Welfare state, soma of the West

By: Hugo Marcelo Balderrama - 05/04/2026

Guest columnist.
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It is often thought that Catholicism is the majority religion in Latin America, but this is not true. That distinction belongs to a political religion called statolatry, the belief that the state is the source of all wealth, goods, and happiness. The welfare state is the epiphany of statolatry, for it is there that "benefits" such as "free" healthcare and education are manifested.

Although it may seem exaggerated, much of what I said above is in the mind of the average voter in our region. Therefore, electoral platforms boil down to empty, unrealistic, and economically unfeasible promises. Something our politicians don't care about, since they know that whoever is the most demagogic will win. One will say, "I offer to increase the education budget by 35%." A second later, another appears shouting, "I'll increase it by 70%, and I'll also give away backpacks and snacks!" Immediately, a third jumps onto the scene with, eureka!, the offer to double education spending and fill the country with state-owned enterprises. After all, bad politicians exist because bad voters also exist.

What is the origin of this pernicious belief?

The Welfare State originated in the mind of Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor of the second half of the 19th century. His aim was to make Germans dependent on the state, because, in his own words, "It is very convenient to have millions of state rentiers who are prepared to go to war to defend their sources of income."

Establishing the welfare state required, and still requires, the elimination of all private institutions, from businesses to voluntary aid and support organizations. This was the path to imposing the militaristic regime that Adolf Hitler later used to subject the German people to his tyranny. Historian Götz Aly explains that Hitler literally bribed his people.

The welfare state served as an instrument of domination for Bismarck's imperialism, then weakened the fragile democracy of Weimar, and finally became the bribery mechanism of Hitler's genocidal totalitarianism. That is why Ludwig Erhard, architect of the German postwar economic miracle, opposed his country falling back into that system. His words were:

The result of this perilous path toward the welfare state will be the increasing socialization of income, greater centralization of planning, and extensive oversight of the individual with ever-increasing dependence on the state. Ultimately, we will have an all-powerful state and economic paralysis. The welfare state, according to all existing experience, means anything but well-being and will end up spreading misery to everyone.

That is precisely what happened in Latin America with the experiment of 21st-century socialism from the late 1990s onward. Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez, and Fidel Castro used the trap of a paternalistic state to buy the conscience of their people and convince their followers of how "evil" those who questioned them truly were. Likewise, as always happens in these experiments, the economy collapsed, taking services, goods, and capital with it.

However, without reaching the criminal extremes of Castroism and its satellites, this parasite has taken root in much of the West. In fact, since the 1950s, public spending has increased by 60%; yet, health and education services are steadily declining in quality.

Here another question arises: Who would take care of the most needy without a welfare state?

For centuries, charity was private, and a high percentage still exists in the United States. Early Christians established hospitals, nursing homes, and orphanages. Even today, the Catholic Church has the largest number of humanitarian aid organizations in the world. Another example is retirement, or rather, individual retirement savings plans, which were invented by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in the 16th century.

The parasitic welfare state has destroyed personal relationships, replacing them with the cold grip of bureaucracy. Moreover, contrary to the narratives of its eulogists, it has not freed the poor from their misery, but rather made them dependent on state handouts.

In closing, analogous to Aldous Huxley's dystopia, the welfare state is the soma that clouds the reason of the citizens.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».