Welfare Policies for the Rich

Despite rhetoric about free enterprise, big business has long sought government aid to protect it from the rigors of the market, insure large profits, and allow it to escape taxes on profits and wealth.

Apologists for capitalism often hold welfare programs for the poor to be illegitimate; failure to prosper is traced to personal deficiencies. Being “illegitimate,” welfare for the poor is generally meager (to avoid rewarding sin), is clearly labeled as welfare (to make people feel badly about accepting it), is as much as possible in the form of services rather than cash (because the poor cannot be trusted with money), and generally includes intervention into the lives of the poor (because the poor must be regulated). We...