Work, Welfare, and the Illusion of a New Eden
This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
The scandal among the Somali community in Minnesota highlights a question to consider as we plunge deeper into the AI Age, an age in which some futurists, such as Elon Musk, suggest work will be optional: What’s the point of working?
In the beginning, there was no work: God’s punishment for Adam’s disobedience was tossing him from the Garden of Eden and condemning mankind to suffer through labor.
And for millennia, man suffered and labored merely to exist and reproduce, as all other living things did on earth. But whether from eating from the Tree of Knowledge, intelligent design, or the vagaries of evolution, man has the capacity to reason and imagine, create and innovate that other animals do not have.
As a result, humans no longer labor merely to exist, but to aspire, acquire, and achieve. We trade our labor for things we cannot or do not wish to make ourselves; to provide for future needs; to enjoy plenty, luxury, and convenience. Humans are social animals too, so we work with others to build what a single person could not, and to gain status or admiration from other humans.
And we work to help those who cannot help themselves, mindful of the Biblical exhortation “I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Working to achieve the blessing of giving is integral to Americanism; Americans are the most generous people on earth.
Now, in this golden age of plenty and peace, we consider again: What’s the point of working? And its corollary as well: What’s the point of giving?
Eden – or heaven on earth – a place of contentment, ease, and mindless happiness, a place where work no longer exists, shimmers like a mirage on the horizon: thirsted for but never really in reach.
Well now, in the AI Age, perhaps a return to Eden is in reach, but is this version of Eden – abundant slothfulness – really the pinnacle of human existence?
To Somali refugees escaping civil war, death, destruction, and a bare subsistence economy, the U.S. offered a new life in which work was no longer required to subsist. At the cost of merely filling out and filing a form – and no doubt, even that “work” was done for them as well by a well-meaning social worker – the U.S. provided for all needs and even some wants.
Each and every Somali refugee found a better life in the U.S. without working. So, no one should be surprised that 89% of Somali families with children receive public aid.
Indeed, some clever refugees figured out that the generous, inattentive welfare state the U.S. had created with good intentions over the last 60 years offered a return to Eden.
Just by breaking a few rules that no one was enforcing, filling out and filing some more forms, vast unimaginable wealth was available – and would actually be given to you. Enough, it turns out, to live in opulence and to provide most of the needs for sprawling clans back home as well.
If we create an environment in which wealth can be achieved so easily just by breaking a few rules that no one enforces, was it wrong for a rational person to pursue wealth just by taking it?
We placed refugees into a new Eden and merely said: Take fruit from these trees but not from that tree.
Somalian refugees are not the only people who have discovered this glitch – this feature – in how we give. DOGE started a process, which is ongoing, uncovering the startling extent to which government giving is gamed.
For example, the Department of Agriculture has asked each state to provide the name, address, and Social Security number of each person receiving SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance) benefits. More than 20 states have refused to comply, but in studying the data on those that did, the government discovered over 150,000 dead people receiving benefits, hundreds of thousands more taking benefits from more than one state, and of course fake Social Security numbers.
It turns out it’s easy to cheat the government, and most state governments are actually actively trying not to find the fraud. And it’s not just in the welfare state; it appears to be systemic in the social service grant-making world as well.
The Somali experience is turning out to be an inadvertent social policy experiment complete with lessons, about both work and generosity.
First, giving with lax, unenforced rules is akin to giving without rules, which is an invitation to live in Eden – an invitation many will accept.
Second, Eden is good for animals, but it’s actually not the pinnacle of human existence so long as humans have the capacity to think, create, imagine, and aspire.
Third, work may be a curse for humans focused on subsistence, but it’s a blessing for humans thinking, creating, imagining, aspiring, trading, acquiring, achieving – and giving.
Fourth, giving as an output of human labor is better than receiving, because receiving discourages work and work is how one is blessed with the ability to give – so we need to beware of thoughtless, unstructured giving that discourages work.
In our golden age, as our means to give grows, and as “work” itself becomes “optional,” we need to anticipate the paradox of working, giving, and getting. We still live in a world of scarcity, but we continue to create abundance through freely trading or selling work, and giving is a beneficial consequence of working. But getting undermines the will to work, which diminishes future giving.
Giving and getting can never be a replacement for working and giving. If we ignore this, offering a new Eden to all without work, human will experience a painful fall from grace once again.
Richard Porter is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alfa Institute, a platform for ideas, policy proposals and new technology integration pertaining to artificial intelligence
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