As a Christian I am always trying to see the Christian view point on social issue like slavery, poverty etc.I am not sure whether social scholars look to the bible for answers to these problems, but I do.
Bible has been very vocal on certain issues like poverty but has not been explicit in giving its opinion on some social issues like slavery.
In the book of Leviticus 19:10 and Leviticus 23:22 God commands Israelites that they should leave behind some of their yield for poor,widows and foreigners.
What I find interesting here is that the responsibility of the social welfare is being put on the people and not the government, which is what we dont see around in many nations today. Why does God put the responsibility on the people and not the government?
The answer I think is found when we look at social welfare system in India which is so inefficient and stooped in corruption that many have given up hope of its recovery.
The state as an agent for redistribution of wealth for social welfare is not a very efficient one. This I believe is because of what I call "Transmission Loss". When energy flows from one medium to another it is dissipated because of factors such as friction,vibration etc. In the same way wealth and resource also face "Transmission Loss" when redistributed through the state. These factors are
1. Corruption
2. Inappropriate Allocation
3. Overheads
4. Lack of infrastructure for delivery
5. Lack of empathy and sense of responsibility
Compare this with the citizenry taking up this role. If citizens voluntarily takes up this role then point 5 is taken care of. Point 2 is taken care of because benefit provider is directly interacting with the benefit receiver and is well acquainted with the need. Overheads and infrastructure required is minimum because the role of the state is limited to co-ordination efforts only.Absence of any other intermediaries reduce the risk of corruption as well.
Now the other argument could be that if the state relinquishes this responsibility to citizens then lack of participation from citizens could jeopardise the development & welfare of the community. But my thought is that if this is true about citizens then the same can be said about the state as well and this is what we are seeing in a nation like India where wealth of the people is totally misused by the government intermediaries.
I am not advocating total stoppage of government playing the role of welfare provider. If it does it will create a total chaos in a nation as large as India. But yes I do believe that governments state should slowly vacate this space to the citizens.
