Is it hypocritical for a libertarian to accept money from government?
An often repeated line by many liberals and even some conservatives, is that it is hypocritical for a libertarian to accept money from the government in any form. So is this true? Not hardly.
Any stripe of libertarian believes that it is wrong for the government to give handouts, that this practice is unfair and leads to problems. Certainly no true libertarian would accept a handout from the government that grants them a special privilege or right over others. This is the key issue with corporate handouts and something that libertarians fight ferociously against. When the government grants this sort of privilege through legislation and regulation it ultimately leads to wealth and power pooling in the hands of a small group of people and making it so that others either barely or can’t get by and that there is very little wealth mobility. It also severely stifles innovation. This is the problem we are experiencing in our society today.
Is this the same thing as accepting money from the government though? It is true that subsidies are the accepting of money from the government, however this is essentially the same as the other corporate handouts as noted in the previous paragraph. A subsidy is a special privilege that gives an upper hand to a select group of people, which serves to only harm consumers, workers, competing businesses, and innovation. So we can conclude that no self-respecting libertarian would advocate for or accept a subsidy.
So what else is left? The individual welfare system. Programs such as Social Security and Medicare are not essentially entitlement programs, though they do ultimately end up becoming entitlements. There is no doubt that people ought to get back what they paid in to these programs, they are a social contract and even libertarians are entitled to their own share. The problem with these programs though is that due to the federal government’s policy of inflation, the cost of living always increases every year, making it inevitable that these programs must pay out more than they take in. If natural deflation were allowed to take its course, this would not be an issue since the programs could be maintained by paying back to people exactly what they payed in, only the money coming back would have more purchasing power due to lower prices from deflation. So on these two points, it would not be hypocritical for a libertarian to accept money from government.
What about programs such as food stamps, unemployment, and general welfare? It is all too true that these programs are entitlements. Often people get more out of these programs than they pay into them, and it comes at the expense of those who are successful enough to either not need them, or not qualify for them. Sure these programs have their benefits to the truly needy, however they also create problems of generational welfare and serve as motivation for people to stay on the public dole rather than attempt to lift themselves economically. Regardless of whether or not a libertarian wants to reform these programs to be more efficient, or if they want to get rid of them altogether, a topic of discussion that we will not touch on here, the grand question remains.
Since everyone is required to pay to support these programs, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying to get some of that money back, no matter where you stand on the subject. Those that say they stand on principle and refuse to take a “handout” from the government are perfectly well within their right to hold that stance, however you’d be crazy to not try and recoup some of your losses. We’re not just talking about money taken to help pay for these programs either, but the cumulative losses that exist due to all of the burdens people must bear because of government favoritism. All of the taxes taken, induced inflation, job prevention, loss of liberties, the transferring of wealth to the already wealthy, they’re all heavy burdens largely induced by government intervention. If you can recoup some of those losses through the use of welfare programs, go for it. If you choose not to do so on principle, that’s fine too.
It may go against ideology, but there’s nothing wrong with getting some of your money back.
