Coolidge’s Corrective to Socialists’ Corrupt Caring

“It’s not just that government can help, it’s that government must help.” So proclaimed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani. The Mayor of New York City uttered these words when promoting government-run grocery stores.

The city’s “N.Y.C. Groceries: A Recipe for Affordability” initiative is replete with caring language. Proponents claim that the initiative will uplift worker dignity, develop neighborhood vitality, and create best-in-class wages.

Despite these promises, are such government interventions truly caring? A one-hundred-year-old speech by President Calvin Coolidge offers a corrective to the corrupt caring proffered by today’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Corrupt Caring

Socialists claim to care deeply for the working class. The DSA’s political program promises paradise: “We could build a world where no one suffers for their race, gender, or religion, and everyone is free, equal, and cared for.” Such care requires publicly-owned housing, government-controlled healthcare, and, in lockstep with Mamdani, state-provided access to food.

DSA supporters condemn capitalism as “a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit.” Private ownership unjustly expropriates. Collective ownership cares for all people.

Socialism inextricably links coercion with care. Indeed, coercion and care are two sides of the same coin. Socialists hold a low view of people’s beneficent impulses. They ignore the massive amount of private giving towards charitable causes. To the DSA member’s mind, the state must force citizens to care for others lest chaos and pain reign.

Correct Caring

Our country requires leaders who combat the malicious marriage of coercion and caring. Despite some contemporary political figures calling out the DSA’s corruption of caring, a century-old speech powerfully conveys correct caring.

President Calvin Coolidge clearly communicated the vital roles of the market and private giving in helping others. Reviving his perspective accomplishes two goals: 1) it contests the DSA’s co-option of caring language and 2) leads to healthy and sustainable social relationships.

Coolidge supported the American Red Cross during his administration. He praised the Red Cross in his October 4, 1926 address to organization members: “It takes the heart beats of humanity and transforms them into concrete acts for the alleviation of misery and suffering.” He extolled the virtuous and temporary nature of Red Cross aid through which the recipient “does not lose his self-respect.”

Both the DSA’s and Coolidge’s approaches claim to uplift human dignity and self-respect. But socialism harms dignity while private, voluntary giving within the free market respects aid recipients. Socialism inculcates resignation to state control. The individual cannot direct his or her own life’s pursuits when the means of production are controlled by the state. Coercive care is not truly caring because it suppresses people’s freedom and initiative.

Contrary to the DSA, President Coolidge’s speech highlighted the foundation of effective, sustainable, and caring charitable work—the free market. Business constitutes the engine that enables people to creatively and freely direct their productive work. Coolidge proclaimed: “The people of this country are engaged in their various daily occupations in order that they may meet their wide and comprehensive obligations.” The betterment of society occurs through voluntary market action.

Coolidge, unlike Democratic Socialists, recognized that privately owned wealth was the spring from which a flood of generosity can flow. Socialist policies cap this spring and thereby bring suffering. Government, when acting properly, protects the functioning market system that brings abundance and, from that abundance, generous support to those in need. Government only “helps” society when it fulfills this role.

Socialist condemnation of the wealthy distracts from recognizing wealth-building’s benefits. Coolidge understood the connection between economics and true caring: “the cause of economics serves the cause of humanity…obedience to sound economic laws creates a prosperity among the people that anticipates and prevents the need of charity.” Caring people consider the “cause of economics.”

Conclusion

Rather than increase government intervention, Americans must recommit to what Coolidge termed “the normal state of the American people…a self-supporting, self-governing, independent people.” Real care stems from independent and generous individual citizens.

The DSA’s overly involved government does not foster the normal state of the American people. It creates dependency, waste, and economic regression. Mamdani proclaimed that “the government must help.” Yet socialist “help” leads to ruin.

Coolidge provides an alternate path leading to prosperity for the many. His route appreciates sound economics. His highway leads to prosperity that ends in effective and virtuous care for fellow citizens. It’s not just that voluntary giving of free-market fruits can help. It’s that it will help.