Name:   copperline - Subject:   Darwin and the Republic Date:   7/3/2012 7:44:50 PM

i really agree with you that people should have to live with the consequences of their choices.   As a general principle, it’s spot on.   But the devil is in the details & consequences of how you make that happen.   Some of the choices we are talking about are mistakes that have lasting consequences not just on the individual but on people in the social network around them.    Most people would agree that we have to have safety net protection for innocent bystanders (like unwanted children).     A grandparent who has to quit their job to provide care for the grands is a fair example.  if we provide daycare so grandma can keep working, are we just encouraging her dead-beat kids to keep churning out babies?

And what about the reasons that people make the choices that they do?  Doesn’t education, imagination, opportunity, culture, values and religious belief create the choices we see?    Seems to me that people don’t respond to crisis the way we want them to… they respond with choosing the path least threatening & most familiar.  

For instance, a guy loses his factory job because of changes in the industry.  We might think it’s a good idea for him to assess his future employment prospects, & get retrained quickly with new skills so he can move his family to the next state where a different job can be found.   in practice, he is more likely to try to refrain from changing too much, uprooting his family too much.  His choice to stay in place after the jobs have left is illogical and full of risk….if his choice leads to poverty, do we want to just ignore him & hope that he figures it out? 

in the 1920’s, my (ex)wife’s grandfather lost his leg while working on the railroad.  He succumbed a few years later, but a one-legged man couldn’t do farm work.  There was no social security, no social safety net…. His wife and two young sons eked by in disparate poverty for many years.  Eventually, the sons got an education and good job skills, went to work and pulled out of poverty completely.   They were industrious, but also very lucky.    When i was young, a friend’s Dad committed suicide leaving his wife, two sons and a daughter behind.   Social Security made it possible for all of them to go to right on to college where they got advanced degrees, but without suffering the grueling effects of poverty.    They were industrious, but also very lucky.   The welfare system made choices available to them that otherwise may not have existed, but they had to carry their own water.   

So, both examples have pretty good outcomes, but which one would you bet to have the better chances of keeping that next generation out of poverty?   With safety net, or without?