeing them in effective action is vital to that pursuit. Monopolizing charity protects socialism from reality.
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