Albert J. Nock Quotes

One ought not to encourage beggars, and yes, you are right, it is far better to donate to charities that address the causes of poverty rather than to him, a creature who is merely its symptom.

When they [most people] get a [government] benefit, they assume that God gave them it to them, But most people don’t want to pay for someone else’s undeserved benefits.

The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another. If the state will take care of me and my neighbors, why should I? This is why Western Europeans, people who have lived in welfare states far longer than Americans have, give less to charity and volunteer less time to others than do Americans of the same socioeconomic status.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.

People don't want charities to usurp the state as the core provider of social services.

Even the best community organizations and faith-based initiatives and the extraordinary charity of Americans across the country can't carry the brunt of eliminating poverty.

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

Government should take care of those in America who can't care for themselves. That's a role of government.

Labour have long since forgotten that people work hard to pay their taxes and support our welfare system.

We must have a welfare system that we can afford, which will mean giving greater attention to directing the welfare program toward its primary purposes and its intended beneficiaries.

At its core, government welfare is predicated on a false compassion.

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.

The welfare state has always been judged by its good intentions, rather than its bad results.

Liberals want to manage the damage with government programs to take care of those who have fallen between the cracks. Populists want to fix the cracks so that people don't fall in the first place.

Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it.

The state, by relieving idleness, improvidence, or misconduct from punishment, and depriving abstinence and foresight of the reward, which have been provided for them by nature, may indeed destroy wealth, but most certainly will aggravate poverty.

Ironically, in the full-fledged transfer society, where governments busy themselves redistributing income by means of hundreds of distinct programs, hardly anyone is better off as a result.

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.

The church, the state, and the poor, are 3 daughters which we should maintain, but not portion off.

Once the premise is accepted that poverty is never the fault of the poor but the fault of 'society,' or of 'the capitalist system, then there is no definable limit to be set on relief, and the politicians who want to be elected or reelected will compete with each other in proposing new 'welfare' programs to fill some hitherto 'unmet need.'

I still have a suspicion of charity and think the state has a role to play in many areas. And although for most of the years since I have been a rather privileged writer, I identify more closely than perhaps I should with those social workers. Had I not become a writer that would have been me. Lots of our friends are still in that world and I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the 70s and became disillusioned in the 80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world.

The bread you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; the gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.

The world needs a person like me so that many other rich people will be able to follow my role model. If they do, many poor people will be helped.

My wife and I started a program called Bears Without Borders. We raise money and hire local artisans to make stuffed animals and distribute them in their communities.

Why is it is claimed that if people won't or can't take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?