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Pee Kay
No Minister
On Monday I posted the article “They Need Saving From Themselves.” https://nominister.wordpress.com/2026/03/09/they-need-saving-from-themselves/
I also circulated the post to my mailing group.
I was sent John Alcock’s response by one of the mailing group.
I had no hesitation in deeming John’s response as eminently worthy of a greater audience.
Guest Post by John Alcock
There is an important observation buried in the quote being circulated:
“You can’t save others from themselves…”
I think that statement is fundamentally correct.
No government, charity, activist movement, or social programme can ultimately save individuals from their own decisions. Attempts to do so almost always create the opposite of what was intended – dependency, resentment, and the gradual erosion of personal responsibility.
The purpose of a healthy society is not to rescue individuals from the consequences of their choices.
The purpose of a healthy society is to create an environment in which every individual has the freedom to succeed – or fail – on their own account. This process is quite literally called learning, and to insulate people from the ability to learn through repeated successes or failures deprives individuals of the ability to progress and insulates them from the consequences of their actions.
Where I believe our society has gone wrong, globally, is that we have increasingly adopted an ideological framework that rejects – and actively prevents – individuals from the ability to learn at all.
For more than a century, political thinking influenced by Marxist ideas has encouraged people to interpret society primarily through the lens of group conflict – oppressor versus oppressed, coloniser versus colonised, privileged versus marginalised. Once that framework is adopted, social outcomes are no longer seen as the result of countless individual decisions and incentives. They are interpreted as evidence of structural injustice.
Responsibility shifts away from the individual and toward ‘the system’ – and it is precisely this Marxist conception of society that lies at the root of the problem.
Failure becomes proof of oppression.
Dependency becomes institutionalised compassion.
Political power becomes the tool through which competing groups attempt to redistribute advantage.
Race then becomes a convenient vehicle for this framework, because it divides citizens into easily identifiable camps. But race is merely the distraction from the collectivism. The underlying ideology is not really about race at all. It is about collectivism – the idea that individuals should primarily be understood as members of groups rather than as independent human beings responsible for their own lives, actions, and choices.
The consequences of that way of thinking are visible across much of the Western world today: weakened families, expanding welfare systems, declining social cohesion, and increasing resentment between groups who should otherwise see themselves as fellow citizens.
And importantly, this dynamic does not affect one race.
It affects everyone.
Which brings us back to the quote.
You cannot save people from themselves.
But you can build a society whose institutions encourage responsibility, initiative, and dignity rather than dependency.
Historically, the societies that have flourished have done so because they were built around a small number of very clear principles.
Principles
- Everyone is their own property
- The fruits of your labour are your property
- You may use your property freely, provided it does not harm another’s
- If harm occurs, compensation must be provided
- Act honourably and in good faith
From those principles flows a very clear and limited purpose for government.
Government should not attempt to manage society, engineer outcomes, or divide citizens into competing identity groups.
Its proper role is simply the stewardship of public goods and natural monopolies, specifically:
- National defence
- Local defence (police etc)
- A functioning justice system
- Emergency services
- National and local infrastructure
Within that framework, individuals and communities are free to build their own lives, raise families, create businesses, and pursue prosperity according to their own values and efforts.
Success belongs to those who create it.
Failure belongs to those who choose it.
And responsibility returns to where it has always belonged – with the individual.
If we genuinely want a society that flourishes, the answer is not racial division, grievance politics, or endless attempts to save people from themselves.
The answer is much older, much simpler, and far more powerful.
A society built on individual responsibility, strong property rights, equal treatment under the law, and limited government.
Those principles do not belong to one race, one culture, or one political tribe.
They belong to every free human being.
John Alcock, BSc, MSc, LLB
This article was originally published by No Minister.
