And there is certainly no doubt that there is a thriving “religion industry” in this country, but more particularly in the USA. They even have trade shows and marketing seminars, as was shown on Andrew Denton’s program last night.

My point about the US welfare system is that it is extremely harsh compared with other Western countries like Australia. Poverty in the US is more obvious and more common than in other developed nations with more generous welfare programs. I think it is difficult to draw the conclusion that welfare causes poverty.

Steve Angelino, WA

He points out that most of the poor people in the West are actually better off materially than medieval dukes. But too many have a poverty of the soul that comes from the worldview of the (pseudo-)intellectual Left.

One is the idea that humans don’t really have free choice, but are the result of circumstances. Dalrymple exposes the inconsistency of the Left with great wit and sound information. E.g. one patient claimed that he couldn’t help being violent to his girlfriend. But Dalrymple pointed out that he had been a model non-violent prisoner. Reply: I couldn’t get away with violence because the guards would beat me up. So he could control his violence after all! And of course, the crims would not excuse police brutality by their upbringing, hard day at work, etc.

Many of his patients have real purpose in their lives, which are full of violence and promiscuity.

Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

Bill,
No disagreement here, but all countries need some kind of safety net to support the genuinely poor and disadvantaged. Without that you get the disgraceful and widespread poverty that exists in the USA, despite the fact that it is the wealthiest nation on earth.

Steve, your assertion is contradicted by the facts. The USA has a huge bureaucracy devoted to providing a safety net.

Just today I saw a headline to the effect that “After more than 40 years of the War on Poverty in the USA, it’s time to recognise that poverty has won.” Drat, can’t find the source now!

A most instructive book on this point is “Bringing In The Sheaves” by George Grant – a pastor at the pointy end of social problems, who started searching for answers when he failed to talk one of his parishioners out of jumping off a bridge to his death.

The conclusion of his book and a number of others (eg. Dr Nancy Pearcey quoted above) is that government handouts cause poverty, by creating a “poor underclass” of people who become so dependent upon handouts that they lose the will to work, even whilst they theoretically retain the physical or mental ability to work.

And to go further into this theme, your time would be well repaid by reading “Paradise Restored” and “Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators” both by the late Dr David Chilton. The second is a potent rebuttal of the Christian socialist views espoused by Ronald Sider in “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.”

As Bill said, yes a safety net is useful, but the government is not the institution to operate it, because as a body, the bureaucracy cannot distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor (well, not without the mountain of evidence demanded, the assumption of distrust and the massive red tape required to check everything).

That demands spiritual discernment, which is why the Bible puts welfare into the care of the Church and the family, and puts it into a very personal context.

John Angelico

The poor are the ones hurt by the policies of those who promote the politics of guilty and pity.

The poor in the US would be much better off had welfare never become so popular and widespread, since the family is the key to upwards mobility.

The ultimate beneficiaries in public expenditure for welfare are not necessarily the intended recipients but the bureaucrats who administer it.

As Dr Nancy Pearcey points out:

“Though welfare had done some good for those who needed only a temporary boost to get back on the feet, it had also created a permanent underclass – the chronically poor, whose poverty was related to social pathologies such as alcohol addiction, drug abuse, fatherless homes, and crime…

In fact, government aid can actually make things worse. By handing out welfare checks impersonally to all who qualify, without addressing the underlying behavioural problems, the government in essence ‘rewards’ antisocial and dysfunctional patterns. And any behaviour the government rewards will generally tend to increase.

As one perceptive nineteenth century critic noted, government assistance is a ‘might solvent to sunder the ties of kinship, to quench the affections of family, to suppress in the poor themselves the instinct of self-reliance and self-respect – to convert them into paupers”.

Augusto Zimmermann

Yes I agree that there is a place for safety nets, etc.

But you have me lost on your puzzling remarks about the ‘religion industry’. Just where and when have I been begging for money? The Australian government has never complained about the taxes I pay each year.

And for what it is worth, while I generally support the free market, I have been critical of many aspects of “rampant capitalism” as you put it in various posts on this site, if you would care to read further.

Finally, I nowhere in this article demonise all people as being lazy. We must always distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor: between those who can’t work and those who won’t work, etc.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

I find it ironic that you are such a staunch supporter of rampant capitalism when you and your colleagues in the religion industry contribute nothing useful to the economy and survive only by begging for money from more productive people. There’s not much difference between that and state-sponsored welfare. The basic problem is that some people in society are simply not productive, and it is a harsh judgment to demonise them all as lazy when some are genuinely incapable of economic productivity, either temporarily or permanently.

Steve Angelino, WA