Why do you assume the children would be so much worse off as the parent? Maybe they were prudent savers when they
did work (assuming they did) and have a stable "retirement" fund. Maybe the support they receive is sufficient for the sustainment of minor children. Maybe they have a
working spouse, or at least one as well-to-do as they are. I don't pretend to know the reasons for opportunity, but I do recognize the benefit to the greater good that could be afforded
everyone without the
burden of mandatory statism.
We're getting way off-base from your original argument, but I will follow your slippery slope to the bottom. As with the negative externality argument, the "why" is not important from the economist's point of view. Man, when presented with certain choices, chooses in the form of his actions. Man's actions reveal certain truths about his preferences. Even if man does
not act, he is still expressing a preference based on his
inaction. Why he chooses to act is irrelevant, he is acting with prejudice toward a specific goal. Each action explains his preferences toward a better satisfaction. This is known as
praxeology.
Under a
free market, without the burden of taxation and the costs imposed by government monopoly, an individual would earn much more of
their own money, increasing not just consumption, but savings and discretionary funding. This gives the individual a wider berth of choices in their palette of purposeful behavior. This effect on economic prosperity is scalable, too; from the richest venture capitalist to the poorest vagrant, everyone is suddenly
that much better off.
The free market doesn't have answers to specific questions, it is a
process not a
system. If man can conceive of legislature to force people to help others, he can surely conceive of a business opportunity to help these same people free-of-charge. Whether that's through a for-profit or not-for-profit company is entirely up to the entrepreneur.
Of course I do. It's not an efficient system as it is, and so long as education remains in the fictitious realm of a "
public good," it won't get much better.