In the wake of the devastation Hurricane Sandy left in NYC (where I still have some friends I have not heard from yet) and its continuing effects further inland, and with the ongoing political battle still raging with only a few days left till the election, I've been thinking a lot about the nature of society, and the mostly unspoken contracts implied by being a part of that.
When humans, or, indeed, any creatures, join into a group, it is with the understand -- an unwritten social contract -- that the purpose of the group is to protect the weak and the young, and to fill gaps. You wouldn't want a group that was made up solely of food providers and no members capable of watching for and protecting from predators as that would leave the group wholly at the mercy of any stronger group passing by. So that social contract comes into play: You protect me, and I'll feed you.
As the animals involved get more sophisticated, or the groups get larger, so does the social contract: there are more people to do things, and more things that need doing, so jobs get more complex and specialized. A larger, more sophisticated group has different needs from a smaller group. You'll have part of the group taking care of the domesticated animals, some growing crops, hunting and fishing, taking care of children, making sure there is shelter or water, or...the list could go on. But that basic social contract is there -- everyone has a role, a task, a skill or trade they can provide, and in exchange, others in the group provide for other needs.
As our society has grown even larger and more complex, we've developed less of a need for everyone to be involved in something practical and materially rewarding, and have moved to a model where some people are able to create things purely to give pleasure to others -- music, art, dance -- or to provide a more abstract service -- education, for example. This makes a basic barter system more difficult -- I can't offer a meal to my favorite author in exchange for a book, or offer to clothe my children's teachers in exchange for a year's education. So we created money as a way to sort of keep track of "favors" owed or collected upon. And then we agreed to all give a portion of our own earnings to a specific group of citizens to be disbursed to people whose jobs benefit the entire group as a whole, rather than on an individual level -- taxes which are used to pay teachers, police, firefighters, etc. Additionally, some of that money goes to assist those who are unable to work, for whatever reason, or who have incomes insufficient to provide for their families. Yes, there are people who take advantage of these systems, but overwhelmingly, the people benefiting from social welfare programs like food stamps, WIC, Medicaid & other public assistance are people without other options. They are elderly on strict pensions that would have been enough the decade or more ago when they retired, but rising costs of living and extended life spans have made that money not stretch as far as it might have. They are people who do necessary unpleasant jobs for others, but are not paid enough to keep up with (again) the rising cost of living. They are young families having to choose between food or shelter or childcare; single parents coping with the loss of an income and/or a spouse...they are people who, not that long ago, would have been cared for by a larger family-group that is currently unable or unwilling to do so.
If you look at money as a representation of favors collected, it is easy to see where some people are breaking the "You help me and I'll help you" bedrock of society. It is one thing to set aside favors against a day of need. It is another entirely to hoard those favors with no intention of ever repaying them. To refuse to contribute to society through taxes, to plan to eliminate public assistance, to suggest that citizens do not need protection or education -- those are in direct contradiction to the very idea of living in a society that allows for an external, non-barter system of favors. If each of your dollars were a product -- food, stone, wood, animal, cloth -- what would you DO with it? Would you keep it until it rotted, just so you would not have to trade it to your neighbor? And then to do that in the name of "Christianity" -- when Christ was a proponent of helping the less fortunate, of sharing what you have with those who might need the part that you cannot use -- that is the rankest of hypocrisy.
And to support someone who wishes to remove those public assistants that you yourself have made use of in the past? I can only hope that either your candidate does not win, or that if he does, you never need to make use of those services.
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