COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVES FACE OBSTACLES.

Byline: JOSEPH J. JACOBS Local View

PRESUMING that we conservatives can convince the general public and the liberals that our compassion is as deep and intense as theirs, where do we go from there?

When putting forward our ideas about how conservatives would implement their compassion, we have an enormous advantage, because the evidence is in - liberal compassion has not delivered what it promised. It has also had some pretty awful side effects. But how do we know whether our ideas work any better than theirs do?

One of the major criticisms of liberal intellectuals is that they tend to spin out complicated, theoretical social structures driven by their admirable compassionate drive. Convinced of the purity of their motives, they tend to place too much faith in their theories. Socialism and all of its variants is one of those. Its promise has always been beguiling.

Often missing from the evaluation of these systems is a willingness to make objective tests of these theories - what the patent law calls ``reduction to practice.'' No matter how exquisite or attractive the logic of these ideas, and no matter how nobly motivated they are, if they are not validated by use, then they should be regarded with suspicion.

At one time almost half the world was ruled by the principles of socialism, and it failed in practice. However, the theory is so well-meaning and so seemingly compassionate that many intellectuals continue to regard it as a desirable road to take. As Tom Sowell puts it, they refuse to see the fatal flaws of socialism, saying, ``If only different people were running it (the socialist state), then it would have worked!''

Here is where conservatives must beware. Just as we challenged the liberals' implementation of their compassion, so they will certainly challenge us. When we put forth conservative ideas for implementing compassion, we must take the test of ``reduction to practice.'' Be warned, it may not be as easy as we think.

Conservatives, for instance, make much of the desire of people to be free, to be independent. Is that exaggerated? It's a matter of deep faith for me and other conservatives that it is a basic yearning of all people. But we will find, I believe, that the desire to be free has been deeply sublimated in the urban poor by the siren song of the welfare state.

I have some experience to bring to bear. In searching for programs for our family foundation, one point that we all agreed upon, liberal or conservative, was the importance of the dignity of individuals. So a program to lend money to help people start businesses in poor communities was approved by all. We modeled these programs after the spectacularly successful Grameen Bank program in Bangladesh and the Accion program in South America. Accion, for instance, has a loan portfolio of more than $200 million from loans rarely exceeding $500 made in small villages. Our foundation funded a feasibility study for Accion that warned them that if they were to bring their programs here that they would encounter vast differences in culture among our urban poor and those of the poor countries of South America.

Ultimately, we instituted our own lending programs in Pasadena and San Diego. Candidly, we've had very mixed results, which were disappointing to us, that point to problems conservative programs will encounter.

There has been an erosion of character in the low-income communities as a result of a whole generation having been misled by their political leadership into accepting more and more dependency as a way of life. It's not only just through welfare but a dizzying number of block grants for all kinds of social agencies. There was a time when a person who received ``charity'' felt a certain amount of guilt and even some resentment for the demeaning aspect of having to depend upon charity. Recognizing the diminishment of ``self-esteem'' of those who receive public assistance, the political leadership invented the word ``entitlement,'' which impliedC that the money had been earned.

Consequently, the desire to be free and to contract one's own future is only dimly perceived by the urban poor. Having become a socially acceptable alternative, the dependency was concealed. Why risk the possibility of failure in the free-market system when a socially acceptable alternative with little risk is available?

So conservatives beware, converting many of the urban poor into risk-taking entrepreneurs is going to be a tough job. But we must try.