Serious historical illiteracy.
Prior to the last 100 years, and in particular the last 50 years, few if any nations have a history of large-scale spending on welfare payments to the poor.
This thread posits the Roman Empire as a single example. I contend that this is a vast oversimplification of the empire's history, that even if we accept the annona as a primary cause of the empire's decline and fall, it took it 4 to 6 centuries to do its work.
I'd settle for another 4 centuries for the USA.
Care to provide a few more examples of the "most nations" that were "destroyed by welfare spending?" Since we're talking about most nations that have collapsed there must be a slew of examples.
I don't disagree with the premise that this is the way we're heading, I just believe that history provides few if any examples of it happening so it is of itself no guide.
“This thread posits the Roman Empire as a single example. I contend that this is a vast oversimplification of the empire’s history, that even if we accept the annona as a primary cause of the empire’s decline and fall, it took it 4 to 6 centuries to do its work.”
I am in fact positing that encouraging dependency, confiscating production, debasing the currency and the government reacting to the resultant ill-effects by insinuating itself even further into the economy was the cause of Rome’s fall and threatens to destroy America from within.
I am in fact positing that making economic decisions in to political decisions is doomed to fail.
Under socialism, government owns the means of production — which ultimately is the citizenry itself. When you have the product of your labors expropriated, agglomerated and then distributed by an elite — be it a government or private entity — you are a slave.
Fascism [aka European Social Democracy] is another form of collectivism, but is distinguished by the fact that private property is tolerated only so long as it serves the State. Fascists view wages and personal property as allowances granted by the government on behalf of the collective. Hence they refer to take-home pay that is not expropriated by the tax collector as a cost. [”We cannot afford a tax-cut!”] They firmly believe that the State is the people and the people are the State [”we are the government”]. Therefore, the more powers the State has, in their view, the more empowered are the people.
Whether private property is tolerated or not, collectivism features the government allocating resources based upon a principle [other than supply-and-demand]. It may be “from each according to ability, to each according to need” or simply political cronyism.
So you may have a company that is only adept at getting politicians and bureaucrats to give them other people’s money. These companies are not going to be competent at much of anything else — hence Solyndra.