Protecting a Societal Cancer with a Web of Lies
12/19/2025
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Mises Wire
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Patrick Barron
There is a deadly cancer that is eating away at Western society—welfare. It is supported by a web of lies that are so pervasive that no one dare question them. Two of the most ingrained are:
There is no substitute for helping the unfortunate than government-provided welfare on demand;
The monetary stimulus from welfare spending adds to aggregate demand and helps to stimulate the economy
Erosion of the Family as Welfare Provider
The primary form of welfare for the unfortunate is the family. Yet many welfare programs actually encourage the destruction of the family. The rise of the so-called “single-parent family” is aided in part by the requirement that the child has been abandoned by one of the parents, almost always the father, and that the remaining parent with child is engaged in a noble endeavor. The reality is that, prior to welfare on demand—what in America is termed an “entitlement”—becoming pregnant out of wedlock was a disaster for the mother and her extended family. If the biological father shirked his duties, the financial and social burden of raising the child fell to the grandparents at a time of life when their physical vigor and income are declining.
There is a further lie: that a single parent (again, usually the mother) can raise a child for a life of achievement. This flies in the face of all research. In all surveys, the single most important trait that will predict a child’s future financial success (having a real profession and landing a good job) and social success (staying out of prison, for example) is whether or not the child was raised by a mother and a father. Here are forty-five single parent statistics you can’t ignore. Here are charts of single parent families.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/protecting-societal-cancer-web-lies
