In seeking to reduce demands on the taxpayer, compassionate conservatives know that the methods of the Left are inadequate. In the last ten years Britain enjoyed good economic times and Labour politicians spent like drunken sailors. In these almost perfect laboratory conditions, many social problems actually got worse. Family breakdown accelerated. Extreme poverty and youth unemployment increased. Drug addiction, anti-social behaviour and loneliness grew. These problems were analysed in the Centre for Social Justice's report, Breakdown Britain, published in the summer of 2007. David Cameron announced that large parts of British society were "broken" and, with Iain Duncan Smith, called for new weapons in the war on poverty.

The fundamental aim of compassionate conservatives is to restore a high view of the person. Inspired by the teachings of the 12th century Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, compassionate conservatives believe that helping someone to stand on their own two feet represents the highest form of charity. Maimonides proposes eight levels of charity — the highest of which is "to strengthen the hand of the poor by giving a loan, or joining in partnership, or training out of the individual's poverty, to help become independent." The same belief is summed up more popularly by the idea that if you give someone a fish they can eat for a day — but if you teach them how to fish they can eat for life.

Compassionate conservatism is about a view of humanity. The Left has an essentially defeatist view; conservatives, a demanding one. The defeatist view gives students soft grades — "all must have prizes". The Left doesn't expect people to move off benefits; the second and third generation of the unemployed are effectively decommissioned. Drug addicts can't be cured; they are parked in sink estates and supplied, indefinitely, with superficially safer substances. 

In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky — whom George W. Bush described as compassionate conservatism's "leading thinker" — reviews the USA's poverty-fighting traditions. He concludes that the most effective poverty-fighting will mend a person's community and family relationships. The state isn't good at this. It can provide needy people with material assistance but it lacks the ability of relational institutions to respond in a personalised and ongoing basis to an individual's complex needs.