Anarkokapitalism på Brinner

Jörgen Kratz har varit med i den nya, internetbaserade, programserien Brinner och pratat om anarkokapitalismen.

När det gäller hur man i ett anarkistiskt samhälle kan hjälpa de fattiga, svaga eller utslagna håller jag med om Jörgens teoretiska ansats, men tror att vi ankor kan vara klart mer optimistiska och säga att de kommer få minst lika mycket hjälp som i dagens samhälle. Min optimism bygger på att vi människor faktiskt gillar att hjälpa andra, och att denna impuls säkerligen blir starkare ju rikare vi blir, att privata organisationer generellt sett är effektivare än statliga och att historien visat att när staten skär ner på stöd till de allra fattigaste så kommer välgörenhetsföreningar att ta över. Det senare får stöd ifrån en artikel av ekonomen Stephen T. Ziliak, där han går igenom en tidig privatiseringsrörelse i USA.

The most ambitious attempt to privatize poor relief in America happened between the early 1870s and the 1900s, led by the Charity Organization Society. Ten of the largest cities abolished public outdoor relief - the relief one consumes outside an asylum - and many others, such as Indianapolis, sharply reduced theirs (Almy 1899, p. 31). In Brooklyn, for example, the annual cost of public outdoor relief in 1877 was 10 or 12 dollars per household. The following year the payments were cut by over half, and were then abolished in 1879, directly affecting more than 46,000 people (Devine 1899, p. 188).

Så, några städer minskade dramatiskt hur mycket de la ut på att hjälpa de fattiga. Vad hände? Visade det sig att när folk var helt fria att inte hjälpa dem så lät dem helt enkelt bli, vilket flertalet etatister verkar tro idag? Tvärtom! När Ziliak undersökte vad som hände i staden Indianapolis fann han att privat välgörenhet nästan helt ersatte den statliga välgörenheten.

Public outdoor relief was not abolished in Indianapolis but it was reduced to a low level, falling in real terms in 4 years from $50,000 to less than $7,000. Public outdoor relief per relieved household was in 1877 equal to about 3 weeks the wages of an able-bodied common laborer. Expenditures per relieved household were by 1885 16% the earlier level.
Charity was not dead as a door-nail, to begin with. In 1876 Indianapolis supported twelve private charities. But a dozen more charities were established between 1877 and 1885, and between 1885 and 1895 sprang 20 more. A sample of the names suggest the diversity of services offered and the populations served: the German Ladies Benevolent Society, the Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society, the St. Boniface Benevolent Society, the Socialistic Sick Benefit Society, the Alpha Home for Aged Colored Women, the Woman's Relief Corp, and the German Lutheran Orphan's Home.
The middle class and upper class donations to the "scientific" charities did not alone replace the 1876 public expenditures, but clearly poor relief was in the early 1880s largely financed and administered by voluntary efforts. Accounting for church-based charity and other charity to the very poor may reveal approximate replacement. [Full replacement in total expenditure would be an odd event, however, given the middling enthusiasm for desert as an ethical category, even, if only weakly preferred, among Catholics (Katz, Chp. 3). It was in fact the conflation of need and desert as ethical categories which justified the policy of helping only those who after thorough investigation were found to exercise industry and thrift, temperance and honesty (Gordon 1981, pp. 94-114).] The crowding-in effect was substantial in total expenditure, and even the most prominent of the scientific charities became relatively generous. As the public expenditures per household were taken to the relatively low level of $3.40 per year by 1890, private expenditures rose to $15.10, ironically approaching the "lavish" public expenditures in Indianapolis, and exceeding that in Brooklyn. The crowding-in effect, measured by real payments of outdoor relief per household, was after a dozen years nearly dollar-for-dollar.

Givetvis, Indianapolis var kanske inte representativ för alla andra städer, men ändå borde det som ett enskilt fall gå rakt emot rådande idéer om hur tillförlitliga vanliga människor är för att hjälpa de svaga utan statens hjälp. Annars är Ziliaks artikel intressant då den ger viss anledgning att tro att privat välgörenhet då inte var bättre än statlig välgörenhet med att hjälpa de fattiga att komma in på arbetsmarknaden eller att kunna förlita sig mer på sina egna förmågor.