Ever read “The Jungle” or any of the other muckraking classics of the era? People packed like sardines in rotting tenements; child labor; grossly unsafe work conditions? All of these were remediated by government action, government “charity.”
What, we expected “the market” to fix the problems all by itself, or private charity to fill all the needs?
Social Security was created specifically to respond to a need; a need that was not being sufficiently met by private charity.
But the dodge about “private charity” is that no one has to give if they don’t like; if you, personally, consider the poor shiftless and worthy of their suffering then you don’t have to cough up a dime. And if your characterization of them is incomplete/incorrect? Well they’ll just have to suffer.
There’s a Malthusian streak that runs through modern conservatism, but Malthus’s ideas are obviously nothing new.
