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The Tragedy of American Compassion Kindle Edition

by Marvin Olasky (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 143 ratings
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Can a man be content with a piece of bread and some change tossed his way from a passerby?

Today's modern welfare state expects he can. Those who control the money in our society think that giving a dollar at the train station and then appropriating a billion dollars for federal housing can cure the ails of the homeless and the poor.

But the crisis of the modern welfare state is more than a crisis of government. Private charities that dispense aid indiscriminately while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of the poor are also to blame. Like animals in the zoo at feeding time, the needy are given a plate of food but rarely receive the love and time that only a person can give.

Poverty fighters 100 years ago were more compassionate--in the literal meaning of "suffering with"--than many of us are now. They opened their own homes to deserted women and children. They offered employment to nomadic men who had abandoned hope and human contact. Most significantly, they made moral demands on recipients of aid. They saw family, work, freedom, and faith as central to our being, not as life-style options. No one was allowed to eat and run.

Some kind of honest labor was required of those who needed food or a place to sleep in return. Woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common in the 1890s as liquor stores are in the 1990s. When an able bodied woman sought relief, she was given a seat in the "sewing room" and asked to work on garments given to the helpless poor.

To begin where poverty fighters a century ago began, Marvin Olasky emphasizes seven ideas that recent welfare practice has put aside: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, freedom, and most importantly, belief in God. In the end, not much will be accomplished without a spiritual revival that transforms the everyday advice we give and receive, and the way we lead our lives.

It's time we realized that there is only so much that public policy can do. That only a richness of spirit can battle a poverty of soul. The century-old question--does any given scheme of help... make great demands on men to give themselves to their brethren?--is still the right one to ask. Most of our 20th-century schemes have failed. It's time to learn from the warm hearts and hard heads of the 19th-century.
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  5. Publication date
    October 25, 2022
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is a richly documented, controversial history of the welfare state as seen from a conservative political perspective. The system is generous with money but stingy on human involvement, argues Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor: compassion means tough love in which those who give must demand self-help from those who receive. But Olasky adds a proviso that the giver too must be personally involved. He holds up the example of 19th-century charity workers, whose religious beliefs made them compassionate and willing to deal intimately with the poor, rather than dispensing money to them through government agencies. There's plenty of social history here--from Horace Greeley, soup kitchens and orphan asylums to today's homeless impasse. Olasky does not blame the system for poverty. He faults the poor, along with social workers back to Jane Addams and the founders of the settlement house movement.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Significant changes in government social welfare policy have unfolded since The Tragedy of American Compassion emerged in 1992-just think about the paradigm-shifting federal welfare reform of 1996. Both the book's critics and its promoters would argue that Olasky's ideas mattered and gave shape, to some degree, to some of those changes."
―Amy L. Sherman, Senior Fellow, Sagamore Institute for Policy Research; author, Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good

"Those who read and understand Olasky's work will be better prepared to move creatively in affirming the dignity of the poor, and in affirming work as a virtue."
―John M. Perkins, President, John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development

"For domestic policy understanding, no better book recommends itself than Marvin Olasky's splendid The Tragedy of American Compassion."
―Orange County RegisterOrange County Register

"One of 'eight books that changed America.'"
―Philanthropy Philanthropy

"Illuminating."
―Colorado Gazette-TelegraphColorado Gazette-Telegraph

"Fascinating."
―Wall Street JournalWall Street Journal

"There is no disagreement between liberals and conservatives about whether to help the lot of the poor, but there is grave disagreement about how to help them, especially because the wrong kind of 'help' is more likely to harm. In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky shows that although government can assist the merciful efforts of persons, organizations, and communities of faith, it cannot take their place."
―J. Budziszewski, Professor of Government and Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin; author of What We Can't Not Know: A Guide

"A comprehensive, well documented, and much needed study of the decline of true compassion that provides fresh analysis and provocative insight into the causes and cures of this American tragedy. Must reading for people who want to understand and help correct the plight of hurting people."
―Anthony T. Evans, Founder, The Urban Alternative

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B7KDM6GR
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Regnery Gateway (October 25, 2022)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 25, 2022
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1618 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 381 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1433501104
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 143 ratings

About the author

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Marvin Olasky

Marvin Olasky

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Editor-in-chief of WORLD. Dean, World Journalism Institute. Senior Fellow, Acton Institute.

Susan and I have been married for 44 years. Four sons, four daughters-in-law, five grandchildren.

Formal education: B.A. from Yale University in 1971, Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan in 1976. Real education: Grew up in Judaism, became an atheist and a communist, and then (purely through God's grace) a Christian in 1976.

Other activities over the years: foster parent, Pony League assistant coach, PTA president, board chairman of a crisis pregnancy center and a Christian school, elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. Credited (or discredited) with developing the ideas of compassionate conservatism and biblical objectivity.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
143 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

A. Frederick
5.0 out of 5 stars Remains Thoroughly Persuasive
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2024
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We’ve lost the original definition of compassion (to suffer with) and we have outsourced support for our fellow men to the soulless, inefficient, compassionless government. This act lessens those in need and those need in position to help.
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Scott Ott
5.0 out of 5 stars Compassion: Suffering With vs. Feeling Sorry For
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2012
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If you, at a gut level, feel there's something amiss in our government's interminable 'war on poverty,' Marvin Olasky will bring the historical context to help you understand it, and to find a way forward that combines mercy and love, with preservation of human dignity.

Why did relative poverty plummet precipitously from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, then level off for the next 45 years, after the government began pouring trillions into efforts to eradicate it?
How did the word compassion -- which means 'suffering with' -- come to mean merely 'feeling sorry for'?
What role should character and behavior play in alleviating personal poverty?
Why don't government agencies live by the preamble to the Hippocratic Oath -- first, do no harm?
How did turn of the century (1900) Utopianism, and scriptural revisionism, especially among mainline protestant churches, reshape political perspectives on poverty?

This book is succinct, clear, well-documented, and crucial for helping us to escape the unsustainable, counter-productive 'war on poverty', and to move toward an historically-proven, personally-engaging compassion that unites society as it preserves human dignity, ennobling the giver and receiver alike.

Live the Freedom,
Scott Ott
31 people found this helpful
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FuzzyBlackLips
4.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opener for those that believe throwing money at a ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2015
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An eye-opener for those that believe throwing money at a problem will fix it. This is not a "politically correct" book but, there are plenty of facts and history to back up the context of hard work produces wealth.
5 people found this helpful
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Virginia Lady
5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to Make You Think!
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2022
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I enjoy Marvin Olasky's writing. Even though this was written in the '90's, this book was educational and relevant. It made me think outside of the "normal way" of doing things with non-profit entities.
7 people found this helpful
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Dr. Deane
5.0 out of 5 stars This is neither easy nor hard reading but it is compelling
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2016
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This is a must-read probably for everyone, since everyone needs to know the facts about charity, entitlement, freedom and independence in America. If you choose to ignore this issue, you give up your freedom. Yes, I mean that.
The "evidence" about the issues surrounding welfare in the U.S. are laid out here. From reading and considering what Olafsky wrote, you can then have an informed opinion, not simply spout politically correct platitudes.
This is neither easy nor hard reading but it is compelling.
This reviewer is someone deeply involved in public policy for healthcare. I found this book most useful and informative.
8 people found this helpful
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Robert C. Timms, Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars A roadmap for social polidy.
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2007
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Dr. Olasky's book outlines the history of what he calls "outside relief"...in other words, providing assistance to people outside our own family or circle of friends. The debate over whether outside relief is a good thing swung back and forth through history, and, in our day, the pendulum has been about as far towards "in favor" as it could be. I fear that those who favor such policy see other points of view as heartless. Dr. Olasky makes it plain that there is another way of helping others that is better for all concerned. It requires more of all concerned and it involves making some decisions. But in the long run, the way our ancestors chose would do more to help more people and give us a better society. His research is impeccable and his argument is persuasive.
6 people found this helpful
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MikeGoodman59
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2017
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Littered in stats that bored the hell out of me.
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KYMike
4.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed revisit
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2013
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American society seems to so easily forget tragic lessons from the past. Olasky builds a well-founded case that collectivist top-down indiscriminate alms-giving is actually a cause for pauperism rather than a solution. Having been written over two decades ago, it's poignant and bitter to look back upon the recent missteps we have taken in spite of this prophetic "voice crying in the wilderness." Well-written book that's spot on in its arguments and solutions. Only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that the Kindle version didn't include interactive footnotes (rendering all the end notes useless) and included some typos.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Turbo Gangas
4.0 out of 5 stars Todo el que estudia política y administración pública debería leerlo
Reviewed in Mexico on March 2, 2023
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Viene documentado a la perfección como se ha ido degradando la ayuda a los necesitados hasta lo que padecemos todos los países actualmente. La lucha contra la pobreza se ha convertido en el gran negocio de los políticos y ONG, y lo único que hace es generar más pobres. Lectura obligatoria para todos los políticos y estudiantes de administración pública que realmente quieran cambiar el entorno en que vivimos
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