“Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action…Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice…” – John Galt in Atlas Shrugged
Here, John Galt expresses an individual’s productive role in his or her own life and how that person finds value in their life.
Entitlements and the welfare state have been polarizing political objects since their inception. The welfare state and entitlement programs were created and strengthened during Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidencies. Both men pioneered massive reform and construction of social programs to assist the impoverished and disadvantaged. These institutions have a prominent role in the productivity and sustainability of every American citizen.
In an article for the Albuquerque Journal, Robert J. Samuelson highlights the thoughts of former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan in regards to the slowdown of economic growth since 2010. Greenspan blames the welfare state for this slowdown. He delineates that the baby boomer generation is beginning to retire and the labor force is expanding very slowly as a result. Greenspan then notes that productivity growth has “collapsed.” Samuelson references statistics that exhibit the effect that entitlements and welfare have on productivity, “Spending on entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and the like) is crowding out gross national saving. Since 1965, saving has dropped from 25 percent of GDP to about 18 percent. Meanwhile, entitlement costs went from 5 percent to 15 percent…Entitlements are draining funds from productivity-enhancing investments.”
When does the strain that entitlements put on economic growth outweigh the benefit provided to welfare state individuals and entitlement program participants? If you ask me, the inception of such an institution violates the basic social principle of objectivist ethics and thus isn’t worth the harm placed on economic growth. Every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. Entitlements and the welfare state hinder the productivity of individuals and negate purpose of individual life. By encouraging idleness and reliance on others in society, the welfare state robs working individuals of the product of their effort. What’s the incentive or purpose of productivity if one can’t reap the rewards that productivity brings? I believe that only individuals, not society, have the right to decide whether they want to help others. The government should not have the power to redistribute the rewards of individual’s efforts. Entitlement programs and the welfare state essentially endorse collective rights, but I believe that a group can’t have rights outside of the rights of the individuals in that collective. Thus, it is wrong for the government to establish programs that discourage self-sustainability, especially when the performance of the welfare state and entitlement programs has inhibited growth in the economy for several years. Intruding on individual liberties like this can lead to a slippery slope of tyranny. Having entitlement programs essentially demonstrates that the government values the rights of society and groups over the rights of individuals: a true breach of objectivist ethics.