Charity and the Welfare State; B. Summers

a demoralizing confiscation of private property and an immoral, ever-swelling crush at the trough. Aside from this corrupting influence of the Welfare State, there is the more pragmatic matter of selecting the benefici aries. A charitable person will usually carefully screen the candidates. After all, it is his own property that he is giving away~ Not so the bureaucrats of the Welfare State. They are doling out the confiscated property of others, and are thus not motivated to be so choosy. They act accordingly. Could this be taken to mean that I favor tossing all Wel fare State beneficiaries into self-reliance under the free en terprise system? For some beneficiaries this would be good. It might surprise many statists how many of them would land on their feet. Concerning the truly helpless, let me offer the reader an observation and a challenge. The observation is that an abolition of the Welfare State would drastically cut the need for taxes, and thus leave more wealth for present benefactors ..fi J to distribute. It would also enable new people to enjoy the suhjective benefits of performing charitable works. My challenge is for the reader, having paid all his taxes, to send off a check to his favorite charity. ~ 713 MIS E 0 ANNE WORTHAM THE CONSISTENT misrepresenta tion of the principles of political a.nd economic freedom has reached its zenith. The result is a genera tion of young people who have come to believe: - that men are basically irra tional and not to be trusted to act in their best interest; - that ideas are impotent and have no relevance to reality; - that government control is needed to make men free; - that capitalism is synonymous with political pull; - that an unearned share of an other's property is a moral right; - that competition is a threat to freedom; Following graduation from Tuskegee Institute, Miss Wortham served a term in the Peace Corps and has worked since in the communica tions industry. As a freelance information re searcher, she presently is contracted to IBM World Trade Corporation.