What’s a “Social Safety Net” and Why Must We Have One?

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) was unable to answer the question (posed by fellow Democrat Chris Matthews of MSNBC), “What’s the difference between a socialist and a Democrat?”

She could not identify the difference because there is no difference — not in principle. In her stammering and stumbling reply, Wasserman-Schultz kept saying we have to focus on the differences between a Republican and a Democrat.

On the biggest issues of our day, the issues affecting literally everyone, Democrats and Republicans certainly do agree on one thing: The supposed need for a social safety net.

Donald Trump, if you read his most recent book, says over and over that despite the need to cut the deficit, cut taxes and cut the national debt, we must always have a “social safety net.” Ronald Reagan said the same thing. I have not yet heard a single Republican, not the Christian type, not the “libertarian” type, nor any other type suggest there should not be a social safety net required by law.

What is a “social safety net?”

The metaphor of a “net” implies provisions for physical safety maintained by others. Who are these others, holding that net for you as you walk the tightrope of life? Loved ones, family, friends or spouse? People who do not know you, but willingly and voluntarily agree to provide benefits for you, as in a charity?

No. Those relationships are all perfectly fine, and perfectly legal. That’s not what either Democrats or Republicans mean when they say we must have a “social safety net.” They mean that some citizens must be required to pay for the benefits or welfare of others — by law, whether they want to or not, or whether they choose to do so, or not.

Democrats favor the “social safety net,” both in theory and practice. The more, the better. You cannot spend, borrow or tax too much, in order to maintain the social safety net.

Republicans are more ambivalent. On the one hand, they insist that there must be a “net,” provided by law. Strangers must be forced to pay for strangers. Republicans object to the fiscal and practical problems often involved with maintaining or requiring such a net; but morally, they completely agree with the Democrats and the socialists.

The basic problem with the “social safety net” is that it’s coercive. But the problem is deeper than that.

When you say that you must be forced to pay for the social safety net of others, you’re told that your life is, in part, an obligation to take responsibility for people or situations over which you had no say. Others deemed as “in need” are your responsibility, not because you choose to make them your responsibility, but because they’re in need, and the mere fact of their need automatically puts a claim on your life.

A “social safety net” does not refer to taking responsibility for children you freely choose to bring into the world, or debt you freely take on, or business decisions you willingly make (for better or worse). It refers to a debt you supposedly have to others merely because you are alive, and merely because they are alive.

For example, advocates of a social safety net will say, “There are millions of single mothers out there. Without your tax contributions, they will starve. If they starve, it will be your fault. You have a moral, and therefore a legal, duty to spend some of your livelihood on them.”

What about the fact you did not choose to have these children? What about the fact that you’re being expected not only to take responsibility for your own life, children, circumstances and choices — but also for the choices, children and circumstances of others?

Substitute single mothers with any politically protected pressure group, and it’s always the same theme, the same argument, and the exact same underlying principle. You are your brother’s keeper.

You might be told that others’ circumstances are not their fault. In reality, most of these situations people bring on themselves actually are their fault. Nobody holds a gun to their heads and makes them have children before they’re emotionally or financially ready; or abuse drugs or alcohol; or simply be lazy or indifferent to the quality of their own lives.

It is very difficult for many people to find honest work. However, if they keep supporting politicians who expand the dependence of the coercive welfare state, raise taxes, increase regulations, minimum wage laws and otherwise make it difficult to impossible for job creators to create jobs, then the people voting for these welfare statists are, in fact, part of the problem.

The idea of a “social safety net,” whether it’s advanced by Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton always relies on one basic idea: That other people do not make choices, even though in most cases, their lives are the product of their choices, evasions, risk-taking, and level of personal self-responsibility, for better or worse.

Even if you can prove that someone is not responsible for his or her situation — not at all — as sometimes can be done, then by what right does someone say you are responsible? If their misfortune is an act of “God,” nature, or random circumstance, and is nobody’s fault — then how does it become your fault, just because you have more, or because you work hard?

If all these helpless and hopeless hordes that Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and even Donald Trump assume have no responsibility whatsoever for their circumstances exist, then what makes you responsible for them?

This is not an argument against voluntary, rational and benevolent charity. It is an argument against indiscriminate charity, and coerced “charity” — which always leads to indiscriminate charity, because once charity is made a legal and political right, the demands and needs exponentially increase (look at the national debt for proof.)

The idea of a social safety net relies on the premise that your life ultimately does not belong to you. The idea is that your life ultimately belongs to others. Others’ needs — claimed or real, brought about by bad choices or unfortunate circumstances — are your problem and your responsibility — precisely the degree to which you do well.

It’s the most perverse idea imaginable. The harder you work and the better off you are, the less you deserve to be happy and successful. The worse off you are, even if it’s due to faulty or negligent decision-making — the more you deserve.

We wonder why so many people are resentful. The best, brightest, most capable and productive are told to feel guilty. The least capable and the most morally negligent, lazy or unambitious are told to feel entitled, angry and “speak up for their rights” to the earnings of others, not only the 1 percent who are very rich, but the 50 percent who work the most, and who actually pay income taxes.

It’s a lethal contradiction. “I am responsible for my own life and I deserve the rewards of my success,” cannot ever reconcile with, “My primary purpose for living is to serve others; the better I do, the more I am obliged to those who need, regardless of who they are or why they need.”

You cannot reconcile these two things. The Democrats understand this better than the Republicans, and the socialists like Bernie Sanders (and Karl Marx) understand it best of all.

As an individual, what’s at stake is whether you live a life of happy, non-guilt ridden serenity or a life plagued by anxious self-loathing.

As a society, what’s at stake is whether we reemerge as a great, strong and free society, or collapse into the socialist ash heap of history where all other societies, to date, have ended up.

Sooner or later, you’ll have to choose. At the moment, it’s not looking bright for America, because so many Americans and its leaders keep making the wrong choices. Correct this underlying premise, and the world will once again emerge as a hopeful, prosperous and innovative place to be.