Unlike existing coercive welfare systems, private assistance efforts in a free society are funded voluntarily and therefore need not be demoralizing, at least by any objective ethical standard. Today's welfare money, in contrast, is tainted by its origin in the initiation of force, a fact which cannot long be disguised even by the gigantic money-laundering mechanism of government. Its recipients can remain unaware of this truth only by a process of psychological repression, which is in itself demoralizing. (Only the truly convoluted ethical system of altruism could pronounce payments obtained by violence to be "entitlements," while payments rendered voluntarily, based on the rational choices of the donors, are deprecated as "demeaning.")

Furthermore, assistance to the poor in any society, regardless of whether its structure is based on freedom or statism, will be rendered primarily by individuals who have already succeeded to a large extent in satisfying their own primary needs. Consequently, large-scale assistance is feasible only in relatively wealthy societies—primarily free societies, as opposed to societies based on either socialism or a mixed economy. Moreover, rational individuals in a mixed-economy society, such as the present-day United States, must spend most resources that remain, after providing for their immediate needs and the onerous demands of taxation, on the pressing task of combatting further encroachments on their lives and freedom. In this context, the struggle against statism becomes a critical problem, which must take precedence over charitable considerations. For this reason as well, large-scale generosity toward the poor is feasible only in free societies.