Economic welfare

“ The machinery of government then becomes a part of every person's welfare, and his relation to its maintenance by contribution of his wealth is a part of prudent consumption. The economic question in consumption, then, involves not so much what one can get from society as what he can give to society, since his welfare comes largely through organization in the use of accumulated wealth. ”

“ For it may be contended that the economic efficiency of the individual and of the nation is fundamental in the sense that without this, the attainment of the other goods of life can not or can be only imperfectly realised, and it is obvious that according to the measure in which the economic welfare of the individual and of the State is secured, in like measure is secured the opportunity for the development and realisation of the other aims of the individual and of the nation. ”

“ We have social welfare as the result of wealth consumed, or used up. Society is interested in all the wealth accumulated, and the methods of its accumulation and its fair distribution are a part of social machinery; yet these have their chief significance in the final consumption. It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that makes society interested in our possessions. It is not what society has, but how it uses it, that settles the chief questions of welfare or illfare. ”

“ So the nation whose capital and labor are not well employed may do wisely in developing new industries, even at a considerable expense for introducing the new industries. But if all the nation's energies are profitably employed, the costly development of resources may wisely wait for future capital and labor. So all special incentives require a constant inquiry as to beneficial results supposed to follow, and the policy of the government must conform to the needs of general welfare. ”

“ If in any case they are not, it is because of government monopoly cornering the market, or because of unnatural conditions of government production undermining the market. In general, government is simply expending for the common welfare a part of the wealth produced by individual effort. ”

“ Now we have to create a million jobs for people on welfare by giving businesses incentives to hire people off welfare and enlisting the private sector in a national effort to bring all Americans into the economic mainstream. ”

“ Production extended.—In all these three directions, or in any combination of them, transporting, transforming and transmuting materials, men seek the production of a supply for meeting anticipated wants, and so contribute directly or indirectly to welfare. No one way of producing what men need, where they need it, and when they need it, has any superior claim to the name production. All are making the material yield up welfare to the one who needs it, and produce wealth just so far as their services are necessary in bringing the welfare. ”

“ It is reasonable to suppose that wherever general welfare in actual use of wealth can be best promoted by public control, such control will come through the free exercise of individual judgment with reference to the work in hand. While there ought to be no objection on the part of any to a government enterprise which can be shown to serve in that way the greatest good of all, nobody ought to assume that the nationalization of industries is for the greatest good. ”

“ All questions of nationalization of industries or of [pg 345] community consumption must be brought to the test of universal need. What the whole community wants the whole community has a right to provide in the way which brings most good with least expenditure of exertion in any form. No other question can outweigh in importance this one of public need or public welfare. Every producer and every consumer is interested in seeing that such welfare is not overlooked by the public, or infringed upon by any individual or combination of individuals in his community. ”

“ Different contributions to the common economic welfare deserve and should receive different measures of reward and recognition, but the extremes of wealth and poverty which afflict most nations on earth, regardless of the socio-economic philosophies they profess, must be abolished. ”

“ Man and his welfare are the end and aim of the economic process. The starting point of industry is wants; the goal is welfare. Momentary gratification is only a way-station, not the journey's end. Too often, in economic reasoning, things are looked at from the employer's point of view. ”

“ Nothing is more conspicuous in recent years than the growth of sensibility on the subject of economic evils, especially as to the conditions of industry. Economic efficiency, as a sole object, appeared to preclude regard to morality of method, and the result has been [Pg 166] poverty for the masses of mankind. If this is to cease, satisfactory minimum standards of comfort and welfare for the entire population must be accepted, which will form a first charge on industry. ”

“ So the welfare of a community cannot be judged by the amount and kind of wealth produced or by the methods in production or by the distribution of ownership. These may be significant in showing the trend of social customs as to individual control, but the last inquiry will still have to be, What welfare comes to the entire community when all this wealth is used? Moreover, no analysis of qualities in any substance called wealth can measure the welfare involved in its use. ”

“ Nowadays the collective administration directs the industrial forces of the nation for the general welfare, but in those days all economic enterprises were for private profit, and their projectors had to hire the labor they needed with money. ”

“ The welfare of any people depends upon production and saving, it being self-evident that people can live only by having goods and that there should be a surplus saved out of current production in order to provide for the needs of increasing population, especially in means for housing, for transportation and for fuel and clothing. Anything that tends to curtail production and saving is bound to react to the disadvantage of a people as a whole. Wages come out of production and from no other source. ”

“ In other words, what are the chief lines of economic change required to bring about a readjustment between modern methods of production and social welfare? The answer to this question requires us to amplify our interpretation of the industrial evolution of the past century by producing into the future the same lines of development that they may be justified by the appearance of consisting with some rational social end. ”

“ All services in the household, in contributing to bodily comfort of the family, make an essential part of human welfare, but prudence requires such an adjustment of these services to the total wealth-producing energy that they may be maintained without reducing the total power. All public expenditures in the care of streets and parks are an essential to welfare so long as the sources of wealth production are kept the more active from such advantages. ”

“ In all economic affairs that are open to competition we believe that the national welfare will be promoted by the removal of artificial restrictions that tend to counteract free competition and are in opposition to the, free play of the law of supply and demand. *⁠*⁠* I believe that the engineers of the country will, in great majority, endorse the declaration of principles in the above statement and will agree that the direction of national economic and political affairs in conformity with them will promote the national welfare. ”

“ A theory of welfare which shall account for the phenomena of prosperity and adversity under the modern economic order must, accordingly, proceed on the circumstances which condition the modern situation, and need not greatly concern itself with the range of circumstances that made or marred the common welfare under the older regime, before the age of machine industry and business enterprise. ”

“ These farmers on the other hand were beginning to be very much interested in a number of economic reforms which would vitally affect their welfare, such as the reduction and readjustment of the burden of taxation, the control of corporations in the interests of the people, the reduction and regulation of the cost of transportation, and an increase in the currency supply. ”

“ Governmental limits.—All society recognizes certain universal wants and the necessity of meeting these with essential order and the best economy. These universal wants enforce the organization of society under some form of government. Such an organization grows out of the necessity rather than the will of humanity. Hence government, local or more general, is the direct effort of individuals in society for the general welfare. Usually the best test of general welfare is the assent of the majority of mature and intelligent members of the community. ”

“ That this reduction in price is not the result of poorly paid labor, but of better returns for labor expended, is evident to any one investigating the tendency of wages or of living among wage-earners, or of the general improvement in welfare of communities where these labor-saving methods are applied. Any hardship connected with these diminished values falls chiefly upon the laborers who fail to adjust their work to the improved method. ”

“ That's a real incentive for the working poor to stay at work and a downpayment on our plan to end the welfare system as we know it. With this economic plan in place, private analysts believe more than 8 million jobs will be created over the next 4 years. ”

“ Our basic objective--toward which all others lead--is to improve the welfare of the American people. In addition to economic prosperity, this means that we use social security in the fullest sense of the word. And people must be protected from excessive want during old age, sickness, and unemployment. Opportunities for a good economy and adequate medical care must be readily available. Every family should build a decent home. ”

“ Such methods are the genuine economic saving in which the community should be encouraged. A saving which merely stores against a future personal want contributes less to general welfare, and [pg 313] does not stimulate the natural growth of wants in the individual, which is the chief source of increasing power. The one who saves that he may have better tools with which to do more for his future satisfaction, not only adds to his physical abilities to meet his daily wants, but adds the strongest stimulant to energy in his work. The supply of ordinary wants being provided for, new wants arise. ”

“ COOPERATION BY THE GOVERNMENT
The larger purpose of our economic thought should be to establish more firmly stability and security of business and employment and thereby remove poverty still further from our borders. Our people have in recent years developed a new-found capacity for cooperation among themselves to effect high purposes in public welfare. ”

“ Today I challenge every State to take the money they save from lowering their caseloads and use it—for child care, for transportation, to subsidize the training and wage help that people need to move from welfare to work. ”

“ In the last twenty years an increasing percentage of our people have come to depend on industry for their livelihood, so that to-day the wage-workers in industry rank in importance side by side with the tillers of the soil. As a people we cannot afford to let any group of citizens or any individual citizen live or labor under conditions which are injurious to the common welfare. Industry, therefore, must submit to such public regulation as will make it a means of life and health, not of death or inefficiency. ”

“ If the care of the Poor be an object of great national importance, —if it be inseparably connected with the peace and tranquillity of society, and with the glory and prosperity of the state;— if the advantages which individuals share in the public welfare are in proportion to the capital they have at stake in this great national fund—that is to say, in proportion to their rank, property, and connexions, or general influence;—as it is just that every one should contribute in proportion to the advantages he receives ”

“ And I shall take it for granted that a large portion of all national welfare is dependent on the work which the population can constantly be doing; or, if I may so express it, that the greater part of the national wealth is the income from the work which is the outcome of the national health.
It is a common expression that we do not know the value of a thing till we have lost it; and this may be applied to the losses of work which are due to losses of national health. ”

“ I believe it also to be the duty of government to provide for the economical or pecuniary welfare of the people; to encourage industry by securing the rewards of labor to the laborer, and to discourage the competitions into which those who rule and control the impoverished, degraded, and almost brutified laborers of other countries, are striving to enter with our own people,—competitions, which, if not prevented, will, to a great extent, reduce our laborers to the wretchedness and privation of theirs. ”

“ In fulfilling this social vision, we ruled out the expropriation of wealth and its redistribution among our people in the form of welfare wages. We sought more lasting change and improvement of human welfare, centered on the person’s productive capacities and initiative. ”