Libertarians are accused of being sociopaths who hate the poor almost everyday, because they advocate for a free market with only a few or no regulations. It seems to be like a great environment for rich people while the poor will die in the street. Well no… It’s the exact opposite and here is why.

Anyway, if you believe the government helps the poor, I’d like to ask… how? How exactly do they do it? I see many homeless people in the streets everyday despite having government. I see many people living from paycheck to paycheck, barely capable of taking care of their families – again, despite having the government.

Recently I’ve heard a story about Max. Max had some very rare disease, Spinal muscular atrophy, and he couldn’t afford to pay for the cure. (source: https://www.pribehmaxika.cz/) The government’s insurance can’t pay for the cure because this type of surgery simply is not covered by law. So people in the country I live in did some crowdfunding and collected 62 494 711 Kč (approx. 2,500,000 USD) to help him. And guess what – our government was like: “That’s nice. But I think we need to tax it.”

So that’s what the government does.

The taxes in general are paid by everyone, including poor people. So even if you have only minimum wage, you still have to pay income taxes. Also your boss needs to pay them, so he reduces it from your payment. Also you have to pay VAT when you buy things like food. When you do the math, it could be 40 % or maybe 60 % taken from you by the government. Including poor people.

Now seriously, what does the government do for the poor?

Of course, there are many welfare programs. I don’t know how it works in other countries, but here the money the poor receive is such pittance. You can’t even pay rent with it. And in law, there are many paragraphs defining the rules for receiving such kind of support. If you break any of the rules, you lose your claim instantly.

The last thing – government usually makes many totally unecessary obstacles for poor people to make money. Imagine you are poor and you have no job. That’s easy – you just cook some food, then you open a stand on the city square and sell it.

Wait, you can’t, because first you need to obtain permission from the government to do so. Also you have to follow many hygiene standards defined by law. You have to implement some system for evidence of sales for your cash register. You have to study how the tax return works and pay taxes of course. So much bureaucracy! The starting investment is artificially made much much harder by the government, so many people better stay poor.

As you can see, it’s the government, that makes the poor poorer.

Also, if you’re concerned by the unlimited power of the rich people, know this: the rich are richer only because of the government. It’s easy to get power when you have the government. Every single politician is a sellout and corruption is a thing. No wonder many corporations support many market regulations because it helps them to get rid of competition and it makes for smaller companies more difficult to enter the market.

In the stateless society, you can be rich only if you actually create something valuable that people want and need. There is no government to help you with it. Of course you have more power when you are rich. That’s true regardless of the political system we’re living in. But it’s harder to get power in an anarchist society. You have to build the structures of power from scratch. In today’s society, you can connect yourself to the system that is already established and you simply climb higher. That’s it.