[Market Economy Guide] The Government Is Not Your Parent

“You should cultivate self-reliance rather than dispense charity”

…When the state tries to manage every detail of people’s lives, it only deepens dependence

This is a story found in the Talmud. In one village, a poor child lived alone without parents. Still very young, the only thing the child knew how to do was go out into the streets each day and beg from passersby. Rain or snow, the child survived day by day by begging in the streets, barely managing to get enough to eat.

A Talmud story

One day, a man took pity on the child and brought the child into his home. He fed the child well and let the child sleep in a warm room. He cared for the child so well that he even sent the child to school, as if the child were his own. With the man’s help, the child grew into an admirable young man. He eventually opened his own shop, went into business, and accumulated a great deal of wealth.

Meanwhile, the man who had helped the young man fell on hard times as his household fortunes declined. After much 고민, he went to seek out the young man. He believed that, if no one else, surely this young man would not turn a blind eye to his hardship. But contrary to his expectations, the young man was very cold. Despite the man’s desperate plea, he turned away without mercy. The man was deeply resentful.

“I fed him, gave him a place to sleep, and took care of him—how could he do this to me?”

Instead of giving money, he enabled him to do business

The man bit his lip and returned home. At that moment, an old woman came to him. She said she was in difficult circumstances and asked him to buy her jewels at a very cheap price. The man, puzzled, bought the jewels for a pittance. Then another man came and offered to buy those same jewels at a high price. Still bewildered, the man sold them. Buying the jewels cheaply and selling them dearly brought him a considerable profit. The man slapped his knee in realization.

“That’s it—I should make money through business too!”

Using the money he had made from buying and selling the jewels as seed capital, the man opened a shop. He worked more diligently than anyone else, earned a great deal of money, and proudly escaped poverty.

How much time had passed? One day, the man happened to pass in front of the young man’s shop. Remembering how coldly the young man had once turned his back on him, he frowned.

“That wretch who doesn’t even know gratitude….”

Just then, the man spotted in the young man’s shop the very jewels he himself had once bought and sold. In that instant, it felt as though he had been struck hard on the back of the head with a hammer. Of course—that was it. The young man had only pretended to refuse the man’s request; in secret, he had been helping him all along. As the saying goes, you should teach a person how to catch fish rather than simply give him a fish. Instead of giving the man money to buy food right away, the young man had quietly taught him how to earn money through business. In this way, he enabled the man to escape poverty through his own efforts and live prosperously. That was how the young man truly helped him.

There is a Korean proverb that says, “Even the king cannot relieve poverty.” It means that helping the poor can be as endless as pouring water into a bottomless jar, something too vast for not only individuals but even the state to bear.

An individual’s life belongs to the individual

In fact, when governments have actively pursued welfare policies in an effort to solve poverty, the side effects have sometimes included not only a worsening of poverty but also moral hazard among members of society. Sweden and Germany after the 1970s are representative examples. At the time, after Sweden and Germany introduced unemployment benefits and paid sick leave, many cases arose of people quitting their jobs or abusing sick leave. Because the state took care of their lives even without their own effort, dependence grew stronger than personal responsibility.

As the Talmud parable discussed earlier shows, the true management of a happy life begins with the principle of personal responsibility. Only when people strive to take responsibility for themselves and constantly seek ways to live better do their individual futures become brighter and a ray of hope shine on the national economy.

■ Please remember

In fact, when governments have actively pursued welfare policies in an effort to solve poverty, the side effects have sometimes included not only a worsening of poverty but also moral hazard among members of society. Sweden and Germany after the 1970s are representative examples.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 정부는 부모가 아니다

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-02-24

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=9&idx=22411