Saturday, August 23, 2008

The Poor Farm

While reading “Pembroke's Past: They were headed for the poor house,” the following came to mind:

What is our best choice, or, what are our best choices for care of the indigent and underprivileged in 21st century America?

  • Our current system of entitlements such as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and other Welfare programs;
  • The ancient concept of poor farms as described in the article;
  • Leaving the responsibility up to the communities within which the need exists – a 21st century modification of the poor farm concept;
  • Let it all play-out in the free market (i.e. if we truly had a free market) – a strictly orthodox libertarian model – the poor will be taken care of if there is an economic benefit derived from it;
  • Encouraging and embracing paradigms such as Bangladeshian economist Muhammad Yunus’s innovative Grameen Bank microlending initiative;
  • Encouraging and embracing corporate social responsibility initiatives such as described in "The Business of Doing Good," “ … [a] convergence of capitalist strategies and social change;
  • Encouraging and embracing the Ethos bottled water business model introduced by entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt and later acquired by Starbucks;
  • A Reganistic model of leaving these matters exclusively to each state;
  • Do nothing: The hell with them – let them fend for themselves;
  • or, with the exception of the latter, some middle-of-the-road approach, coalescing the best practices from all alternatives.

    Are there other alternatives?