Unit 1 How to Get the Poor off Our Conscience 原文

Lesson One

How to Get the Poor off Our Conscience

John Kenneth Galbraith

1. I would like to reflect on one of the oldest of human exercises, the process by which over the

years, and indeed over the centuries, we have undertaken to get the poor off our conscience.

2. Rich and poor have lived together, always uncomfortably and sometimes perilously, since the

beginning of time. Plutarch was led to say: ―An imbalance between the rich and poor is the

oldest and most fatal ailment of republics.‖ And the problems that arise from the continuing

co-existence of affluence and poverty–and particularly the process by which good fortune is

justified in the presence of the ill fortune of others — have been an intellectual preoccupation for

centuries. They continue to be so in our own time.

3. One begins with the solution proposed in the Bible: the poor suffer in this world but are

wonderfully rewarded in the next. The poverty is a temporary misfortune; if they are poor and also

meek they eventually will inherit the earth. This is, in some ways, an admirable solution. It allows

the rich to enjoy their wealth while envying the poor their future fortune. [Harry Crews’s ―Pages

from the Life of a Georgia Innocent‖ discusses the romanticizing of poverty.]

4. Much, much later, in the twenty or thirty years following the publication in 1776 of The

Wealth of Nations–the late dawn of the Industrial Revolution in Britain–the problem and its

solution began to take on their modern form. Jeremy Bentham, a near contemporary of Adam

Smith, came up with the formula that for perhaps fifty years was extraordinarily influential in

British and, to some degree, American thought. This was utilitarianism. ―By the principle of

utility,‖ Bentham said in 1789, ―is meant the principal which approves or disapproves of every

action whatsoever according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the

happiness of the party whose interest is in question.‖ Virtue is, indeed must be, self-centered.

While there were people with great good fortune and many more with great ill fortune, the social

problem was solved as long as, again in Bentham’s words, there was ―the greatest good for the

greatest number.‖ Society did its best for the largest possible number of people; one accepted

that the result might be sadly unpleasant for the many whose happiness was not served.

5. In the 1830’s a new formula, influential in no slight degree to this day, became available for

getting the poor off the public conscience. This is associated with the names of David Ricardo, a

stockbroker, and Thomas Robert Malthus, a divine. The essentials are familiar: the poverty of the

poor was the fault of the poor. And it was so because it was a product of their excessive fecundity:

their grievously uncontrolled lust caused them to breed up to the full limits of the available

subsistence.

6. This was Malthusianism. Poverty being caused in the bed meant that the rich were not

responsible for either its creation or its amelioration. However, Malthus was himself not without a

certain feeling of responsibility: he urged that the marriage ceremony contain a warning against

undue and irresponsible sexual intercourse–a warning, it is fair to say, that has not been accepted

as a fully effective method of birth control. In more recent times, Ronald Reagan has said that the

best form of population control emerges from the market. (Couples in love should repair to R. H.

Macy’s, not their bedrooms.) Malthus, it must be said, was at least as relevant.

7. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a new form of denial achieved great influence,

especially in the United States. The new doctrine, associated with the name of Herbert Spencer,

was Social Darwinism. In economic life, as in biological development, the overriding rule was

survival of the fittest. That phrase–‖survival of the fittest‖–came, in fact, not from Charles

Darwin but from Spencer, and expressed his view of economic life. The elimination of the poor is

nature’s way of improving the race. The weak and unfortunate being extruded, the quality of the

human family is thus strengthened.

8. One of the most notable American spokespersons of Social Darwinism was John D.

Rockefeller–the first Rockefeller–who said in a famous speech: ―The American Beauty rose can

be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the

early buds which grow up around it. And so it is in economic life. It is merely the working out of a

law of nature and a law of God.‖ [Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives was written during the

time of Social Darwinism and played a major role in this ideology’s demise.]

9. In the course of the present century, however, Social Darwinism came to be considered a bit

too cruel. It declined in popularity, and references to it acquired a condemnatory tone. We passed

on to the more amorphous denial of poverty associated with Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

They held that public assistance to the poor interfered with the effective operation of the economic

system–that such assistance was inconsistent with the economic design that had come to serve

most people very well. The notion that there is something economically damaging about helping

the poor remains with us to this day as one of the ways by which we get them off our conscience.

[It doesn’t follow, however, that government aid to the affluent is morally damaging; see ―The

Next New Deal‖ and ―Reining in the Rich‖.]

10. With the Roosevelt revolution (as previously with that of Lloyd George in Britain), a specific

responsibility was assumed by the government for the least fortunate people in the republic.

Roosevelt and the presidents who followed him accepted a substantial measure of responsibility

for the old through Social Security, for the unemployed through unemployment insurance, for the

unemployable and the handicapped through direct relief, and for the sick through Medicare and

Medicaid. This was a truly great change, and for a time, the age-old tendency to avoid thinking

about the poor gave way to the feeling that we didn’t need to try–that we were, indeed, doing

something about them.

11. In recent years, however, it has become clear that the search for a way of getting the poor off

our conscience was not at an end; it was only suspended. And so we are now again engaged in this

search in a highly energetic way. It has again become a major philosophical, literary, and

rhetorical preoccupation, and an economically not unrewarding enterprise.

12. Of the four, maybe five, current designs we have to get the poor off our conscience, the first

proceeds from the inescapable fact that most of the things that must be done on behalf of the poor

must be done in one way or another by the government. It is then argued that the government is

inherently incompetent, except as regards weapons design and procurement and the overall

management of the Pentagon. Being incompetent and ineffective, it must not be asked to succor

the poor; it will only louse things up or make things worse.

13. The allegation of government incompetence is associated in our time with the general

condemnation of the bureaucrat–again excluding those associated with national defense. The only

form of discrimination that is still permissible–that is, still officially encouraged in the United

States today–is discrimination against people who work for the federal government, especially on

social welfare activities. We have great corporate bureaucracies replete with corporate bureaucrats,

but they are good; only public bureaucracy and government servants are bad. In fact we have in

the United States an extraordinarily good public service–one made up of talented and dedicated

people who are overwhelmingly honest and only rarely given to overpaying for monkey wrenches,

flashlights, coffee makers, and toilet seats. (When these aberrations have occurred they have,

oddly enough, all been in the Pentagon.) We have nearly abolished poverty among the old, greatly

democratized health care, assured minorities of their civil rights, and vastly enhanced educational

opportunity. All this would seem a considerable achievement for incompetent and otherwise

ineffective people. We must recognize that the present condemnation of government and

government administration is really part of the continuing design for avoiding responsibility for

the poor.

14. The second design in this great centuries-old tradition is to argue that any form of public help

to the poor only hurts the poor. It destroys morale. It seduces people away from gainful

employment. It breaks up marriages, since women can seek welfare for themselves and their

children once they are without husbands.

15. There is no proof of this-none, certainly, that compares that damage with the damage that

would be inflicted by the loss of public assistance. [See Robert Greenstein’s congressional

testimony.] Still, the case is made–and believed–that there is something gravely damaging about

aid to the unfortunate. This is perhaps our most highly influential piece of fiction.

16. The third, and closely related, design for relieving ourselves of responsibility for the poor is

the argument that public-assistance measures have an adverse effect on incentive. They transfer

income from the diligent to the idle and feckless, thus reducing the effort of the diligent and

encouraging the idleness of the idle. The modern manifestation of this is supply-side economics.

Supply-side economics holds that the rich in the United States have not been working because

they have too little income. So, by taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich, we

increase effort and stimulate the economy. Can we really believe that any considerable number of

the poor prefer welfare to a good job? Or that business people–corporate executives, the key

figures in our time–are idling away their hours because of the insufficiency of their pay? This is a

scandalous charge against the American businessperson, notably a hard worker. Belief can be the

servant of truth–but even more of convenience.

17. The fourth design for getting the poor off our conscience is to point to the presumed adverse

effect on freedom of taking responsibility for them. Freedom consists of the right to spend a

maximum of one’s money by one’s own choice, and to see a minimum taken and spent by the

government. (Again, expenditure on national defense is excepted.) In the enduring words of

Professor Milton Friedman, people must be ―free to choose.‖

18. This is possibly the most transparent of all of the designs; no mention is ordinarily made of

the relation of income to the freedom of the poor. (Professor Friedman is here an exception;

through the negative income tax, he would assure everyone a basic income.) There is, we can

surely agree, no form of oppression that is quite so great, no construction on thought and effort

quite so comprehensive, as that which comes from having no money at all. Though we hear much

about the limitation on the freedom of the affluent when their income is reduced through taxes, we

hear nothing of the extraordinary enhancement of the freedom of the poor from having some

money of their own to spend. Yet the loss of freedom from taxation to the rich is a small thing as

compared with the gain in freedom from providing some income to the impoverished. Freedom

we rightly cherish. Cherishing it, we should not use it as a cover for denying freedom to those in

need.

19. Finally, when all else fails, we resort to simple psychological denial. This is a psychic

tendency that in various manifestations is common to us all. It causes us to avoid thinking about

death. It causes a great many people to avoid thought of the arms race and the consequent rush

toward a highly probable extinction. By the same process of psychological denial, we decline to

think of the poor. Whether they be in Ethiopia, the South Bronx, or even in such an Elysium as

Los Angeles, we resolve to keep them off our minds. Think, we are often advised, of something

pleasant.

20. These are the modern designs by which we escape concern for the poor. All, save perhaps the

last, are in great inventive descent from Bentham, Malthus, and Spencer. Ronald Reagan and his

colleagues are clearly in a notable tradition–at the end of a long history of effort to escape

responsibility for one’s fellow beings. So are the philosophers now celebrated in Washington:

George Gilder, a greatly favored figure of the recent past, who tells to much applause that the poor

must have the cruel spur of their own suffering to ensure effort; Charles Murray, who, to greater

cheers, contemplates ―scrapping the entire federal welfare and income-support structure for

working and aged persons, including A.F.D.C., Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance,

Workers’ Compensation, subsidized housing, disability insurance, and,‖ he adds, ―the rest. Cut

the knot, for there is no way to untie it.‖ By a triage, the worthy would be selected to survive; the

loss of the rest is the penalty we should pay. Murray is the voice of Spencer in our time; he is

enjoying, as indicated, unparalleled popularity in high Washington circles.

21. Compassion, along with the associated public effort, is the least comfortable, the least

convenient, course of behavior and action in our time. But it remains the only one that it

compatible with a totally civilized life. Also, it is, in the end, the most truly conservative course.

There is no paradox here. Civil discontent and its consequences do not come from contented

people–an obvious point to the extent to which we can make contentment as nearly universal as

possible, we will preserve and enlarge the social and political tranquility for which conservatives,

above all, should yearn.

Questions for Thinking

About the title

1. How do you understand the title?

2. Why do you think the author uses “our conscience” instead of “people’s conscience”?

3. Why does the author choose this as the title of this essay?

Part I (paras. 1-2)

1. What is the main idea of the part?

2. How does the author begin this article? Does he come right to the theme or does he begin in

an indirect way?

3. How do you think of such a beginning? Is it good? Why?

para. 1

1. What does the author want to reflect on?

2. What is one of the oldest of human exercises?

para. 2

1. What does the author mean when he uses “perilously”?

2. What does “Plutarch was led to say” imply?

3.

4.

5.

6.

What does “republic” mean?

What’s the purpose of this quotation?

What is the main idea of the last sentence but one (para. 2)?

What does “so” refer to?

Part II (paras. 3-9)

1. What is the main idea of the part?

2. How does the author introduce the five solutions offered in history and what kind of

expressions the author uses for the transition from one solution to another?

Para. 3

1. What is the first solution in history?

2. Why does the author think this is an admirable solution?

3. Does the author really think that this is an admirable solution? Why (not)?

Para. 4

1. What is the second solution? How do you illustrate this term?

2. What is meant by “the principle of utility” according to Bentham?

3. How do you understand “the greatest good for the greatest number”?

Paras. 5-6

1. What is the third solution?

Para. 5

2. Why does the author mention the professions of Ricardo and Malthus?

Para. 6

3. Paraphrase the second sentence.

4. What warning did Malthus urge that the marriage ceremony should contain? Why?

5. Does the author agree with Ronald Reagan on the method of population control? How do

you know?

6. How do you understand the sentence in the brackets (Para. 6)?

7. How do you understand the last sentence (Para. 6)?

Paras. 7-8

1. What is the fourth solution?

2. Paraphrase the last but one sentence in para. 7.

3. Translate the quote in para. 8.

Paras. 9

1. Paraphrase the second sentence.

2. What was the view of Coolidge and Hover in the 1920s?

Part III (Paras. 10-11)

1. What was the Roosevelt revolution? Why does the author call it a revolution? Is he for or

against the revolution? How do you know?

2. How did people feel when a number of social welfare measures were put into practice? Were

they right in thinking so?

3. Paraphrase the following sentences:

1) First sentence of para. 11.

2) Last sentence of para. 11.

Part IV (Para. 12-20)

What is the part about?

Paras. 12-13

1. What is the argument of the first design?

2. What is the essence of the first design?

3. What is the meaning of the first sentence in para. 12? Why do such things have to be done

by the government? Could any individual or group undertake the task?

4. Paraphrase the last sentence of para. 12.: “Being incompetent and ineffective, it must not be

asked to succor the poor; it will only louse things up or make things worse.”

5. In paragraph 12 and 13, the author, on three occasions, mentions the Pentagon or national

defense. Why does he make these references?

6. What are the words used in the statement (sentence 2, para. 13) that are worthy of notice?

Why?

7. “We have great corporate bureaucracies replete with corporate bureaucrats, but they are

good; only public bureaucracy and government servants are bad…(when these…in the

Pentagon).”

a) What is the basic view of the author?

b) Why do people overpay for sth? What kind of phenomenon is this?

c) Why oddly enough? What is the tone of the statement (in the brackets)?

8. “We have nearly abolished poverty…opportunity.” What’s the author’s estimation of the

welfare system? What do you think of his estimation?

9. According to the author, what is the real purpose of the present condemnation of

government and government administration? Why does the author use the phrase

“continuing design”? Could you tell what design it continues?

Paras. 14-15

1. What is the second design?

2. Does the author agree to the argument? What sentences or words from the text can convey

the author’s viewpoint?

3. “Still, the case is made---and believed– that is something gravely damaging about the aid to

the unfortunate.”(para. 15) Does this statement sound familiar to you?

4. Paraphrase “This is perhaps our most highly influential piece of fiction.”

Para. 16

1. What is the argument of the third design?

2. How does the author refute this argument?

3. In what way can the government take money from the poor and give it to the rich?

4. Paraphrase: Belief can be the servant of truth--- but even more (the servant ) of

convenience.

Paras. 17-18

1. What is the fourth design?

2. According to those designers, how freedom is defined?

3. Where does money spending on national defense come?

4. Which expenditure is larger, expenditure on public assistance or that on national defense?

5. Which expenditure would have greater adverse effect on freedom, expenditure on national

defense or on public assistance?

6. Why does the author say this is the most transparent of all of the designs? In what way is it

most transparent? (para. 18)

7. How does the author refute this argument?

Paras. 19

1. What is the fifth design?

2. Paraphrase the following sentences:

1) This is a psychic tendency that in various manifestations is common to us all.

2) It causes a great many people to avoid thought of the arms race and the consequent

rush toward a highly probable extinction.

Paras. 20

1. What is the function of the sentence “These are the modern designs by which we escape

concern for the poor.”?

2. What does the second sentence mean? Does the author really think they are ‘great’ and

‘inventive’?

3. In what way are the first four designs inventive?

4. Is this tradition something great and worthy of attention?

5. What is George Gilder’s view?

6. Explain “Cut the knot, for there is no way to untie it.”

7. Translate “By a triage, the worthy would be selected to survive; the loss of the rest of the

penalty we should pay.

8. Translate “:… he is enjoying, as indicated, unparalleled popularity in high Washington circles.”

Part V (Para. 21)

1. How do you feel about the ending? Do you find it forceful?

2. Why does the author think it is the most truly conservative course?

3. Why does the author say “there is no paradox here”?