Welfare State

Death-panels aside, the fundamental assumption in the current debate seems to be that federally-run healthcare would be a step toward the establishment of a welfare state. I agree that a universal entitlement to sufficient medicine, once set, would probably become as immovable as the expectation that everyone should be allowed to go to school for free through the twelfth grade. Universal healthcare could also lead to a widespread belief in the advisability of universal food and universal housing– add all of these together and you gradually get a cradle-to-grave welfare state. The real debate is whether that would be a good thing. Or would it be un-American?

Many of the things in history that were American were bad. Slavery was our peculiar institution. Al Capone happened in Chicago, which was also the home of the nuclear bomb. Besides those things, there has been a general streak of meanness against poor and weak people running through this country from way back– see, for instance, the folk song "Penny's Farm." From the historical perspective, it seems perfectly American to have only these two options: either be able to take care of yourself or die.

That isn't usually what people mean by "American." The word is supposed to refer to our highest ideals or, as it is put without specificity today, our "freedoms." I like freedom too, but I have another idea of what people think they would lose if their government threw too many safety nets under them. My reliable informants from Sweden tell me that they have a common phenomenon of able-bodied people just giving up. If you live and don't work in Scandinavia, you'll apparently get enough money from your government to keep an apartment and to keep eating. You may not be comfortable, but you don't have to look for a job. Ultimately, some people don't want to. They have the security to do nothing until they die. Nobody forces them to try anything different.

In America, we have welfare-to-work. Realistically, it's probably more often welfare-to-hoping-there's-a-jar-of-peanut-butter-left-in-the-local-church-foodbank-so-your-kids-don't-go-hungry. All the same, there's no lifelong security without the effort that gives lives meaning. What do people do after the state's generosity runs out? Here in Chicago, many of them start to feel shooty and stabby. Having been on the receiving end of a few who felt merely punchy, I can say that if the result isn't pleasant, it at least represents an entrepreneurial fighting spirit.

Americans who give up show that they are angry because something is wrong. We have a bad habit of going down shooting. In general, though, I like that people here aren't pacified. American events, attitudes, and governments may often be tiring, but they never sedate the soul. Would you rather live in a land that spawned ABBA, or the place that made Woody Guthrie, Duke Ellington, "Boom Boom," and "Born in the USA?"