The real victims of the welfare state

Creating a culture of personal social responsibility

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Robert Wright’s review of my book captures the essence of my journey in America. 

“There is a right way and a wrong way, always choose the right way.”  Abraham Sabrin (1914-2001)

Although I moved to Florida two years ago, I keep in touch with the coming and goings in New Jersey with a subscription to The Record, which became part the USA Today Network many years ago.  Over the years the newspaper published scores of my letters and many op-eds about the economy.  In my memoir I recount how a couple of the Record reporters revealed their biases in reporting about my campaign and my stint as a radio talk show host in Bergen County in the mid-1990s.

Yesterday, I read an op-ed piece, “I run a food pantry.  Congress cannot limit SNAP benefits,” by Kim Guadagno, the executive director of Mercy Center, a nonprofit in Asbury Park.  I met Kim several years ago when I was seeking the GOP US Senate nomination; she thanked me for entering the race.  At the time I thought she was expressing Governor Christie’s views as well.  I will have more to say about Christie if he announces that he will seek the GOP presidential nomination. 

 Kim was the New Jersey lieutenant governor (2010-2018) in the Chris Christie administration and the 2017 GOP gubernational candidate and was defeated by Phil “the Bill of Rights is above my pay grade” Murphy.  Murphy uttered these words on Tucker Carlson’s show in the early days of the Covid lockdowns.  

After I read Kim’s op-ed, I called her office and left a voicemail.  Within an hour she called me, and we had a wonderful discussion of the nonprofit sector and the welfare state.  I mentioned that I was a founding trustee on a nonprofit medical center in Bergen County and that I have been promoting the idea of replacing the welfare state with charitable organizations for at least 30 years based on my advocacy of libertarian solutions to the issues facing the country.  I emailed Kim Peter Drucker’s December 1991 Wall Street Journal op-ed, where he concluded, in effect, the welfare state is a bureaucratic mess and nonprofits should be the primary provider of social services. 

But the major point I want to make is that the welfare state essentially keeps individuals and families dependent on taxpayers’ funds for their necessities, in effect, “serfs” of the government.  In Kim’s op-ed she profiles “Linda” a single mother of four teenagers, whose SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly called Food Stamps) benefits have been reduced because of the end of the COVID-19 emergency. 

Linda’s situation begs the question. If a couple brings children into the world, who is responsible for their well being?  To ask the question is to answer it.  By not earning sufficient income to support themselves and their offspring, children are the real victims of the welfare state as well as taxpayers. 

The solution is twofold. We need to implement Drucker’s op-ed recommendations to replace the welfare state with nonprofits.  In addition, we must promote a new culture in America, “personal social responsibility”—learning skills to provide an income and postponing having children until a couple has the resources to support them, and it goes without saying, not having children out of wedlock.

In other words, when you become an adult, you must be financial independent, and thus not a burden on your neighbors.  This “social contract” was spelled out in William Graham Sumner’s classic book, What Social Classes Owe To Each Other.  Sumner’s book is more relevant today than when it was published in 1883. 

My latest piece on the economy was published in Fortune, https://fortune.com/2023/03/27/recession-2023-layoffs-tech-finance-unemployment-outlook-fed-rates-murray-sabrin/  This is an update of my 2021 forecast, https://fortune.com/2021/12/09/next-recession-heres-everything-bubble-markets-2021-2022-covid-murray-sabrin/ 

Murray Sabrin, PhD, is emeritus professor of finance, Ramapo College of New Jersey. Dr. Sabrin is considered a “public intellectual” for writing about the economy in scholarly and popular publications. His new book, The Finance of Health Care: Wellness and Innovative Approaches to Employee Medical Insurance (Business Expert Press, Oct. 24, 2022), and his other BEP publication, Navigating the Boom/Bust Cycle: An Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide (October 2021), provides decision makers with tools needed to help manage their businesses during the business cycle.  Sabrin's autobiography, From Immigrant to Public Intellectual: An American Story, was published in November, 2022.