This is pretty much just free association knee-jerk logic. The one question which, until answered, I cannot really take Sowell and other anti-welfare pundits seriously is this: why do countries like the Nordics, with extremely generous welfare states and fairly high prevalences for the most common behavioral risks of poverty, nevertheless have poverty a fraction of that in the US and high labor force participation rates? If they're to be believed on how bad welfare is for poverty, Sowell and others must have a response to this, and no off-the-cuff easily disprovable stuff either.