In the same vein, if you want to help the poor and the weak, be rich and mighty — else you won't have the resourced to share with the poor, or strength to help the weak.
The poor need an environment that isn't drained by, milked by and/or owned by the rich.
The poor need an environment where those with more wealth cannot influence the outcome of political processes irproportionally.
The poor need an environment where the invisible hand of the market is not the fiscal equivalent of a one-way-valve, where the "free" market is praised as long as the employee wont use their work as a bargaining chip.
Hiring employees is not the only way to create an environment you can thrive in. There are plenty of examples in all cultures (maybe not the US?) of co-operative arrangements that were successful.
Without benefactors providing large amounts of capital how would we advance our knowledge and thought? Without some form of inequality of wealth we would never have had the enlightenment, industrial revolution, and health systems that we have today. The poor today are better off in almost every measure than the poor of 300 years ago. Heck, the poor today are better off than the wealthy of 300 years ago. This is all due to large amounts of capital being invested or donated into science and technology. To an extent wealth inequality is a necessary evil. It's certainly exceeded it's beneficial point at the moment, but that doesn't mean we should throw capitalism away, we only need to rein it in some.
> Regarding handouts, ask whether those who receive food at soup kitchens, or free meals for their kids at school, find the practice useless.
I'm sure if given the option of an intervention that actually addressed the underlying causes of poverty (i.e. socialised housing, UBI, or so forth), they wouldn't choose the gift of soup
Have you quit your job to live off handouts? Why not?
Humans have a natural drive to be self sufficient, and it is unpleasant to rely upon the charity of others. We wish to be masters of our fate, not slaves.
Further, it is dumb to structure a society in a way that depends on significant numbers of its members routinely going against their own self interest.
This is equivalent to saying everyone must work to earn their basic livelihood. Unless you're doing something funky with your definition of "handouts" here such that doesn't include unemployment benefits or other publicly subsidized welfare.
Unemployment and social safety nets are not handouts. You pay into these systems in good times so that you can take advantage of them in bad times. Would you call receiving a check from your insurance company after you are in an accident a handout? You might by chance get out more than you've put in, but you are still entitled to what you receive.
A handout is when someone gives you something you are not entitled to of their own free will. They can stop giving it to you at any time. If you are reliant on handouts, you are at their mercy.
That's the difference. With an insurance contract you are entitled to a payout when the conditions are met because the insurance company agreed to that as part of the contract. The only things you are entitled to are yourself, whatever you can homestead with your labor from unclaimed land, and what others voluntarily agree to give you. Insurance payments and every other form of voluntary contract fall into this last category.
> A handout is when someone gives you something you are not entitled to of their own free will. They can stop giving it to you at any time.
"Social safety nets" are not something you are entitled to. The government grants or denies them of their own free will (albeit using others' money). They can be reduced or revoked at any time, or extra conditions can be imposed for claiming them, and you would have no grounds to sue for compensation over those changes, despite having paid taxes to fund prior payments to others.
Social benefits are not a 'handout' if they are enforced through law and democratic agreement. Everyone in most democratic societies agrees that human life has inherent value, and so they agree to pool their resources and make sure everyone has some kind of basic livelihood.
A handout normally refers to some rich individual giving money to someone or of the kindness of their heart.
What's wrong with it what's left out. Handouts from whom to whom? The term usually implies "from the rich to the poor", meaning that the rich have the power to give or to withhold as they please. But it doesn't ask why they are rich in the first place. If I bring in 1000$ of revenue for my company but am only paid 100$ in wages, am I giving them a 'handout'? No, the term 'handout' implies that that is fine and normal; but when it comes to giving money back, well, that's charity. People should have to work for it! Nevermind that they ALREADY DID.
If you feel that you could bring in $1000 without involving the company and keep it all for yourself, why don't you just do that instead? Might it be that you actually value having someone else manage the capital and legal compliance aspects, decide how resources will be expended, and take all the investment risks associated with running a business so that you can focus on your area of expertise and collect a guarantee salary?
1) Possibly, but getting an organization going where all those different tasks are taken care of often requires substantial up-front costs, i.e. "barriers to entry", which a person or organization who already has a lot of resources can afford, but a little guy like me can't.
2) New guy is unlikely to succeed in a market where there's a natural monopoly already filled by someone else. I'm not going to try to start a competitor to facebook.
3) Entrenched businesses have an interest in eliminating competition. Sometimes this happens naturally (walmart can take advantage of economies of scale in a way that 'mom and pop' down the road can't), and sometimes they go out of their way to prevent competition (e.g. big telecom bribing politicians to pass rules against municipal internet).
The resulting trend being large companies become more and more powerful over time, making it more and more difficult for an outsider to compete. This should be plainly obvious to anyone living in the USA, but it's theoretically the case even under completely non-corrupt circumstances (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...).
Therefore, no, I don't feel I could bring in 1000$ without them, but I am still being ripped off. The handout I give my employer is non-consensual.