The bleeding heart conservative
A positive reflection on how the free market has changed the lives of people in poverty, and a call to action encouraging us to spread love and kindness.
I spent Easter this year in Charleston, South Carolina. Before the trip people told me, “You’ve got to go to Hyman’s Seafood.”
So I round up my in-laws and my family, and we walk over to this busy restaurant on the main drag. I look up at the storefront, and see a sign pasted to the glass window:
“PLEASE NO PANHANDLING IN FRONT OF HYMAN’S SEAFOOD. For those who have to go through the garbage at night for something to eat, please do not do it…”
I’m cringing while reading this.
What Hyman’s was writing was an answer to a call that we must all respond to.
How do we treat the poor and the marginalized? The hungry? The sick?
And it’s really hard. For Hyman’s, it’s not good for business to have panhandlers asking for money during customers’ meals. I get it.
But to some extent, giving panhandlers money seems like the easy thing to do.
Every time I walk by someone on the street in Chicago asking, “can you help,” I have an immediate flash in my head of Matthew 25:40, which says, “The King will reply, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
They are not just our equals, they are our superiors.
So how do we treat them?
To answer that question, I was led to a book by Hans Rosling, called “Factfulness.” Rosling, a medical doctor, explored how extreme poverty has changed during the past 20 years. And he starts by asking a question.
“In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has:
a) Almost doubled
b) Remained more or less the same
c) Almost halved
What do you think the answer is?
He actually tested this question on monkeys, and as you might expect from a monkey randomly guessing answers, the monkey was right 33% of the time.
The monkeys outperformed humans, who answered this question correctly less than 10% of the time.
Let’s find out how you did.
In the last 20 years, worldwide poverty has been reduced from 29% to 9%.
Let me put that another way, if you’re old enough to legally buy a beer, you have seen the greatest reduction in poverty in the history of the world.
The greatest source of suffering in all human existence has been nearly eradicated, but we never talk about it. We never discuss what factors changed all of human experience.
Now, we all know the answer to that: the free market, and all the benefits that come with it such as rule of law, global trade and property rights.
Meanwhile, liberals are non-stop talking about the “benefits” of socialism and income inequality.
We are fighting for the greatest miracle in humanity, the solution that has helped billions of people escape hell. We should be shouting this from the rooftops.
Ending poverty for 20% of the world in 20 years. Pretty remarkable.
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
I saw myself staring at the sign from Hyman’s restaurant, it went on to read,
“…You are a human being and deserve love and respect. Please come inside and we will be happy to offer you a bite to eat to take with you and a cup of water. No questions asked.”
This is response of the bleeding heart conservative: The free market. Love. And respect. It’s changed the world.
We just need to spread the message.