Charity as a “cheapened” word
In an April 2013 episode, Bob Zadek told guest Judge Jim Gray that the government takeover of parts of society such as healthcare had cheapened the word “charity.” Zadek recalled growing up when charity was something very positive, the best in people, and when those who could afford it would willingly give money to charity. He said the charities were prudent about spending because they were operated by people who cared, not who were paid to care, and that every community had charity hospitals where people who could not afford healthcare went and got pretty good care without being made to feel badly about it We Are All Libertarians (2013).
Zadek said that when he responds to the question of what happens to people who cannot afford healthcare by pointing to charity hospitals, he gets looked on like he is Satan. He argued that government, by raising taxes so that others can get services they cannot afford, produces compulsory charity, and that people who receive services they have not paid for are getting charity whether they like it or not, except that the charity is a matter of right from the government. Gray agreed, saying that when he was growing up people who could not afford things went to Catholic charitable hospitals, other hospitals donated their time, and surgeons donated their time. Gray added that if the government takes one step forward, individuals and charitable organizations will take two steps back, because the government is expected to preempt them We Are All Libertarians (2013).
Coerced charity and the justification for a safety net
A June 2014 episode with philosopher Matt Zwolinski framed the same issue as a question about coercion. Zadek described Zwolinski’s position as offering two proposals at once: get rid of what we have, which Zadek endorsed, and give poor people money. Zadek asked what the moral or philosophically sound justification for the second part could be, remembering that it is coerced, and characterized it as coerced charity in which he is forced at the point of a gun to give his money to somebody else simply because they do not have enough Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Zwolinski answered that society has an obligation to ensure that each individual has a fair chance to succeed, at least in being able to meet basic needs, because society coercively imposes a set of institutions on everybody who lives in it. He argued that property rights are themselves a kind of coercively imposed system, that the Marxists and socialists were right that property rights are a kind of coercion, and that this coercion must be justified to each person subject to it. The standard justification, which he traced to John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, is that property rights are good for everybody in the long run, but he said there are people who will slip through the cracks, and that something like a basic income or a social safety net can ensure the system works to everybody’s benefit Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Zadek pressed Zwolinski on why he did not trust individuals acting individually through charity to provide that safety net at the level they are comfortable with, rather than a governmentally set safety net where one person’s standard is imposed on another. Zwolinski replied that he was talking about an institution of last resort, a last bulwark to ensure that nobody slips through the cracks, and that redistribution and voluntary charity should not be the primary focus of the question of what to do about poverty. He said the only way to get everybody out of poverty is the way it has actually been done over the last 300 years, through sustained economic growth buttressed by the institutions of a free society Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Zadek said he could sign on to a last-resort safety net as long as it does not become too high, because it concedes something and provides flexibility, but he warned that the danger is that it becomes the starting point to which healthcare components and rent subsidies are added. Zwolinski agreed that this is a tremendous and worrisome problem, and said the only way he sees such a system being hammered in solidly is through a constitutional amendment replacing the welfare state with a check, a negative income tax or a basic income, so that additions would require amending the Constitution. He cited Milton Friedman’s proposal for the negative income tax in Capitalism and Freedom as an idea that became so bastardized and tacked on with amendments and exemptions that Friedman was not willing to endorse it Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Zadek also offered a separate justification for a guaranteed annual income or negative income tax: a stake in avoiding civil unrest and protests in the street, which he called a public good, comparing it to building a road for the good of society. He acknowledged that this sounds coercive, almost extortionist, but said it may be a reality. Zwolinski agreed that this is a reality libertarians tend not to take into sufficient account, and added that libertarians have to take seriously the reality of political compromise because most people are not libertarians and do not share their views Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Charity, wealth transfers and self-sufficiency
In an April 2015 episode, David Boaz told Zadek that there is a moral problem with taking money from people by force and giving it to other people, and also a social problem created when people get on government programs and are able to stay for years and decades, which he said is not a very satisfying life. Boaz said the question should be how to get people better lives, through a robust market economy and a system of charity that would be bigger if people had more money in their pockets to give David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015).
Boaz drew a contrast between charity and government: people engaged in charity are usually more local, more decentralized, more focused on the individual families they are dealing with, and more focused on helping people get their lives together rather than simply giving them money. Using foreign aid as an example, he said the instinct to send money and food to starving people is noble and charitable, but that it would be better if the people of Africa did not need baskets of food sent from the United States, and that what Africa needs is free markets, private property and the rule of law so people can grow or trade for their own food, medicine and clothes David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015).
Zadek responded that liberals and progressives do not own the issue of caring for others, and that the question is how to fix what everybody concedes we owe to others to fix, whether by giving a hungry person a fish or a fishing rod. Boaz agreed, invoking the folk wisdom that giving a man a fish feeds him for a day while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime, and said the point is probably not that people do not know how to fish but that their social system does not encourage people to take responsibility for themselves, since a rapacious government that takes most of what you produce leaves no point in fishing David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015).
Compulsory service as public sector charity
A June 2020 episode with economist Warren Gibson extended the argument to mandatory public service. Zadek said that implicit in mandatory public service is the message that since nobody will volunteer to do a good thing, they should be forced to be charitable, and that this is a form of taxation no different from forcing him to pay taxes to allow the government to do a charitable activity. He said a lot of what government does is public sector charity, that charity is not bad, but that public sector charity means politicians get to pick the charity, and that charity is good while compulsory charity does not feel so good Conscription Gets a Face Lift (2020).
Zadek asked Gibson whether compelling an 18-year-old to give a year of their life under threat of prison to an activity they do not want to do is any different from saying all 18-year-olds have to pay a special tax. Gibson answered that it is basically not different, that it is forcing them to contribute something they otherwise would not want to do, and that in the case of tax it is money while in the case of national service it is their labor, so it is compulsory extraction of value Conscription Gets a Face Lift (2020).
Zadek argued that public service should be called a tax on 18-year-olds from which others are exempt, and asked why an 18-year-old should not be allowed to buy out of it by giving the economic value of a year of their life. He noted that during the Civil War draft, young men drafted by Lincoln had the option to hire somebody else to serve in the military, which he said makes it even clearer that conscription is nothing other than a tax, and compared it to taxes in England in the Middle Ages paid in grain or livestock rather than money. Gibson agreed, but re-emphasized that service is a good thing, that it is good for young people to have experience serving voluntarily and locally to people they can look in the eye, and that service is not a primary obligation and should not be forced Conscription Gets a Face Lift (2020).
Zadek also said public service means conscripting people to do what the government wants cheaply, disguising involuntary servitude as a public service program, and cited proposals he said were being discussed: a federal Climate Corps to get 18-year-olds to work for below-market wages, and a National Infrastructure Apprenticeship Program that he said would amount to cleaning up parks and janitorial services in federal buildings. He compared this to the job programs of the 1960s during the Great Society Conscription Gets a Face Lift (2020).
Across episodes: the same question, sharpened
The same question — whether voluntary charity can substitute for state provision — runs through all four episodes, but the treatment shifts. In 2013 Zadek and Gray treat charity as a functioning alternative that government has crowded out; in 2014 Zwolinski reframes the safety net as an institution of last resort justified on libertarian grounds, and Zadek concedes he could sign on to a low last-resort guarantee; in 2015 Boaz shifts the emphasis from charity as substitute to economic growth and self-sufficiency as the route to better lives; and in 2020 Zadek and Gibson extend the coercion critique from welfare to compulsory service, which Zadek calls public sector charity. The later episodes do not resolve the earlier disagreement; they widen it.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the outcomes of any of the proposals discussed, nor any figures on the scale of private charitable giving relative to government transfers. They do not describe the operation of charity hospitals beyond the recollections offered by Zadek and Gray, and they do not say what became of the Climate Corps or National Infrastructure Apprenticeship proposals Zadek mentions. The excerpts also do not state the holding of any case or the text of any statute bearing on charity or compelled service.