The Tragedy of American Compassion

The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky, Regnery Publishing, 1994. 

Summary 

The author argues that the poor of the United States have been greatly harmed by the abandonment of the Christian philosophy of human nature, which understands that human beings have free will and can improve their moral character only if charity is conditional on the recipient behaving virtuously.

Christian Charity

During the 18th and 19th century in America, there was no structural unemployment. If a person was not employed, it was either because of disability or unwillingness to work. If a man was not willing to work, he was given neither private nor public aid. If he needed food, he had to live in a poorhouse and perform the work given him by the poorhouse. Alcoholics were either denied help, or required to stop drinking in order to obtain help. The aid that was given to widows and orphans was in kind (food and clothing) rather than money. Almost all charity was private, and the givers were in close personal contact wit the receivers. This would enable the givers to discriminate between innocent victims and the lazy. Charity was moralistic; the poor were divided into the deserving (to be helped) poor and the undeserving poor.

The Utopian Vision

In the 1840s advocates of European utopian socialism began to promote two changes in philosophy: (a) not distinguishing between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, and (b) getting government involved in the giving of charity. These utopian advocates had a vision of the human soul that differed from that of the traditional Christians. The utopians believed that all men were good by nature. The Christians believed that man had a tendency to be sinful, which could be curbed only by rewards and punishments. The utopians believed that if a man was bad, it was because society had made him bad. 

Social Darwinism

Olasky is critical of the Social Darwinists, who believed that the human race would be improved if we simply allowed the weak to starve to death. The Social Darwinists blamed human evil not on man’s sinful nature nor on society, but rather on bad heredity.

Social Work

In early twentieth century America, a new profession developed, that of the social worker. The social worker spent much or most of her time sitting at her desk dealing with paperwork, rather than out in the field in contact with the poor.