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Overview
Today's modern welfare state expects he can. Those who control the money in our society think that giving a dollar at the train station and then appropriating a billion dollars for federal housing can cure the ails of the homeless and the poor.
But the crisis of the modern welfare state is more than a crisis of government. Private charities that dispense aid indiscriminately while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of the poor are also to blame. Like animals in the zoo at feeding time, the needy are given a plate of food but rarely receive the love and time that only a person can give.
Poverty fighters 100 years ago were more compassionate--in the literal meaning of "suffering with"--than many of us are now. They opened their own homes to deserted women and children. They offered employment to nomadic men who had abandoned hope and human contact. Most significantly, they made moral demands on recipients of aid. They saw family, work, freedom, and faith as central to our being, not as life-style options. No one was allowed to eat and run.
Some kind of honest labor was required of those who needed food or a place to sleep in return. Woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common in the 1890s as liquor stores are in the 1990s. When an able bodied woman sought relief, she was given a seat in the "sewing room" and asked to work on garments given to the helpless poor.
To begin where poverty fighters a century ago began, Marvin Olasky emphasizes seven ideas that recent welfare practice has put aside: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, freedom, and most importantly, belief in God. In the end, not much will be accomplished without a spiritual revival that transforms the everyday advice we give and receive, and the way we lead our lives.
It's time we realized that there is only so much that public policy can do. That only a richness of spirit can battle a poverty of soul. The century-old question--does any given scheme of help... make great demands on men to give themselves to their brethren?--is still the right one to ask. Most of our 20th-century schemes have failed. It's time to learn from the warm hearts and hard heads of the 19th-century.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781684514175 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/25/2022 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 300 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface to the Thirtieth Anniversary Edition Marvin Olasky xi
Preface Charles Murray xv
Introduction
The Current Impasse xxiii
Chapter 1 The Early American Model of Compassion 1
Chapter 2 Turning Cities into Countryside 25
Chapter 3 First Challenge to the Charity Consensus 49
Chapter 4 The Social Darwinist Threat 73
Chapter 5 Proving Social Darwinism Wrong 99
Chapter 6 The Seven Marks of Compassion 123
Chapter 7 And Why Not Do More? 145
Chapter 8 Excitement of a New Century 167
Chapter 9 Selling New Deals in Old Wineskins 189
Chapter 10 Revolution-and Its Heartbreak 211
Chapter 11 Questions of the 1970s and 1980s 233
Chapter 12 Putting Compassion into Practice 253
Chapter 13 Applying History 275
Notes 297
Index 351
What People are Saying About This
"Significant changes in government social welfare policy have unfolded since The Tragedy of American Compassion emerged in 1992-just think about the paradigm-shifting federal welfare reform of 1996. Both the book's critics and its promoters would argue that Olasky's ideas mattered and gave shape, to some degree, to some of those changes."—Amy L. Sherman, Senior Fellow, Sagamore Institute for Policy Research; author, Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good
"Those who read and understand Olasky's work will be better prepared to move creatively in affirming the dignity of the poor, and in affirming work as a virtue."—John M. Perkins, President, John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development
"For domestic policy understanding, no better book recommends itself than Marvin Olasky's splendid The Tragedy of American Compassion."—Orange County RegisterOrange County Register
"One of 'eight books that changed America.'"—Philanthropy Philanthropy
"Illuminating."—Colorado Gazette-TelegraphColorado Gazette-Telegraph
"Fascinating."—Wall Street JournalWall Street Journal
"There is no disagreement between liberals and conservatives about whether to help the lot of the poor, but there is grave disagreement about how to help them, especially because the wrong kind of 'help' is more likely to harm. In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky shows that although government can assist the merciful efforts of persons, organizations, and communities of faith, it cannot take their place."—J. Budziszewski, Professor of Government and Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin; author of What We Can't Not Know: A Guide
"A comprehensive, well documented, and much needed study of the decline of true compassion that provides fresh analysis and provocative insight into the causes and cures of this American tragedy. Must reading for people who want to understand and help correct the plight of hurting people."—Anthony T. Evans, Founder, The Urban Alternative