Mencius is very much on my mind these days: I am reading it with a group of entering first year students.  So, I noticed the Mencian resonances in this op-ed in today’s WaPo by Michael Gerson.  He is a conservative, a former speech writer for Bush fils, but occasionally articulates the “compassionate conservative” position of Bush’s 2000 campaign.  In his piece today, he complains that the US government’s food stamp system – which has been renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – is inadequate to the the necessary task of getting food to people who need it.  Apparently, it is well known that the monthly allotment is most often consumed in three weeks.  The program, in other words, is currently funded to provide less than what is needed.  Gerson points out the failings of this short fall:

Hunger exacts a social cost. Hungry adults miss more work and consume
more health care. Hungry children tend to be sicker, absent from school
more often and more prone to getting into more trouble. Larry Brown of
the Harvard School of Public Health
calculates that the total price tag of hunger to American society is
about $90 billion a year. In contrast, Brown estimates it would only
cost about $10 billion to $12 billion a year to “virtually end hunger
in our nation.”

And this raises a moral issue. We have in place an automated food
stamp program that is generally efficient and effective. We know it
could be expanded with little increase in overhead. And we know with
precision when its benefit runs out each month. So how is it then
possible to justify funding three weeks of food instead of four? What
additional dependence, what added moral hazard could a full month of
eating possibly create?

Many social problems seem complex beyond hope. But dramatic progress
against hunger is not. There are many explanations why this effort has
not been undertaken — but there are no good excuses.

       Mencius would agree.  A good political leader – a “true emperor” – attends to the needs of the people, especially where food is concerned.  But he would push further on the moral angle here, in a way that Gerson would most likely accept.  For Mencius, it is a family values thing: if people do not have enough to eat, or sufficient livelihood to secure a basic minimum of existence, then they will be distracted from attending to their family and social duties.  How can one do the consistent and hard work of caring for elders and children when income is inadequate or food is scarce?  Here is a passage where Mencius is speaking with a king who is not doing enough to provide for his people:

To keep the mind constant without a constant livelihood – only the wisest among us can do that.  Unless they have a constant livelihood, the common people will never have constant minds.  And without constant minds, they’ll wander loose and wild.  They’ll stop at nothing, and soon cross the law.  Then, if you punish them, you’ve done nothing but snare the people in your own trap. And if they’re Humane, how can those in high position snare their people in traps?  Therefore, in securing the people’s livelihood, an enlightened ruler ensures that they have enough to serve their parents and nurture their wives and children, that everyone has plenty to eat in good years and no one starves in bad years.  If you do that, you’ll be leading the people toward virtue and benevolence, so it will be easy for them to follow you.  

But now, with you securing their livelihood, the people never have enough to serve their parents or nurture their wives and children.  In good years they live miserable lives, and in bad years they starve to death.  All they can do is struggle to stay free of death and worry about failing.  Where could they ever find the leisure for Ritual and Duty? (1.7)

     The question, then, is who, among the current presidential candidates, will be an “enlightened ruler” and call for full funding for food stamps?