Basic Books, 1998. Expectant giving was the modus operandi of the 19 th century poverty fighters highlighted by Payne, an Idaho writer who was a Bradley fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation in 1996. Charity practitioners like Octavia Hill, who mentored poor London families, insisted that giving be not merely benevolent but beneficient.
Handouts enabling continued self-destructive behavior don t pass that test.
Overcoming Welfare explains why handouts are so detrimental and why we keep giving them. Handouts typically demean recipients, implying that beneficiaries are incapable of meeting their own needs. They can be disincentives to work and can actually increase the number of poor people by luring them away from employment and personal responsibility and onto welfare. Mainly because it s so easy. Expectant giving requires time, thought, and imagination.