Upliftment of the economically impoverished has been one of the cornerstones on which “Economics” was founded on. And although, regarded as the “dismal science” it has yet, achieved some phenomenal gains as of late, in alleviating abject poverty within the East and Central Asian context within the late 20th century. Now, the African and the South East Asian economies are now being eyed as the new poster child for enormous socio-economic gains in the 21st century.

The Keynesian economic paradigm states the necessity for state intervention to maximize employment due to the undulating nature of economic output. It has as of late come under heavy fire from contemporary fiscally conservative political and economic pundits for trimming the exchequer’s pockets while producing abysmal results. Meanwhile, the other house in this loosely bicameral setup have argued the necessity of such freebies and even them being not enough vis-à-vis the deserving recipients. And although, disagreements may be vehement in nature both the sides continue to be motivated by upliftment of the masses.

On the fiscally conservative end there are people who promulgate the establishment of policies and extensive social welfare to improve the economic condition of the economically underprivileged gradually, but the subsequent augmentation is much more resilient relative to any improvements realized via the means of one-time freebies. Also, while for many social welfare schemes the initial capital expenditure incurred by the State may be much larger than simply providing the affected population with the freebies due to the larger administrative footprint required by the former for implementation, in the long term the benefits provided by social welfare schemes are much more efficient monetarily and cheaper.

However, some valid drawbacks also exist and have been identified by the relatively fiscally liberal commentators. For instance, freebies allay the issues faced by the people much more quickly than social welfare schemes. Another such fallacy within social welfare schemes is due to their large administrative footprint they are much more prone to corruption in the bureaucracy as compared to freebies such as loan waivers, delivery of coupons for buying computers for students, etc. due to a less distant relationship between the state and the recipient within an administrative context.

In conclusion freebies are more suited to short-term, localised and urgent economic interventions for more globalized, long-term and non-urgent economic needs should be addressed with the employment of social welfare schemes. An efficient and astute government would seek to use both judiciously (so as to prevent inflation from skyrocketing) and appropriately and even conjunction to best address the needs of their citizens.