Should We Have a Welfare State?

Dr. Yaron Brook answers audience questions at the University of Michigan. Go to UMSO.org for more information.

Question: Shouldn't the government provide a minimum standard of living?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Ayn
• Rand
• Objectivism
• Dr.
• Yaron
• Brook
• Students
• of
• Capitalism
• Communism
• Socialism
• Morality

[Kukainis]

@goddeloos

why is that even a question ? If government does not have money or resources required to build roads, then it CAN NOT build the roads. If society will have a need for them, then some individuals will build the said roads and ask payment from anyone who will want to use them. Same thing goes for security.

[StudentOfObjectivism]

@godscuttingyoudown Wow, you are naive aren't you. Try learning how the 'original native Americans' actually lived, rather than just assuming that their lifestyles were idyllic.

[godscuttingyoudown]

The original native Americans never had to borrow money for expensive treatments because they never had heart disease, drug abuse, crime, corruption, cancer, UNTIL THE WHITE MAN CAME

the white man can't see beyond his own psychotic vampire like nature that's why he can't create a civilization that can last longer than a few hundred years while colored cultures had civilizations lasting 10,000s yrs

[goddeloos]

The Randian tirade starts almost immediately, and really has very little to do with the question. In connection with the tirade, what method, other than force, is Dr. Brook going to use to fund the police force that protects you from theft, and the military that protects your country from invasion? What method, other than force, will the government employ to collect taxes from you to pay for roads, water and electricity?

[sewbuttns]

His arguement is so weak. First of all, how can the government steal when the government is the ones who defines what stealing is??? The very fact that this man expects others to respect the laws (made by the government) and not steal his car is basicly an acknowledgement that the government has the authority to make such definitions. You can't have it both ways.

[MrChirpsky]

You hope what is a joke? Define your terms, as the Rand would say. You may define the non-ideals out of existence by disconnecting (as non-essential) any and all aspects of "reality" (including contrary views of human nature). But the studies agree, Scandinavians are the happiest people on Earth. The most miserable are the North Koreans and Cubans, because they have been forcibly cut-off from the world economy owned and controlled by western bankers and their political lap-dogs. It's no joke!

[clubsandwedge]

@MrChirpsky

I hope this is a joke

[MrChirpsky]

NO! They (the power-elite) know that without welfare the people would rise in revolt against the fascistic corporate-state that keeps most of us effectively enslaved to a market of fashionable production and consumption (but we're "in love" with our damnable cars). And their is only a theoretically possible separation of a nation's political and productive institutions (the first in fact entails but is ultimately ruled by the other).