They're trying to balance the budget again.

I remember the talk a few years ago around the kitchen table. We asked, why don't they stop listening to their special interest groups? Why don't they spend responsibly? Now that they're making the hard moves, the deep cuts, they're under fire, but I think the nation will stand behind them for the most part, now that Christmas is behind us and, hopefully, so are the shutdowns.

The biggest piece of the pie are these things called entitlements, the money government pays out directly to people.

The issue we as a country need to decide is to what extent our federal and local governments should be directly responsible for our lives.

One extreme is to recognize that everyone deserves to live a healthy, happy, reasonably well fulfilled life and that it is the business of government to ensure that they get it. This can work. It requires plenty of taxes, but it works if everyone buys into the idea and participates by using the ubiquitous government services.

At the other extreme, government provides only a forum to enforce contracts made between the people and with businesses and we are each left to find our own life's fulfillment.

There seems to be a direct correlation between the maturity of a society and the amount of power and responsibility that flows to the individual.

Monarchy embodies all power in one person to be exercised over a kingdom. This is government by divine right.

A socialist society keeps power in the state which directly controls many essential businesses. The trains run not by command of a single king, but by order of the state. The most appropriate form of government here is communism. Strong central control enables communism's redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of ability so that services can be provided.

A capitalist society moves more power out of the government and into the hands of the citizens. Here the trains run by order of private, competing companies under government regulation and guidelines. Representative democracy is a good government model where the government controls many of the regulations, but not the businesses themselves.

A libertarian society has almost no power in the government. Government simply ensures the right of people to enter into contracts, becomes the final arbiter in disputes and provides for national defense. Trains run by whoever can make them run, however they can.

At the opposite end, completely away from monarchy, is anarchy. No government is necessary because everyone finds ways of managing their own disputes. People enter into agreements, run businesses, build sky scrapers, and live their lives according to agreements made with others who are affected by the decisions they make.

Where is America?

We began at the upper edge of capitalism, bordering on libertarianism. In the middle 1800's, the industrial revolution encouraged central control as we moved away from the farms and tobacco fields into cities and factories. With that migration, we also saw a move back toward strong central government, moving us to the low end of capitalism, bordering on socialism.

This move toward socialism was a natural result of the expectations that the industrial revolution brought us: centralization, standardization, prosperity.

Much has changed since the height of the industrial revolution. Smaller, service oriented businesses provide most of the employment. Computerization has enabled new types of businesses. We're not so worried about the Soviet Union as a political and military rival. We are all much more personally empowered now than ever before. Any one of us can publish newsletters to the world. We all have more choices about where we live, what we do, and who we are than ever before. With the information and tools we have today, any one of us could rule the world if we could take our current capabilities with us into the past. Because of these trends, we're beginning to question the strong central nature of our federal government.

What's happening is that we are beginning to drift back to the higher end of capitalism, away from socialism and toward libertarianism.

But we can't simply jump head first into libertarianism tomorrow after lunch. We're still at the low end, the socialist end. America is still very much a two layered country. For most of us, America is free and capitalistic. For those in the second layer, America is firmly socialist. Anyone unwilling or unable to cut it in the top layer falls into the socialist safety net where they receive welfare, free medical aid, rent subsidies, and food stamps.

Until we find a way to raise the overall societal maturity, and find alternatives to the socialist end of the spectrum, the two layers will grow farther and farther apart, pulling the country apart with them. Moving too fast could introduce as many problems as it solves. Forcing a society toward more maturity before it is ready is like giving gun powder to little kids.

We need a way to raise everyone's expectations of themselves and instill a sense of responsibility and empowerment as the accepted norm, without letting those that don't get it fall through the cracks. We need to be able to guarantee the basics of life without having something as clumsy as federally managed aid programs.

If we force ourselves into the role of wards of the state, that's what we shall forever be, because a society seeks out the type of government that is appropriate for its level of maturity. For this reason, we should redefine what we mean by the social safety net and also take that safety net out of the hands of the government.

A prison is a pretty good social safety net. Inmates are clothed, fed, kept reasonably healthy, given an opportunity to learn. Except for the fact that you can't leave, it's not a bad deal, really. It's not a perfect model, but it's a good starting point for a different kind of safety net, a for-profit poorhouse.

Imagine this: Abolish all forms of federal aid. Stop collecting social security and pay it out prorated to the number of years one has paid into it then get rid of it completely. Anyone who can't pay their bills, can't move in with a friend or relative, and who lives where charity can't or won't pick up the slack will be left in bad shape, including the elderly and the children.

Remember that caring for yourself and your family is how it's supposed to work in a mature society. No longer should we aspire to live as serfs at the command of the king or as a proletarian cared for at the whim of the state. If we are going to move toward libertarianism, we must, as a culture, stop expecting the government to feed us, our grandparents, our brothers, sisters, or anyone else.

The alternative left to those falling out of the first layer is to check themselves into one of these poor houses. Now don't get the wrong idea. Prison is punishment. Poorhouse is even too strong a word. I would call this company The Fair Chance Institute.

The Fair Chance Institute would have community centers in all major cities and would provide free transportation to anyone wanting to live there. It's not punishment, but it's not posh either. You get a bunk. You get food. If you're sick, addicted, old, infected, you get the medical treatment you need. You, and your family if necessary, are safe, healthy, fed and bored.

This is what the social safety net looks like in an advanced libertarian society. If all you want to do is sit back and suck air, fine, we'll feed you and put you somewhere with plenty of good air. But that's all. I don't see any reason for offering any more than that. Giving people money because they don't work, giving farmers money because they don't produce, giving young women money because they don't get married, works only at the socialist end of the spectrum. It keeps people dependent and empowers the state.

By moving people to the Fair Chance Institute, we remove all illusions. You get what you earn. The nursing homes, orphanages and community centers of the Fair Chance institute provide basic subsistence with no frills, but they also provide something much more valuable. It is that second part which this essay is about.

The Fair Chance Institute is not a prison. It is not punishment. Only if you do absolutely nothing productive will you just sit around bored all day like a prisoner in his cell. If that's all you care about, fine. But if you would like access to the recreational facility, or games, or books, or the Internet, you need to do more than suck air.

To be a for-profit poorhouse, it needs to be almost completely self sufficient. By working to support the facility, you get more than a bunk and another bowl of vegetable stew. By working in the laundry room, sweeping, painting, planting flowers, cutting the grass, cooking, washing dishes, making beds, mopping, scrubbing, you earn rewards that would eventually lead to having your own apartment, checking account, car.

If scrubbing and doing laundry and other maintenance chores were the only alternative, it would still be a lot like a prison. There are so many other ways that one could contribute that I think almost no one would spend all day staring at the ceiling. If one person can read and another can't, one can teach the other. Reading to children in day care or the orphanage school is an important job. Attending adult education classes gets you just as much privileges as cleaning toilets, and is much better for you in the long run. Assisting the counselors by listening to someone's troubled tale is an indispensable resource. And it need not stop there. On the job training would let people move away from the controlled confines of the community center into real jobs.

As one's skill increases, so do the opportunities. One could work outside the institute at one of the related companies, doing landscaping, office temp work, catering, and eventually become a full time employee of the Institute itself, one of its sister companies, or out in the free market.

Medical treatment for the guests of Fair Chance would be very expensive, but paid by the Institute in the form of a medical loan to the patient. Then, instead of taxing all of us heavily to run the money through the Washington mill to be sent to hospitals that take advantage of the guaranteed money by charging $15 for an aspirin, payroll deductions are made to pay off procedures whose price would accurately reflect their cost.

Today, we're using money to grant a comfortable, middle class lifestyle to people who don't or can't work. The reason this isn't very successful and that welfare is more a trap than a help is that money is only a means, not a source, of obtaining a comfortable lifestyle. Money reflects what we have earned and what we produce. It is that production, reflected through the money, that grants us our achievements. Giving money without production misses the point entirely. However, right now that's the best we can do because he have no infrastructure to extract from each person their inherent self worth and show it to them. Lacking the knowledge of how to be successful in the upper tier of American culture, people must be propped up there artificially with a steady stream of other people's achievements and other people's money.

The Fair Chance Institute accurately reflects the reward to production relationship in a way welfare never can. More important, however, is how it allows someone to take time to learn his or her own abilities. Taking people off welfare is very much like releasing a life long convict from prison. Without knowledge, access, experience, the world of empowerment and personal responsibility is a far away goal. When you've been kept as a child of the state for your whole life, it's hard to grow up.

This disparity between the knowledge haves and have nots is what compels the welfare state to continue. There's no middle path. You can't get a minimum wage job and still pay the rent. By offering graduated rewards for performance, while offering a free place to stay, eat, sleep and learn, the Fair Chance Institute offers that middle ground.

It would be very difficult to run a Fair Chance Institute in the current environment of federal aid programs. Why not stay at home, comfortable with all the modern amenities while someone else pays your bills. But that is all changing.

The first step in the migration toward personal empowerment is state empowerment. The block grants proposed by the Republicans is a crude form of this. It's a temporary transition. Next we should abolish the federal programs, reduce federal taxes, and increase local and state taxes correspondingly. There's no good reason for the money to leave the state and then come back. By requiring able bodied men and women to work for their free support, we are beginning to raise expectations and teach a sense of responsibility.

Every person of all ages, histories, disabilities is precious and valuable. There are no throw away people. Except in the most extreme cases, everyone can provide some necessary service to the community. Everyone benefits when you teach a man to fish instead of forcing another to catch two and give one away.

We are living in a time of great change, thus we are surrounded by just as great a churn. Remember that this churn, the social traumas that we see all around us, are not the end times of a dying society, but the growing pains of a maturing society from which we will emerge stronger, richer and smarter. Let freedom ring.

:^D