• Social Justice
  • Unemployment Insurance
  • Old Age Insurance
  • Disability Insurance
  • Health Insurance
  • Side note: Involuntary Commitment
  • Children
  • Refugees and Asylum Seekers
  • Foreign Aid

Let us commence by considering the term Social Welfare: social is something kind, caring for the weaker. Things that are social are based on personal contact and are offered voluntarily. However, taxes are no longer offered voluntarily! They are no longer made based on “kindness”. There is no personal contact, no love between the giver and the recipient.

Help is only social if it is based on personal contact, for example, a friend lending money to a friend or family providing food to others in need in times of difficulty.

“Social Justice”

While we have already considered the word “social”, the use of the word “justice” is not without issues. The ancient Romans and Greeks believed that it was just for a person to receive suum ciuque: that which he earned. Under this philosophy, no work means no pay, but good work should be rewarded well.

Unemployment Insurance:

Anybody who wishes to be insured against unemployment should be allowed to take out such insurance. However, those who do not wish to have such insurance should not be forced to participate in such a system. Whether or not participation is worthwhile is up to the individual.

It would be desirable for the free social welfare system to be converted to a social insurance system in which the policy would provide cover in the event of a loss of work and lack of assets allowing a person to retain a basic income.

Old Age Insurance: 

Providing for a pension for retirement is of key importance. The insurance system is a sensible solution as it is impossible for a person to know how long they will live and how much money they will require. Everybody should be free to choose their own retirement age.

Disability Insurance:

The disabled are no longer able to earn a living for themselves. They need to live off of their savings or rely on the help of friends and acquaintances.

Health Insurance:

The ill and infirm often rely on support. It is often viewed as unjust to refuse help due to a lack of means.

However, it is the individual who is responsible for his or her own health. Where a person seeks and receives a doctor’s assistance, the doctor has a right to payment for his or her work. Accordingly, everybody should determine the illnesses and complaints that they want to be insured against.

In Switzerland, if a person requires medical assistance and medical personnel refuse to provide this assistance, the personnel commit an offence: “Any person who fails to offer aid (…) to another who is in immediate life-threatening danger, in circumstances where the person either could reasonably have been expected to offer aid, (…) is liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty.”1 It is similarly illegal to fail to carry out an action which protects a patient from serious injury.2

Side note: Involuntary Commitment

Preventative detention or involuntary commitment is something which should no longer exist in our society. People who have not done anything other than allegedly being sick are locked up for reasons of so-called self-protection. This takes away their freedom of self-determination over their lives by labelling them as sick. Where is the fairness?

Children

The State/employer should not be responsible for providing for an individual’s children. They are one’s own children.

Where parents divorce, they should be equally responsible for their children. As such, there should never be a need for maintenance arrangements.

Nobody should be able to take somebody’s child from them.

Minimum wages are aimed at guaranteeing a specified level of income for employees. However, they often have the effect of excluding them from the employment markets: where minimum wages apply, jobs are often not offered in the first place.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Not everybody is welcome in countries like Switzerland or the USA.

As such, Switzerland and the USA barricade their borders and differentiate between residents and non-residents on the basis that foreigners cost money.

However, foreigners should be able to exercise self-determination in relation to their own lives: the ability to choose a place to live is a fundamental human right.

Anybody who chooses to go to Switzerland or the USA needs to be responsible for his or her own life.

Foreign Aid

Everybody is free and responsible for him or herself. We do not achieve anything with (voluntary) foreign “aid”.

However, things actually get quite dangerous when we employ involuntary foreign aid. This is no longer based on voluntary choice. If we give something away and do not see anything in return, this fosters dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is taken out on those who are “different”: the weak become scapegoats. Discrimination, exclusion and racism ensue.

 

1 Art. 128 of the Swiss Criminal Code.

2 Cf. Art. 11 (Commission by omission) and Art. 122 (Grievous bodily harm).