I believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. But there are a lot of things in which I simply cannot bring myself to believe.
I wonder at the credulousness of people today. As literacy and critical thinking skills decline due to "progressive education" it seems to me that most people are more gullible and less inclined to reject that which is incoherent and implausible. There is more of a herd mentality and the most astonishing things are taken for granted by the "in crowd" of new class knowledge professionals that form the core of the modern bureaucratic state.
Here are some things relating to Marxism that I find silly, dumb, unworthy of serious intellectual consideration by thinking people and, yet, which many people apparently endorse with a straight face. It is just about impossible to take seriously anyone who believes, or acts as if he believes, in the things on this list.
1. The myth of primitive communism.
2. The "iron laws of history."
3. Marx's failed predictions about the collapse of capitalism.
4. The labor theory of value.
5. The Marxist concept of ideology.
6. The withering away of the state.
7. The oppressiveness of the traditional family.
8. The coming classless society.
9. That the state is evil.
10. That private property is morally wrong.
11. That private property protects the rich more than it protects the poor.
12. The ideal of income equality.
13. The existence of rigidly fixed classes.
14. The human nature of socialism.
15. The benign intentions of socialist agitators.
16. That communism has never really been tried yet.
17. That the state can be trusted as the overwhelmingly dominant power center in society.
18. That capitalism is an immoral system.
19. That religion keeps people down and prevents progress.
20. that the Party can be trusted to act in our best interests.
21. The perfectibility of man.
22. The humane nature of socialism.
23. The moral imperative of rewarding sloth.
24. That the welfare state is good for poor people in good health.
25. That there is enough money in the world for government to use to replace the family.
My two questions to any actual Marxists who might happen to read this list are:
(1) Which of the items on this list would you care to defend and how on earth would you do it?
(2) If we can't believe in the items on this list, what is left of Marxism and other forms of socialism? Why not adopt a free market, limited government, liberal political economy?
I'm just wondering - seriously.
Showing posts with label Capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capitalism. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
What We Evil Capitalists Actually Believe
Daniel Hannan (who is always delightful to read for his wit, clarity, incisiveness and unapologetic conservative convictions) has a very helpful post up called: "Memo to the Occupy protesters: here are ten things we evil capitalists really think."
I think he is right that the Occupy Wall Street folks really don't understand the capitalist position; heaven knows they caricature us continuously. So, in the interest of actual communication and dialogue, let me list his ten points. I'll just give the first sentence of each paragraph; if you are intrigued you can go to his post here and read the whole paragraph or two he gives on each point.
If the Left-leaning folks could ever bracket their massive self-righteousness and self-assurance long enough actually to listen to what we conservatives have to say, they might find fewer straw men to knock down and more moral complexity than can fit into slogans designed to be chanted by mobs. I know, it is probably a vain hope . . . sigh. But in case any open-minded people read this post, here goes:
1. Free-marketeers resent the bank bailouts.
2. What has happened since 2008 is not capitalism.
3. If you want the rich to pay more, create a flatter and simpler tax system.
4. Those of us who believe in small government are not motivated by the desire to make the rich richer.
5. We are not against equality. . . Our objection is not that egalitarianism is undesirable in itself, but that the policies required to enforce in involve a disproportionate loss of liberty and prosperity.
6. Nor, by the way, does state intervention seem to be an effective way to promote equality.
8. Capitalism, with all its imperfections, is the fairest scheme yet tried.
9. Talking of fairness, let’s remember that the word doesn’t belong to any faction.
10. Let’s not forget ethics, either. There is virtue in deciding to do the right thing, but there is no virtue in being compelled.
Read elaborations of each point here.
My guess is that most of those led astray by Marxist Utopianism either do not understand capitalism or do not wish to understand it. But simple-mindedness is no virtue in matters of morality. There is a vast difference between child-like faith, (which Jesus commended) and a childish refusal to apply one's mind to difficult problems out of a sense that solutions to the most complex of life's problems ought to be simple and obvious.
One last point: it cannot be stressed enough that the defense of capitalism is, for me and most conservatives, based in moral principles rather than a counsel of despair that simply gives up and says that the world is bad and nothing can be done to improve it. For Hannan, and most of us conservatives, the issue is which economic system leads to the most wealth for the most people, the most social equality, the most opportunities for the poor and the best standard of living for the most people. History shows that capitalism is best according to these deeply moral measures by a wide margin.
Conservatives believe that it works because it accommodates itself best to actual reality. As in experimental science, when predicted results occur as a result of an experiment that constitutes confirmation of the theory. Capitalism can be thought of as an economic theory that has be tested in the laboratory of history with excellent confirming results compared to other theories. So it works best because it is truer than the rival theories. That is what conservatives claim regardless of how viciously the propagandists impugn our motives.
I think he is right that the Occupy Wall Street folks really don't understand the capitalist position; heaven knows they caricature us continuously. So, in the interest of actual communication and dialogue, let me list his ten points. I'll just give the first sentence of each paragraph; if you are intrigued you can go to his post here and read the whole paragraph or two he gives on each point.
If the Left-leaning folks could ever bracket their massive self-righteousness and self-assurance long enough actually to listen to what we conservatives have to say, they might find fewer straw men to knock down and more moral complexity than can fit into slogans designed to be chanted by mobs. I know, it is probably a vain hope . . . sigh. But in case any open-minded people read this post, here goes:
1. Free-marketeers resent the bank bailouts.
2. What has happened since 2008 is not capitalism.
3. If you want the rich to pay more, create a flatter and simpler tax system.
4. Those of us who believe in small government are not motivated by the desire to make the rich richer.
5. We are not against equality. . . Our objection is not that egalitarianism is undesirable in itself, but that the policies required to enforce in involve a disproportionate loss of liberty and prosperity.
6. Nor, by the way, does state intervention seem to be an effective way to promote equality.
8. Capitalism, with all its imperfections, is the fairest scheme yet tried.
9. Talking of fairness, let’s remember that the word doesn’t belong to any faction.
10. Let’s not forget ethics, either. There is virtue in deciding to do the right thing, but there is no virtue in being compelled.
Read elaborations of each point here.
My guess is that most of those led astray by Marxist Utopianism either do not understand capitalism or do not wish to understand it. But simple-mindedness is no virtue in matters of morality. There is a vast difference between child-like faith, (which Jesus commended) and a childish refusal to apply one's mind to difficult problems out of a sense that solutions to the most complex of life's problems ought to be simple and obvious.
One last point: it cannot be stressed enough that the defense of capitalism is, for me and most conservatives, based in moral principles rather than a counsel of despair that simply gives up and says that the world is bad and nothing can be done to improve it. For Hannan, and most of us conservatives, the issue is which economic system leads to the most wealth for the most people, the most social equality, the most opportunities for the poor and the best standard of living for the most people. History shows that capitalism is best according to these deeply moral measures by a wide margin.
Conservatives believe that it works because it accommodates itself best to actual reality. As in experimental science, when predicted results occur as a result of an experiment that constitutes confirmation of the theory. Capitalism can be thought of as an economic theory that has be tested in the laboratory of history with excellent confirming results compared to other theories. So it works best because it is truer than the rival theories. That is what conservatives claim regardless of how viciously the propagandists impugn our motives.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Should Christians Be Concerned about Income Inequality?
I am amazed, not only at how many people think that the answer to this question is yes, but at how many people think it is obviously and incontrovertibly yes and that anyone who can not see how blindingly obvious it is that justice requires income equality is either stupid or evil.
Actually, income inequality is not a very important issue at all for those concerned about the well-being of the poor. It is a red herring, a distraction from the main issue, which is poverty and its causes. There is such a fog of unwarranted assumptions surrounding this idea that it is second only to the phrase "social justice" in being useless if clear thinking is the goal.
I want to try and untangle some of the issues surrounding the question of whether or not Christians should be concerned about income inequality and it is going to take some time. The position I am putting forward is based on logic, facts and historical evidence and, unlike the opposing position, cannot be reduced to a few slogans ready to be chanted by mobs. (I am not going to document every assertion but if challenged on a particular point I will point you to some resources.)
The position I will put forward requires careful thinking and the ability to follow a chain of argument for several steps before arriving at the conclusion. If you wish to argue, you are welcome as long as you stick to actual arguments.
1. Defining Poverty:
First of all, we need to understand that there are two ways of defining poverty: absolute measures and relative measures. To measure poverty in absolute terms is to list what a family of four needs in order to have the necessities of life but no luxuries: shelter, transportation, food, clothes, education etc. This amount will obviously vary from place to place and can be skewed by such factors as amount of real estate owned if any and so on. The analysis can get extremely complicated but for measuring differences over time it can be simplified and standardized.
The other method is to peg the poverty line to a percentage of the median income. This means that the poverty line will go up and down depending on the income of the highest earners in society, which often fluctuates from year to year depending on the state of the economy. All sorts of distortions occur in this type of measure. For example the poverty line may go down in a year like 2008, which would mean that a family of four living in Toronto might be considered no longer to be under the poverty line even though its income for that year actually dropped due to the loss of an extra part-time job. But chances are, food etc. is no cheaper, so common sense tells us that can't be right.
2. The Goal: Helping Poor People Become Better Off
Another problem with the relative measure of poverty is that it has a buried assumption that income equality ought to the be long-term goal of our society. But let me propose a different goal: helping poor people become better off. You might say that you thought pursuing income equality automatically does this, but the example I gave above shows that this is not true. If we want to succeed in social policy, our goals must be crystal clear.
I suggest that if the average income of the poorest 20% of the population increases over time relative to inflation and the number of people living in poverty declines, we should count that as progress even if the average income of the middle 60% or the top 20% grows even faster. Why? Because the goal is to make sure that the average income of the bottom 20% does not drop.
3. What makes the poor even poorer?
Well-intentioned social democratic economic policies that involve high taxes and large social welfare programs can hurt the poor even more than benign neglect. The fact is that policies intended to help the poor often end up hurting the poor. Let me give two examples from the past; they are not theoretical but actually happened.
First, there is inflation. When budget deficits are high due to high government spending the temptation is very strong for governments to let interest rates rise, increase the money supply and pay off debts (or, more realistically, continue to increase deficits) using devalued currency. Thus 2011 dollars are borrowed and spent but repaid in devalued 2021 dollars. But, surprise, surprise, lenders are wise to this game (which we saw played out horrifically in the 1970s) and demand higher and higher interest rates.
Meanwhile, ordinary people (the bottom 60% especially) are hurt the most by high inflation. Wages seldom keep pace with inflation and most people see their purchasing power eroded. Those living in the tightest margains (the bottom 20%) suffer the most. So keeping government deficits low, national debt low as a percentage of GDP and inflation under control is extremely important. High inflation over time can undo the net effect of higher welfare payments and leave both those on welfare & unemployment, as well as the working poor, worse off despite ever growing government spending on poverty.
Second, the Great Society programs in the 1960s in the US destroyed the black family. Young women were given a financial incentive to move out on their own and have babies without being married. The gap between white and black income had been closing the late 50s but immediately and permanently (so far) began to widen. The gap between white families headed by single mothers and ones with married couples raising their biological children also widens steadily, suggesting that the cause is family structure not race.
The socialists and liberals who supported welfare saw themselves as compassionate and generous, but they hurt ordinary, working class people, diminished economic mobility and created a multi-generation underclass. This is tragic. Poverty rates for intact families has long been in single digits, while the rate for families headed by single women is north of 35%. Obviously, liberal support for the sexual revolution has contributed to the problem as well; sexual liberation for white, upper-middle class women is much more benign in terms of economics than it is for those in the bottom 20% of income levels.
4. Another Problem in Measuring Poverty:
It is a truism that you will never be able to fix a problem you can't even define. And defining poverty is tricky. If you divide the population into 5 groups by annual income: bottom 20% etc., then it is easy to forget that most people move through different income brackets as they move through the life cycle. Young people in their twenties typically do not earn as much as those same people do in their forties and fifties. And retired people don't earn as much as they did previously and they don't need to in order to maintain the same lifestyle.
In order for poverty statistics to mean anything they must measure two things: the number of people who never move out of the bottom 20% and how much mobility there is between the five groups. If a society has high mobility (eg. 60% of those in the bottom 20% in 1990 are in the highest or second highest group in 2010 and only 10% are still in the bottom 20%), then you are looking at a just society in which most people are getting ahead during their lifetimes. If an individual does not make it up the income ladder under those conditions, then the fault likely lies with the individual's lifestyle or character or some sort of physical or mental handicap. Prison may be the only alternative for some and charity will be necessary for others.
My retirement adviser tells me that most people only need about 65% of their pre-retirement income in retirement. Most retired people have their mortgages paid off, do not have the expenses associated with working and are not saving for retirement. My point is that they do not live on two-thirds of their previous income by eating cat food. Their lifestyle is roughly the same. Such people should not count in statistics defining poverty. Another example is a family in which husband and wife both work for 3 years after marriage and live on one income while saving up a down payment on a house. Then the wife gets pregnant and quits her job. Their income drops and they go out and buy a house! Like a long-anticipated retirement, this is not a failure in terms of a family dropping from one income group to another; it is a good planning.
5. Defining poverty not entry level job compensation:
So my point is that we need to focus on what happens to the bottom group, but even there we can let our romantic notions trump good economic sense. A good example of this is the fallacy of higher minimum wage laws helping poor people. Any solid economics textbook (like Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell) can explain in detail why raising the minimum wage does not help the poor.
Think of it this way. Not all jobs play the same function. Some jobs are good entry level jobs that pay low wages but offer the opportunity for young people to gain invaluable work habits, experience and content for the resume. Such jobs need to pay low enough wages so that there will be lots of them around for young people just starting out to get a first job. They should also provide incentive for people to gain marketable skills and try for better jobs.
If the lowest wage jobs are converted to high pay jobs there will be fewer of them. That will make the statistics look like income went up for the bottom 20%, but in reality what went up was unemployment and that is not good for poverty reduction.
6. What about those filthy rich?
I've saved the most important point for the last: isn't it unfair for the rich to get richer faster than the poor get richer? No, it isn't unfair, it isn't bad for society as a whole and it is actually a good thing for the poor. Let me explain.
For most of human history income disparity was not as great as it is now for a very good reason: the total wealth of the human race was only a tiny fraction of what it is today. In the past 2 centuries - for the first time in all of recorded history - billions of people have moved out of abject poverty and the middle class has exploded. What is the cause of this? It is not socialism, but rather capitalism - the biggest and most successful anti-poverty program in human history!
Throughout human history most people (over 90%) lived a hand to mouth subsistence lifestyle. Only a wealthy, privileged few lived anywhere close to the level of lower middle class working people today. And even when the king and nobility amassed most of the wealth in a given nation, they still didn't have that much compared to the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffets and so on of our day. The gap keeps getting bigger because of the success of capitalism and we should not be concerned about that reality.
A much bigger concern should be the possibility of economic policies that prevent people from rising from the lower income groups to the top 1% of income earners by inventing useful goods that people want or need and are willing to pay for. In fact, I suggest that income mobility is far more important as an indicator of whether a society is just than poverty measures in themselves.
The poor need rich people to be rich and to grow richer by investment. Why? As Thomas Sowell might put it: "A poor man never gave me a job." The engine of economic growth in a just society is small businesses and the biggest problem entrepreneurs with a good idea face is a lack of capital investment. If capital gains taxes are too high (they actually should be abolished) then investors will not be able to get a rate of return sufficient to justify the risk.
If an investor wants to invest in 10 companies that want to start up or expand, he knows that 3-4 are likely to go bankrupt. Some of the rest will stagnate and provide little return and hopefully a few will be successful and provide a high return sufficient to cover the losses and give an overall rate of return higher than less risky investments like government bonds. If not, investment capital will dry up, businesses will stagnate, and employment will go down instead of up.
Who gets hurt in such a scenario? The person looking for a job who is unemployed is hurt significantly. The rich, on the other hand, have options. They can buy real estate or gold, invest off shore, or invest in the government bonds that are paying ever higher rates because the federal deficit is exploding. The point is that economic policies that appear to help the rich actually help the poor. The Democratic Party in the US and the Liberals and NDP in Canada successfully demagogue those who argue for business-friendly policies as insensitive to the poor when their opponents are, in fact, the ones promoting policies that help the poor. When the Republicans and the Conservatives promote policies that help small and medium sized businesses, they are doing the best things possible to help the poor.
Of course, Big Business and Big Government often are in bed together colluding to stifle competition and replace capitalism with mercantilism or state capitalism (which is not really capitalism) or cronyism. They often keep small businesses down by increasing regulation that the bigger corporations can afford to comply with but small ones cannot. Excessive government regulation of all kinds can damage the economy and hurt the poor. I do not understand why those who profess to care about the poor are not as suspicious of government as they are of business. Both need to be controlled and watched. Governments do not operate under market discipline so they are prone to do stupid things to the economy and voters are often so uninformed and unthoughtful that they are easily manipulated by slogans and heartfelt assertions of good intentions. Only results should be considered, not intentions.
Countries that pursue high tax policies that keep the rich from amassing large pools of capital in the name of "social justice" and "income equality" are successful in damaging the economy, increasing unemployment, creating inflation and freezing income inequality into rigid classes that keep people from being able to advance in life by hard work and individual initiative.
Governments have no money of their own; all they have is what they take from citizens. But governments famously waste about half the money they tax and spend, which is a tremendous drag on the economy. Private individuals and businesses, guided by market disciplines, create much more of real economic value for every dollar they spend than governments do. Yet every welfare state or socialist policy idea ever advanced advocates increasing the size of government.
Rich people invest their money, when tax and other government policies are rational enough to encourage them to do do, in money-making endeavours that are also job-creating endeavours. We should not "eat" the rich; we should honour them and respect them.
If people get rich by doing illegal things, that is of course different. But working hard, having good ideas, starting and growing businesses are all socially beneficial behaviours that ought to be encouraged.
As Christians, we should think more about how to create a business friendly environment, how to increase economic mobility and how to reward socially beneficial behaviours than about income inequality. As long as the poor are getting ahead in real terms and opportunity exists for all, we have as just a society as is possible under the conditions of the Fall.
Actually, income inequality is not a very important issue at all for those concerned about the well-being of the poor. It is a red herring, a distraction from the main issue, which is poverty and its causes. There is such a fog of unwarranted assumptions surrounding this idea that it is second only to the phrase "social justice" in being useless if clear thinking is the goal.
I want to try and untangle some of the issues surrounding the question of whether or not Christians should be concerned about income inequality and it is going to take some time. The position I am putting forward is based on logic, facts and historical evidence and, unlike the opposing position, cannot be reduced to a few slogans ready to be chanted by mobs. (I am not going to document every assertion but if challenged on a particular point I will point you to some resources.)
The position I will put forward requires careful thinking and the ability to follow a chain of argument for several steps before arriving at the conclusion. If you wish to argue, you are welcome as long as you stick to actual arguments.
1. Defining Poverty:
First of all, we need to understand that there are two ways of defining poverty: absolute measures and relative measures. To measure poverty in absolute terms is to list what a family of four needs in order to have the necessities of life but no luxuries: shelter, transportation, food, clothes, education etc. This amount will obviously vary from place to place and can be skewed by such factors as amount of real estate owned if any and so on. The analysis can get extremely complicated but for measuring differences over time it can be simplified and standardized.
The other method is to peg the poverty line to a percentage of the median income. This means that the poverty line will go up and down depending on the income of the highest earners in society, which often fluctuates from year to year depending on the state of the economy. All sorts of distortions occur in this type of measure. For example the poverty line may go down in a year like 2008, which would mean that a family of four living in Toronto might be considered no longer to be under the poverty line even though its income for that year actually dropped due to the loss of an extra part-time job. But chances are, food etc. is no cheaper, so common sense tells us that can't be right.
2. The Goal: Helping Poor People Become Better Off
Another problem with the relative measure of poverty is that it has a buried assumption that income equality ought to the be long-term goal of our society. But let me propose a different goal: helping poor people become better off. You might say that you thought pursuing income equality automatically does this, but the example I gave above shows that this is not true. If we want to succeed in social policy, our goals must be crystal clear.
I suggest that if the average income of the poorest 20% of the population increases over time relative to inflation and the number of people living in poverty declines, we should count that as progress even if the average income of the middle 60% or the top 20% grows even faster. Why? Because the goal is to make sure that the average income of the bottom 20% does not drop.
3. What makes the poor even poorer?
Well-intentioned social democratic economic policies that involve high taxes and large social welfare programs can hurt the poor even more than benign neglect. The fact is that policies intended to help the poor often end up hurting the poor. Let me give two examples from the past; they are not theoretical but actually happened.
First, there is inflation. When budget deficits are high due to high government spending the temptation is very strong for governments to let interest rates rise, increase the money supply and pay off debts (or, more realistically, continue to increase deficits) using devalued currency. Thus 2011 dollars are borrowed and spent but repaid in devalued 2021 dollars. But, surprise, surprise, lenders are wise to this game (which we saw played out horrifically in the 1970s) and demand higher and higher interest rates.
Meanwhile, ordinary people (the bottom 60% especially) are hurt the most by high inflation. Wages seldom keep pace with inflation and most people see their purchasing power eroded. Those living in the tightest margains (the bottom 20%) suffer the most. So keeping government deficits low, national debt low as a percentage of GDP and inflation under control is extremely important. High inflation over time can undo the net effect of higher welfare payments and leave both those on welfare & unemployment, as well as the working poor, worse off despite ever growing government spending on poverty.
Second, the Great Society programs in the 1960s in the US destroyed the black family. Young women were given a financial incentive to move out on their own and have babies without being married. The gap between white and black income had been closing the late 50s but immediately and permanently (so far) began to widen. The gap between white families headed by single mothers and ones with married couples raising their biological children also widens steadily, suggesting that the cause is family structure not race.
The socialists and liberals who supported welfare saw themselves as compassionate and generous, but they hurt ordinary, working class people, diminished economic mobility and created a multi-generation underclass. This is tragic. Poverty rates for intact families has long been in single digits, while the rate for families headed by single women is north of 35%. Obviously, liberal support for the sexual revolution has contributed to the problem as well; sexual liberation for white, upper-middle class women is much more benign in terms of economics than it is for those in the bottom 20% of income levels.
4. Another Problem in Measuring Poverty:
It is a truism that you will never be able to fix a problem you can't even define. And defining poverty is tricky. If you divide the population into 5 groups by annual income: bottom 20% etc., then it is easy to forget that most people move through different income brackets as they move through the life cycle. Young people in their twenties typically do not earn as much as those same people do in their forties and fifties. And retired people don't earn as much as they did previously and they don't need to in order to maintain the same lifestyle.
In order for poverty statistics to mean anything they must measure two things: the number of people who never move out of the bottom 20% and how much mobility there is between the five groups. If a society has high mobility (eg. 60% of those in the bottom 20% in 1990 are in the highest or second highest group in 2010 and only 10% are still in the bottom 20%), then you are looking at a just society in which most people are getting ahead during their lifetimes. If an individual does not make it up the income ladder under those conditions, then the fault likely lies with the individual's lifestyle or character or some sort of physical or mental handicap. Prison may be the only alternative for some and charity will be necessary for others.
My retirement adviser tells me that most people only need about 65% of their pre-retirement income in retirement. Most retired people have their mortgages paid off, do not have the expenses associated with working and are not saving for retirement. My point is that they do not live on two-thirds of their previous income by eating cat food. Their lifestyle is roughly the same. Such people should not count in statistics defining poverty. Another example is a family in which husband and wife both work for 3 years after marriage and live on one income while saving up a down payment on a house. Then the wife gets pregnant and quits her job. Their income drops and they go out and buy a house! Like a long-anticipated retirement, this is not a failure in terms of a family dropping from one income group to another; it is a good planning.
5. Defining poverty not entry level job compensation:
So my point is that we need to focus on what happens to the bottom group, but even there we can let our romantic notions trump good economic sense. A good example of this is the fallacy of higher minimum wage laws helping poor people. Any solid economics textbook (like Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell) can explain in detail why raising the minimum wage does not help the poor.
Think of it this way. Not all jobs play the same function. Some jobs are good entry level jobs that pay low wages but offer the opportunity for young people to gain invaluable work habits, experience and content for the resume. Such jobs need to pay low enough wages so that there will be lots of them around for young people just starting out to get a first job. They should also provide incentive for people to gain marketable skills and try for better jobs.
If the lowest wage jobs are converted to high pay jobs there will be fewer of them. That will make the statistics look like income went up for the bottom 20%, but in reality what went up was unemployment and that is not good for poverty reduction.
6. What about those filthy rich?
I've saved the most important point for the last: isn't it unfair for the rich to get richer faster than the poor get richer? No, it isn't unfair, it isn't bad for society as a whole and it is actually a good thing for the poor. Let me explain.
For most of human history income disparity was not as great as it is now for a very good reason: the total wealth of the human race was only a tiny fraction of what it is today. In the past 2 centuries - for the first time in all of recorded history - billions of people have moved out of abject poverty and the middle class has exploded. What is the cause of this? It is not socialism, but rather capitalism - the biggest and most successful anti-poverty program in human history!
Throughout human history most people (over 90%) lived a hand to mouth subsistence lifestyle. Only a wealthy, privileged few lived anywhere close to the level of lower middle class working people today. And even when the king and nobility amassed most of the wealth in a given nation, they still didn't have that much compared to the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffets and so on of our day. The gap keeps getting bigger because of the success of capitalism and we should not be concerned about that reality.
A much bigger concern should be the possibility of economic policies that prevent people from rising from the lower income groups to the top 1% of income earners by inventing useful goods that people want or need and are willing to pay for. In fact, I suggest that income mobility is far more important as an indicator of whether a society is just than poverty measures in themselves.
The poor need rich people to be rich and to grow richer by investment. Why? As Thomas Sowell might put it: "A poor man never gave me a job." The engine of economic growth in a just society is small businesses and the biggest problem entrepreneurs with a good idea face is a lack of capital investment. If capital gains taxes are too high (they actually should be abolished) then investors will not be able to get a rate of return sufficient to justify the risk.
If an investor wants to invest in 10 companies that want to start up or expand, he knows that 3-4 are likely to go bankrupt. Some of the rest will stagnate and provide little return and hopefully a few will be successful and provide a high return sufficient to cover the losses and give an overall rate of return higher than less risky investments like government bonds. If not, investment capital will dry up, businesses will stagnate, and employment will go down instead of up.
Who gets hurt in such a scenario? The person looking for a job who is unemployed is hurt significantly. The rich, on the other hand, have options. They can buy real estate or gold, invest off shore, or invest in the government bonds that are paying ever higher rates because the federal deficit is exploding. The point is that economic policies that appear to help the rich actually help the poor. The Democratic Party in the US and the Liberals and NDP in Canada successfully demagogue those who argue for business-friendly policies as insensitive to the poor when their opponents are, in fact, the ones promoting policies that help the poor. When the Republicans and the Conservatives promote policies that help small and medium sized businesses, they are doing the best things possible to help the poor.
Of course, Big Business and Big Government often are in bed together colluding to stifle competition and replace capitalism with mercantilism or state capitalism (which is not really capitalism) or cronyism. They often keep small businesses down by increasing regulation that the bigger corporations can afford to comply with but small ones cannot. Excessive government regulation of all kinds can damage the economy and hurt the poor. I do not understand why those who profess to care about the poor are not as suspicious of government as they are of business. Both need to be controlled and watched. Governments do not operate under market discipline so they are prone to do stupid things to the economy and voters are often so uninformed and unthoughtful that they are easily manipulated by slogans and heartfelt assertions of good intentions. Only results should be considered, not intentions.
Countries that pursue high tax policies that keep the rich from amassing large pools of capital in the name of "social justice" and "income equality" are successful in damaging the economy, increasing unemployment, creating inflation and freezing income inequality into rigid classes that keep people from being able to advance in life by hard work and individual initiative.
Governments have no money of their own; all they have is what they take from citizens. But governments famously waste about half the money they tax and spend, which is a tremendous drag on the economy. Private individuals and businesses, guided by market disciplines, create much more of real economic value for every dollar they spend than governments do. Yet every welfare state or socialist policy idea ever advanced advocates increasing the size of government.
Rich people invest their money, when tax and other government policies are rational enough to encourage them to do do, in money-making endeavours that are also job-creating endeavours. We should not "eat" the rich; we should honour them and respect them.
If people get rich by doing illegal things, that is of course different. But working hard, having good ideas, starting and growing businesses are all socially beneficial behaviours that ought to be encouraged.
As Christians, we should think more about how to create a business friendly environment, how to increase economic mobility and how to reward socially beneficial behaviours than about income inequality. As long as the poor are getting ahead in real terms and opportunity exists for all, we have as just a society as is possible under the conditions of the Fall.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
If You are Thankful for Your Job, Hug a Billionaire
OWS and the Obama administration are continuing their juvenile class warfare rhetoric designed to trick the stupid into thinking they really care about poor people and the middle class. But the more they talk about how much money they should allow the "millionaires and billionaires" to keep, the more they resemble a gang of thieves sitting around talking about how much stuff they should take when they break into your house tonight and how much they should leave in place.
A healthy society is a free society and in a healthy, free society there will be more millionaires and billionaires every year. This is a good thing and a sign of a prosperous society. In a static or declining society the number of millionaires and billionaires will stay the same or shrink year by year and that is not a good society for anybody to live in.
Millionaires and billionaires (hereafter M&B's) play an essential role in the economy and in a capitalistic society there is an incentive for them to invest their wealth in socially beneficial ways rather than hoarding it. The capital gains tax is too high in the US right now, which discourages risky investment in the kind of start-up companies that could employ more people if given a chance to succeed. But Warren Buffet wants to increase it further, which would be sure to increase unemployment. Yet he is seen by socialists as a hero! This is nonsensical.
Look, when a person goes to invest his money there are lots of blue chip stocks and bonds that offer low to moderate returns and little risk. There are also other possible investments in start-up companies or ones that want to expand. They offer a possibility of high returns but say 3 out of every 5 will go bankrupt. So in order for it to be worthwhile investing in the risky options the return on the investment in the 2 of 5 risky businesses that don't go bankrupt will have to be higher than the safe return on blue chip stocks and bonds. The rate at which this investment will be taxed is crucial. It is one of the big variables in deciding what is rational to do. It is a matter of math, not emotion.
So, if a country has lots of M&B's and a low capital gains rate, then its small businesses that want to start up or expand will have a ready pool of investment capital available and the result will be job creation, which is good for the poor and the middle class. But if a country decides to tax the M&B's down to middle class levels with high capital gains and other taxes, then the economy will stagnate, which is bad for the poor and the middle class.
Giving a few hundred dollars to middle class people, as Obama wants to do by extending the payroll tax break, does nothing to provide investment capital for small businesses. That money will get saved, used to pay down debt or, in the best scenario, spent on consumer goods. The most it can do to help the economy in the short term is to stimulate demand for consumer goods. But it cannot help spur investment.
The problem is that OWS and the Democrats are framing this issue in emotional/moral terms. They claim it is an issue of fairness. Do you want to help the M&B's save money or do you want to help struggling middle class families? But it is not that simple. What if the best way to help provide employment is to stimulate investment by lowering the capital gains tax? But that messes up the overly-simplistic narrative the liberals/socialists construct to justify higher the taxes needed to pay for increasing entitlement programs.
Every time I hear the "Tax the 1%" meme, I feel personally threatened. I feel as though someone is out to destroy the economy and create the kind of conditions in which I could, potentially, lose my job. The war against the rich is really a war against the middle class and it is based on emotional manipulation, rather than reason. The people who are involved in it may be sincere, but they are much too gullible.
Maybe economics should be a compulsory subject in high school and maybe we ought to start purging socialists out of our universities so that free market principles once again dominate the curriculum. OWS and liberal/socialist propaganda is getting out of hand and people are getting hurt.
In the meantime, if you are thankful for your job, hug a millionaire or billionaire. Or at least don't demonize them.
A healthy society is a free society and in a healthy, free society there will be more millionaires and billionaires every year. This is a good thing and a sign of a prosperous society. In a static or declining society the number of millionaires and billionaires will stay the same or shrink year by year and that is not a good society for anybody to live in.
Millionaires and billionaires (hereafter M&B's) play an essential role in the economy and in a capitalistic society there is an incentive for them to invest their wealth in socially beneficial ways rather than hoarding it. The capital gains tax is too high in the US right now, which discourages risky investment in the kind of start-up companies that could employ more people if given a chance to succeed. But Warren Buffet wants to increase it further, which would be sure to increase unemployment. Yet he is seen by socialists as a hero! This is nonsensical.
Look, when a person goes to invest his money there are lots of blue chip stocks and bonds that offer low to moderate returns and little risk. There are also other possible investments in start-up companies or ones that want to expand. They offer a possibility of high returns but say 3 out of every 5 will go bankrupt. So in order for it to be worthwhile investing in the risky options the return on the investment in the 2 of 5 risky businesses that don't go bankrupt will have to be higher than the safe return on blue chip stocks and bonds. The rate at which this investment will be taxed is crucial. It is one of the big variables in deciding what is rational to do. It is a matter of math, not emotion.
So, if a country has lots of M&B's and a low capital gains rate, then its small businesses that want to start up or expand will have a ready pool of investment capital available and the result will be job creation, which is good for the poor and the middle class. But if a country decides to tax the M&B's down to middle class levels with high capital gains and other taxes, then the economy will stagnate, which is bad for the poor and the middle class.
Giving a few hundred dollars to middle class people, as Obama wants to do by extending the payroll tax break, does nothing to provide investment capital for small businesses. That money will get saved, used to pay down debt or, in the best scenario, spent on consumer goods. The most it can do to help the economy in the short term is to stimulate demand for consumer goods. But it cannot help spur investment.
The problem is that OWS and the Democrats are framing this issue in emotional/moral terms. They claim it is an issue of fairness. Do you want to help the M&B's save money or do you want to help struggling middle class families? But it is not that simple. What if the best way to help provide employment is to stimulate investment by lowering the capital gains tax? But that messes up the overly-simplistic narrative the liberals/socialists construct to justify higher the taxes needed to pay for increasing entitlement programs.
Every time I hear the "Tax the 1%" meme, I feel personally threatened. I feel as though someone is out to destroy the economy and create the kind of conditions in which I could, potentially, lose my job. The war against the rich is really a war against the middle class and it is based on emotional manipulation, rather than reason. The people who are involved in it may be sincere, but they are much too gullible.
Maybe economics should be a compulsory subject in high school and maybe we ought to start purging socialists out of our universities so that free market principles once again dominate the curriculum. OWS and liberal/socialist propaganda is getting out of hand and people are getting hurt.
In the meantime, if you are thankful for your job, hug a millionaire or billionaire. Or at least don't demonize them.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Greed is Not Limited to the One Percent
Tasha Kheiriddin has an excellent column in the National Post today entiled: "Greed Doesn't Stop at the 1%" She begins:
Oh, that nasty 1%. Based on the global protests inspired by Occupy Wall Street, they are the source of all the world’s ills. The placards say it all: “End corporate greed”; “Paycheques not credit card bills”; “Banks for the 99%!”
But what about that 99%? What responsibility do they bear for the situation the world finds itself in? The answer is: plenty. Greed doesn’t just live on Wall Street: it finds a home on Main Street too. And when people think it’s perfectly OK to take out mortgages they can’t afford, or rack up credit card debt to buy flat screen TVs, clothes and appliances, or draw on their home’s equity to finance cars and vacations, well, as they say, you reap what you sow.
Of course, there are people who are hurting as a result of the recession through no fault of their own, she goes on to note:
Yes, there are many people who legitimately struggle to make ends meet. Who work two jobs at minimum wage, who eschew things many consumers take for granted – cable TV, a car – and who watch every penny. For them, I have sympathy: they are the collateral damage of the market meltdown, as jobs dried up and wages stagnated.
But you only have to crack open the business pages, or watch a reality TV show like Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s “Princess” (about heavily indebted young women) to start questioning the moral purity of the 99%. Many of these people are the authors of their own misery: they consider credit to be cheap, if not free, money. The result is that even here in Canada, the ratio of household debt to personal income has hit a whopping 150%, up 78% in real terms in the past twenty years.
This is the problem: many of the OWS protesters are people who have been personally irresponsible and now want big government to bail them out. Any recent graduate of a Canadian university who has a $50,000+ student loan is irresponsible. That represents the financing of a lifestyle, not an education.
The reality of the world is that there are always going to be many good things that some people cannot afford - or cannot afford without self-denial, hard work and delayed gratification. That is reality and many OWS protesters seem to be in denial - not of self, but of reality.
Kheiriddin goes on:
Sure, it’s easy to blame the Wall Street CEOs for bundling rotten mortgages and contriving arcane debt instruments that weren’t worth the paper they were written on. But someone took out those mortgages. Millions of people, actually, who bought more house than they could afford. Did someone hold a gun to their head? No. They were just as greedy as the 1%, only on a smaller scale.
Governments are also just as guilty. In the U.S., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac granted mortgages to people deemed disadvantaged – minorities, the poor – in the hopes of increasing home ownership. This spurred the private sector to compete and fuelled the infamous subprime mortgage market.
This part is important. Several US administrations, going back to Clinton, have attempted to defy economic reality and common sense by pressuring banks to give mortgages to people who can't afford them. In the name of increasing rates of minority home ownership they have pushed for smaller down payments, longer terms and lower financial qualifications. This does not help minorities. It does not help anyone. What would constitute really helping minorities would be a growing economy in which they could actually qualify for mortgages under the old rules. But liberals cried "racism" at anyone who challenged them and the eventual result was the subprime mortgage crisis.
The subprime mortgage crisis was the main driver of the 2008 financial crisis. The problem was that too many financial institutions held worthless mortgages they had paid a lot of money for and they faced losses that threatened to sink them. They demanded that the government bail them out (using tax payer's money) because it was government that created the mess in the first place (which it was).
The moral of the story is that the old mortgage rules should have been kept in place. As a matter of fact, they were kept in place in Canada and you didn't hear about any banks failing in Canada, did you?
So it was government, coupled with individual greed, that created the mess. Wall St. just went along for the ride and it was no wonder government was so quick to bail them out. That way government can pass off blame for creating the mess to Wall St., which doesn't need to get re-elected.
That is how the world works. But the lesson is that we don't have too much capitalism; the lesson is that we don't have enough capitalism. If we had a real capitalist system the banks would have been allowed to go bankrupt, their profitable assets would have been bought up cheap by their competitors and the system would go on. But we don't have real capitalism; we have cronyism instead. If we actually had real capitalism there would have been no crisis in 2008 because the government would have stayed out of the regulating banks into giving mortgages to people who didn't qualify and there would have been no subprime mortgage crisis.
The point is that greed is indeed a problem, but greed is not limited to the 1%.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Down With Those Evil Capitalists Who Made My iPhone!
Occupy Wall Street is against capitalism. Yeah, sure it is!
Aleister at Big Government writes:
If they want to do something about the horrible economy they should move their protests to the White House and protest the anti-capitalist policies of the president - if they actually want things to improve, that is.
Aleister at Big Government writes:
If the protesters got their way and capitalism was abolished none of them would be able to afford the phones, iPads and laptops they take for granted. They are advocating a backward, retrograde, irrational system that has produced poverty, tyranny and misery wherever it has been implemented, yet they call themselves "progressives."A person learns about an anti-capitalism protest on Twitter, attends the protest, captures a video on his personal cell phone, turns on the laptop computer he bought at Best Buy, logs in to Google, uploads his video to YouTube and then posts it on Facebook.
By the time this “protester” is getting thumbs up from his comrades on Facebook, he has participated in multiple transactions purely thanks to the excesses of capitalism.
How many of these anti-capitalist protesters would be willing to throw their iPhones into the Hudson River? How many of them will permanently shut down their Facebook and YouTube accounts in protest? None of them will, because ultimately, capitalism is fine with them as long as it serves their purposes.
They don’t hate capitalism or wealth; they just want the government to take wealth from others and give to them so they don’t have to go through the normal channels that those individuals with wealth went through — practical higher education, working above and beyond their peers, saving, investment, risk, etc.
In addition to their selective corporation hatred, the proponents of this movement voted overwhelmingly for Obama, the one person they will never blame for destroying their economic opportunities.
Yet they fail to note that Obama got more campaign cash from Wall Street than any other candidate in 2008.
They ignore the fact that Goldman Sachs was the top donor to the Obama 2008 campaign.
If they want to do something about the horrible economy they should move their protests to the White House and protest the anti-capitalist policies of the president - if they actually want things to improve, that is.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Technology is Fun!
One of the depressing aspects of being a Marxist is having to hate (and secretly fear) the technological progress and success of capitalistic society.
When I was going through my leftist phase (I never was a full-blown Marxist, just an inconsistent fellow traveler), I used to revel in moralistic disapproval of new gadgets and gizmos that make life easier and more comfortable. Like many leftists who self-righteously take the bus to work and look down on us car drivers with a scorn that easily rivals that of the Pharisee of Luke 18, I used to think that if only we could curb the use of fossil fuels, stop buying consumer goods and services and slow down economic activity we would be morally superior, even though poorer and less healthy. I have now given up that silly superstition.
So just to flaunt my new-found freedom to enjoy the fruits of science, I thought I'd point you to this cute little ad for the new iPhone 4S. I have the iPhone 4 but this looks seriously useful and handy.
Will I get one? Well, probably eventually. But I don't believe in going in debt for luxuries like this. Enjoy all good things in moderation and all that sort of thing.
But Christmas is coming . . . and yes, family you could take that as a hint!
When I was going through my leftist phase (I never was a full-blown Marxist, just an inconsistent fellow traveler), I used to revel in moralistic disapproval of new gadgets and gizmos that make life easier and more comfortable. Like many leftists who self-righteously take the bus to work and look down on us car drivers with a scorn that easily rivals that of the Pharisee of Luke 18, I used to think that if only we could curb the use of fossil fuels, stop buying consumer goods and services and slow down economic activity we would be morally superior, even though poorer and less healthy. I have now given up that silly superstition.
So just to flaunt my new-found freedom to enjoy the fruits of science, I thought I'd point you to this cute little ad for the new iPhone 4S. I have the iPhone 4 but this looks seriously useful and handy.
Will I get one? Well, probably eventually. But I don't believe in going in debt for luxuries like this. Enjoy all good things in moderation and all that sort of thing.
But Christmas is coming . . . and yes, family you could take that as a hint!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Why Anti-capitalism is Irrational and Harmful
At this stage in history there should not be anybody left who opposes capitalism, or, to use the term I think is more precise: free enterprise.
The 20th century has seen one socialist experiment after another fail. A few small, countries with vibrant capitalist sectors such as Sweden have managed to make the welfare state last a long time without going broke, but now social democratic Europe teeters on the brink of economic collapse. The more the US tries to imitate Europe, the closer it moves to collapse as well. The roll call of utter failure is long and depressing: the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia, much of Africa and South America, etc. Only market economics work in the modern world.
Yet Christians often are found among the out-dated, romantic, Utopian forces that oppose free enterprise and this is a scandal. It makes Christianity look anti-intellectual and anti-scientific. It also make us look like ideologues whose professed concern for the poor is less than totally sincere.
Here are three reasons why anti-capitalism is irrational and harmful:
1. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other social force, system or institution in history. The invention of Capitalism in Europe was as significant as step forward as the invention of agriculture in the distant past. Middle class people people today live better than European royalty did a few centuries ago - when 90% of the population was at subsistence level or below.
Marxism has glorious, stirring rhetoric; Capitalism has measurable, observable results. The invention of Capitalism has allowed nations to create wealth by trade, entrepreneurship and innovation. One essential condition for economic success is limited government and it is no accident that Capitalism emerged only in countries where the absolute power and scope of government was kept in check. All forms of Statism including Fascism, Communism, Socialism and the Liberal Welfare State would roll back this check on big government and remove the conditions under which Capitalism works.
2. Capitalism is the only economic system that allows for individual liberty, which is essential to human flourishing. All statist economic systems produce populations of perpetual adolescents who never learn to stand on their own two feet and take personal responsibility for supporting themselves. (Just look at the recent extension of adolescence in our society to the period lasting from puberty to the late twenties.) Capitalism is compatible with personal liberty and personal responsibility because it punishes bad moral choice and rewards good ones. It allows for multiple fresh starts in life.
If a person works hard, avoids drugs and drunkenness, get married and stays married, this person will not be in poverty and will rise to the level of his or her abilities in the world. But whether a person is rich or poor, it is possible under Capitalism to be independent and fully equal before the law with others. This is to recognize the moral nature of the universe and to come to terms with it, which is an essential task of human life.
3. Capitalism is compatible with Christianity. Notice, I do not say it is Christianity nor that it is always accompanied by Christianity. Rather, Christianity makes Capitalism possible and Capitalism itself does not threaten Christianity. All forms of statism involve the all-powerful State attempting to take the place of God and are thus implicitly alternative religions to the worship of the One, True God.
A country that is highly influenced by Christianity in the form of a large church or churches will have the advantage of a strong social force preaching self-restraint and moral living. Only a society in which the majority of the population choose virtue over vice and voluntarily restrain their lusts will be able to preserve political liberty. Without the virtue that everywhere accompanies the spread of Christianity, chaos will cause people to look to the Dictator, the Police State, the Nanny State or some form of statist control in order to make life bearable. In such cases, Capitalism cannot work. Capitalism and political liberalism in general, cannot work in a non-Christian country for long without collapsing into some for of statism.
On the other hand, Capitalism creates liberty for the individuals Christianity is trying to convert to the Faith and in a capitalist society there is sufficient mobility and freedom for individuals to become Christians and function differently on the basis of their faith.
Capitalism implicitly recognizes the truth of two major Christian doctrines: original sin and the need to serve the neighbour. Capitalism is often said to be built on greed, but that is simply a slander. Capitalism involves producing goods or services your neighbour needs, wants and is willing to pay for. If you don't serve the neighbour, you starve. And Capitalism recognizes that people are naturally acquisitive and greedy because of sin and structures economic exchange in such a way that channels this negative energy into socially useful and productive endeavors. If you live next to a greedy, millionaire, would you rather that he channeled his energy into systematic looting and robbery or into building a construction business or a store? If you answered the former, you might be a socialist.
Anti-Capitalism, then, is irrational and harmful to society. The problem with modern Western nations like Canada, America and the nations of Europe is not that we have too much Capitalism; it is that we do not have enough of it. Most of Capitalism's bad press derives from people thinking that distortions of it are the real thing. What Obama is doing with "green energy" or the auto industry is not capitalism but cronyism and statism. What they do in China is more like Mercantilism than Capitalism despite the use of the term "State Capitalism."
Capitalism does require the rule of law. There must be laws enforced by the State which create a level playing field by, for example, limiting monopolies, making bankruptcy possible and enforcing a minimal level of health and safety regulations. The goal is equality of opportunity. But the tendency of the State in modern society is to try to create equality of outcome, which requires government intervention on a scale that is incompatible with individual liberty.
Human inequality of abilities and character is a permanent feature of life in a fallen world. Therefore some will become rich and others remain poor, while the majority will be in the middle. We should care for the poor with charity and accept that equality of income is impossible without a coercive assault on individual liberty that will cause more problems than it solves.
If this life were the end of human existence and if there were no future life - no heaven and hell or Day of Judgment - then human inequality would be tragic. But for the Christian, this life is important but not all we have to hope for. Therefore, personal liberty exercised through moral choice is a necessary aspect of fulfilling our human purpose on this earth. This world is a preparation for the next life and any economic system that depresses individual choice in favor of a vision of social justice as income redistribution and equality of outcome is inimical to religion. In trying to bring heaven to earth, it fails to let us be prepared for the real heaven. As every serious Christian theologian in the history of theology has recognized, relative wealth and poverty (above the level of subsistence) is of secondary importance to character, religious commitment and worship.
This is a hard saying for materialistic, atheistic, socialists. But it shows what a gulf exists between Christianity and all forms of statism. It really is a worldview divide that cannot be bridged except by conversion in one direction or the other.
The 20th century has seen one socialist experiment after another fail. A few small, countries with vibrant capitalist sectors such as Sweden have managed to make the welfare state last a long time without going broke, but now social democratic Europe teeters on the brink of economic collapse. The more the US tries to imitate Europe, the closer it moves to collapse as well. The roll call of utter failure is long and depressing: the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia, much of Africa and South America, etc. Only market economics work in the modern world.
Yet Christians often are found among the out-dated, romantic, Utopian forces that oppose free enterprise and this is a scandal. It makes Christianity look anti-intellectual and anti-scientific. It also make us look like ideologues whose professed concern for the poor is less than totally sincere.
Here are three reasons why anti-capitalism is irrational and harmful:
1. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other social force, system or institution in history. The invention of Capitalism in Europe was as significant as step forward as the invention of agriculture in the distant past. Middle class people people today live better than European royalty did a few centuries ago - when 90% of the population was at subsistence level or below.
Marxism has glorious, stirring rhetoric; Capitalism has measurable, observable results. The invention of Capitalism has allowed nations to create wealth by trade, entrepreneurship and innovation. One essential condition for economic success is limited government and it is no accident that Capitalism emerged only in countries where the absolute power and scope of government was kept in check. All forms of Statism including Fascism, Communism, Socialism and the Liberal Welfare State would roll back this check on big government and remove the conditions under which Capitalism works.
2. Capitalism is the only economic system that allows for individual liberty, which is essential to human flourishing. All statist economic systems produce populations of perpetual adolescents who never learn to stand on their own two feet and take personal responsibility for supporting themselves. (Just look at the recent extension of adolescence in our society to the period lasting from puberty to the late twenties.) Capitalism is compatible with personal liberty and personal responsibility because it punishes bad moral choice and rewards good ones. It allows for multiple fresh starts in life.
If a person works hard, avoids drugs and drunkenness, get married and stays married, this person will not be in poverty and will rise to the level of his or her abilities in the world. But whether a person is rich or poor, it is possible under Capitalism to be independent and fully equal before the law with others. This is to recognize the moral nature of the universe and to come to terms with it, which is an essential task of human life.
3. Capitalism is compatible with Christianity. Notice, I do not say it is Christianity nor that it is always accompanied by Christianity. Rather, Christianity makes Capitalism possible and Capitalism itself does not threaten Christianity. All forms of statism involve the all-powerful State attempting to take the place of God and are thus implicitly alternative religions to the worship of the One, True God.
A country that is highly influenced by Christianity in the form of a large church or churches will have the advantage of a strong social force preaching self-restraint and moral living. Only a society in which the majority of the population choose virtue over vice and voluntarily restrain their lusts will be able to preserve political liberty. Without the virtue that everywhere accompanies the spread of Christianity, chaos will cause people to look to the Dictator, the Police State, the Nanny State or some form of statist control in order to make life bearable. In such cases, Capitalism cannot work. Capitalism and political liberalism in general, cannot work in a non-Christian country for long without collapsing into some for of statism.
On the other hand, Capitalism creates liberty for the individuals Christianity is trying to convert to the Faith and in a capitalist society there is sufficient mobility and freedom for individuals to become Christians and function differently on the basis of their faith.
Capitalism implicitly recognizes the truth of two major Christian doctrines: original sin and the need to serve the neighbour. Capitalism is often said to be built on greed, but that is simply a slander. Capitalism involves producing goods or services your neighbour needs, wants and is willing to pay for. If you don't serve the neighbour, you starve. And Capitalism recognizes that people are naturally acquisitive and greedy because of sin and structures economic exchange in such a way that channels this negative energy into socially useful and productive endeavors. If you live next to a greedy, millionaire, would you rather that he channeled his energy into systematic looting and robbery or into building a construction business or a store? If you answered the former, you might be a socialist.
Anti-Capitalism, then, is irrational and harmful to society. The problem with modern Western nations like Canada, America and the nations of Europe is not that we have too much Capitalism; it is that we do not have enough of it. Most of Capitalism's bad press derives from people thinking that distortions of it are the real thing. What Obama is doing with "green energy" or the auto industry is not capitalism but cronyism and statism. What they do in China is more like Mercantilism than Capitalism despite the use of the term "State Capitalism."
Capitalism does require the rule of law. There must be laws enforced by the State which create a level playing field by, for example, limiting monopolies, making bankruptcy possible and enforcing a minimal level of health and safety regulations. The goal is equality of opportunity. But the tendency of the State in modern society is to try to create equality of outcome, which requires government intervention on a scale that is incompatible with individual liberty.
Human inequality of abilities and character is a permanent feature of life in a fallen world. Therefore some will become rich and others remain poor, while the majority will be in the middle. We should care for the poor with charity and accept that equality of income is impossible without a coercive assault on individual liberty that will cause more problems than it solves.
If this life were the end of human existence and if there were no future life - no heaven and hell or Day of Judgment - then human inequality would be tragic. But for the Christian, this life is important but not all we have to hope for. Therefore, personal liberty exercised through moral choice is a necessary aspect of fulfilling our human purpose on this earth. This world is a preparation for the next life and any economic system that depresses individual choice in favor of a vision of social justice as income redistribution and equality of outcome is inimical to religion. In trying to bring heaven to earth, it fails to let us be prepared for the real heaven. As every serious Christian theologian in the history of theology has recognized, relative wealth and poverty (above the level of subsistence) is of secondary importance to character, religious commitment and worship.
This is a hard saying for materialistic, atheistic, socialists. But it shows what a gulf exists between Christianity and all forms of statism. It really is a worldview divide that cannot be bridged except by conversion in one direction or the other.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Flying Pigs Alert: The NYT Notices That Sarah Palin Said Something Important
Well, I guess I can die happy now. I've seen it all. Nothing could possibly surprise me now: not George W. Bush moving to Boston, not Martians landing and demanding to be taken to our leader - in Beijing, not the UN voting to condemn racism somewhere other than in Israel, not the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. Nothing. The New York Times actually noticed that Sarah Palin said something profound and important.
Get up off the floor and keep reading; naturally, I intend to offer proof for such a far-out, incredible assertion. Here it is, from the Sept. 9 edition, "Some of Sarah Palin's Ideas Cross the Political Divide":
Get up off the floor and keep reading; naturally, I intend to offer proof for such a far-out, incredible assertion. Here it is, from the Sept. 9 edition, "Some of Sarah Palin's Ideas Cross the Political Divide":
Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha.
But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.
The next day, the “lamestream” media, as she calls it, played into her fantasy of it by ignoring the ideas she unfurled and dwelling almost entirely on the will-she-won’t-she question of her presidential ambitions.
So here is something I never thought I would write: a column about Sarah Palin’s ideas.
There was plenty of the usual Palin schtick — words that make clear that she is not speaking to everyone but to a particular strain of American: “The working men and women of this country, you got up off your couch, you came down from the deer stand, you came out of the duck blind, you got off the John Deere, and we took to the streets, and we took to the town halls, and we ended up at the ballot box.”
But when her throat was cleared at last, Ms. Palin had something considerably more substantive to say.
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”
Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.
Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.
“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”
Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?
Of course it is snarky and snide; it is the New York Times after all. But it notes that Palin is saying things that make her something other than a shill for corporate America. Who knows, if this keeps up maybe Times journalists someday will discover that fly-over country actually is inhabited.
The column continues, in the breathless tone of an anthropologist announcing at a live news conference the discovery of a previously unknown civilization under the ice of Antarctica:
Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.
On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.
It obviously has never occurred to this writer, even by the end of this article, that maybe - just maybe - Palin is expressing ideas that are widespread in the Tea Party Movement and other esoteric sects such as the Founding Fathers, for example. If only journalists who pontificate about American culture and politics had to read de Tocqueville's Democracy in America during their university years in between learning how to be disdainful of the bitter clingers who do so much to impede "progress."
Sarah Palin did not think up these ideas last Wednesday. She is not the only one thinking this way. If you want to consult on-line resources that frequently discuss in depth ideas like these, you can check out these links, which will provide links galore to further writings in these areas.
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Public Discourse (The Witherspoon Institute)
Peter Hitchens Blog (Daily Mail)
You could also look at conservative writing in National Review, The Weekly Standard, Human Events and The University Bookman. Of course these journals bash Obama and think Marxism is evil. But if you think that is all there is to them, I pity you.
It is a measure of the isolated, in-grown, smug, poorly educated nature of the American permanent governing class that my argument here - that Sarah Palin is articulating ideas that are widespread in the conservative underground - would be news to them. No wonder political debate can't even get started in America.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Looters and Other Irrational People
Like a lot of people (if you can believe the Amazon.com rankings) I read Atlas Shrugged last summer. I had heard a lot about Rand and read a bit about her philosophy. Obviously, I don't buy her philosophy (Objectivism); it seems to be some sort of weird, naive, "benevolent Nietzscheanism." And she is, of course, an atheist. She appears to take Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and his idea that each one pursuing his own enlightened self-interest being good for all to an extreme. People acting in their own self-interest without the moral restraint that comes from religion has never worked so far in history, however, and even Adam Smith would not have believed such a fairy tale.
But there is something to be gained from reading the novel and that is insight into what is going on all around us today. Rand paints an exaggerated picture of what big government, statist, socialism combined with crony capitalism looks like. She creates one dimensional characters who speak in cliches and express the same political beliefs many people espouse today, only in an extreme manner. I suspect that readers who encountered the book prior to 2008 would tend to find it over-wrought and unrealistic, while those who, like me, read it during the age of Obama find it frightening because its extremism is too close to the reality we are currently experiencing to be comfortable.
When you listen to the words of people like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Ed Shultz, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and Paul Krugman, you feel like they are spouting lines from the book. When Obama trots out his standard issue, first-year university student, Marxist class warfare rhetoric it feels like the 19th century never ended. When they call duly elected members of congress "terrorists" and "hostage takers" for wanting to balance the budget and keep the country from going bankrupt, you have to wonder if they ever said a sincere word in their lives.
The liberals who control the Democratic Party are just "looters," to use Rand's term. They don't seem to care about the future or about the constitution or about national security. All they care about is spreading around more goodies for their friends and bribing voters with borrowed money. Even though the US government currently borrows 43 cents out of every dollar it spends, they want to increase spending and tax "the rich." How long can this go on before the country collapses? In Rand's dystopia, the United States is in the middle of a long, agonizingly slow, train wreck.
They are justly called looters because they don't think about producing, only about redistributing. They don't think in terms of saving, only spending. They are not into delayed gratification. They are, in the end, irrational because they are destroying the goose that laid the golden egg.
I read Terry Eagleton's defense of Marxism a while ago and what really struck me was the candid admission that Marxism is entirely parasitic upon capitalism. He admitted that Marxism is bad at creating wealth and can only succeed in an advanced capitalist society that already has created surplus wealth. Marxism can then redistribute this wealth.
Two things struck me when I read this. First, he is admitting that the whole movement of Third World socialism, which has tried to sell socialism to underdeveloped poor countries is a total and complete fraud. For most of the twentieth century, idealogues have captured one poor, third world country after another and imposed a dictatorship on it instead of allowing it to grow rich and develop through capitalism - and this is done in the name of social justice with the blessing of many Christians! Second, if Marxism cannot produce wealth what happens after all the wealth produced prior to the revolution is used up? It would seem that what happens next is what we saw with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia today is a sick, broken, dysfunctional country with a declining population, a declining life expectancy and a lowered standard of living. It is flirting with dictatorship, which may be the only way to maintain law and order as conditions worsen.
Europe is going the way of the Soviet Union and it would be premature to suppose that China will avoid the same fate unless it reject Communism. Only in the US does the will exist among a large portion of the population to fight back against the looters. The US is not quite ready yet to go quietly into that good night. In the US the will to live free still exists in defiance of the looters, the socialists, the big government liberals, the liberal media and the liberal Christian, "social justice" agitators.
Will the US be able to resist the Marxist disease that has felled most of the West and so many victim countries around the world? The providence of God is inscrutable but we should pray that it does for all our sakes.
But there is something to be gained from reading the novel and that is insight into what is going on all around us today. Rand paints an exaggerated picture of what big government, statist, socialism combined with crony capitalism looks like. She creates one dimensional characters who speak in cliches and express the same political beliefs many people espouse today, only in an extreme manner. I suspect that readers who encountered the book prior to 2008 would tend to find it over-wrought and unrealistic, while those who, like me, read it during the age of Obama find it frightening because its extremism is too close to the reality we are currently experiencing to be comfortable.
When you listen to the words of people like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Ed Shultz, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and Paul Krugman, you feel like they are spouting lines from the book. When Obama trots out his standard issue, first-year university student, Marxist class warfare rhetoric it feels like the 19th century never ended. When they call duly elected members of congress "terrorists" and "hostage takers" for wanting to balance the budget and keep the country from going bankrupt, you have to wonder if they ever said a sincere word in their lives.
The liberals who control the Democratic Party are just "looters," to use Rand's term. They don't seem to care about the future or about the constitution or about national security. All they care about is spreading around more goodies for their friends and bribing voters with borrowed money. Even though the US government currently borrows 43 cents out of every dollar it spends, they want to increase spending and tax "the rich." How long can this go on before the country collapses? In Rand's dystopia, the United States is in the middle of a long, agonizingly slow, train wreck.
They are justly called looters because they don't think about producing, only about redistributing. They don't think in terms of saving, only spending. They are not into delayed gratification. They are, in the end, irrational because they are destroying the goose that laid the golden egg.
I read Terry Eagleton's defense of Marxism a while ago and what really struck me was the candid admission that Marxism is entirely parasitic upon capitalism. He admitted that Marxism is bad at creating wealth and can only succeed in an advanced capitalist society that already has created surplus wealth. Marxism can then redistribute this wealth.
Two things struck me when I read this. First, he is admitting that the whole movement of Third World socialism, which has tried to sell socialism to underdeveloped poor countries is a total and complete fraud. For most of the twentieth century, idealogues have captured one poor, third world country after another and imposed a dictatorship on it instead of allowing it to grow rich and develop through capitalism - and this is done in the name of social justice with the blessing of many Christians! Second, if Marxism cannot produce wealth what happens after all the wealth produced prior to the revolution is used up? It would seem that what happens next is what we saw with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia today is a sick, broken, dysfunctional country with a declining population, a declining life expectancy and a lowered standard of living. It is flirting with dictatorship, which may be the only way to maintain law and order as conditions worsen.
Europe is going the way of the Soviet Union and it would be premature to suppose that China will avoid the same fate unless it reject Communism. Only in the US does the will exist among a large portion of the population to fight back against the looters. The US is not quite ready yet to go quietly into that good night. In the US the will to live free still exists in defiance of the looters, the socialists, the big government liberals, the liberal media and the liberal Christian, "social justice" agitators.
Will the US be able to resist the Marxist disease that has felled most of the West and so many victim countries around the world? The providence of God is inscrutable but we should pray that it does for all our sakes.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Social Conservatism and Economic Conservatism: Two Sides of One Worldview
In his reflections on the recent Faith and Freedom Conference, at which most of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination spoke, Tony Blankley argues that social and fiscal conservatism are not alternatives or rivals. Rather, he argues, they need each other. His thesis is:
But there can be no disagreement with Blankley when he writes: "And unbridled pure materialism -- whether of the left or right --ends up in reigns of terror, gulags and holocausts." The problem is how to join an adequate ethic to a free market economics and the only way to do that is to set both in the context of a metaphysics generated by the Christian doctrine of God.
Blankley see this clearly. He quotes Barry Goldwater:
Conservatism, both economic and social conservativism, is basically a worldview that is as wide as all creation and one which appreciates spiritual reality as well as material reality.
Strong support for tradition, custom, moral behavior and religious faith (so-called social conservatism) is the equal handmaiden of free-market capitalism advocacy. They are the two parts that make up the one, whole concept of political conservatism.A few years ago, I would have denied the truth of this thesis. But now I have come to realize the truth of it, although I think there is a danger of underestimating the importance of Biblical revelation in this formulation. In the paragraph following the one I just quoted, Blankley refers to Adam Smith, whose Theory of Moral Sentiments emphasizes the moral foundation for a free market economy as described in The Wealth of Nations. The problem is that the Enlightenment rejection of revelation undermines the possibility of natural law and absolute morality necessary to ground a free society. So, we need a different and better basis for our morality than Enlightenment theories of ethics if we are to have an enduring and culturally regenerative conservatism.
But there can be no disagreement with Blankley when he writes: "And unbridled pure materialism -- whether of the left or right --ends up in reigns of terror, gulags and holocausts." The problem is how to join an adequate ethic to a free market economics and the only way to do that is to set both in the context of a metaphysics generated by the Christian doctrine of God.
Blankley see this clearly. He quotes Barry Goldwater:
Consider how Goldwater asserted his religious "social conservative" principles to re-enforce his conservative economic principles. In his acceptance speech, he argued for "freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature's God ... Those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for Divine Will, and this nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.""Nature and nature's God," of course, is an allusion to Lincoln. Blankley goes on to quote from Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative.
"The root difference between the conservatives and the liberals of today is that conservatives take account of the whole man, while liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, those needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Man's most sacred possession is his individual soul."Goldwater and Blankley are right in asserting that the key difference between liberals and conservatives is their respective views of man; one has a godless view of man and the other has a Biblical view of man. One has a reductionist view of man that infantilizes and degrades man while the other has a view of man as gloriously fallen and in the process of being redeemed. The difference between these two views ultimately comes down to one's view of God.
Conservatism, both economic and social conservativism, is basically a worldview that is as wide as all creation and one which appreciates spiritual reality as well as material reality.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
"Savage Capitalism" versus Socialist Savages
The bubble of smugness and overweening atmosphere of moral superiority in which European left-wing intellectuals dwell is just sickening. That bubble was on display this week when the essential difference between American and European ideas of equality came into clear focus.
America is built on the principle of equality before the law for rich and poor. This is Capitalist Equality. But Europe has re-defined equality to mean relative equality of income through the redistribution of wealth by the welfare state. This is Socialist Equality.
The European elites have a phrase they like to bandy about to make themselves feel superior to the Anglo-Saxon world: "savage capitalism." By this they apparently mean free market societies in which the poor actually have jobs and where the welfare state is minimalist and designed to get people back on their feet and self-reliant as soon as possible. The alternative to "savage capitalism" is a paternalistic welfare state that turns most of the population into wards of the State and the governing elite. For the contemporary European Left, "Equality" looks suspiciously like the old class-stratified Europe of the 19th century in which the rulers pay off the working classes with perks to keep them from bloody revolution. Despite all the Marxist rhetoric and socialist platitudes, Bismarck's welfare state is still the operative norm. The goal is to destroy liberalism by having the upper classes embrace a kind of socialism that provides bread and circuses for the masses in exchange for freedom. Dostoevesky's Grand Inquistor turns out to be a socialist, just as he prophesied.
All this was made clear once again in the Strauss-Kahn scandal in New York City. A "Master of the Universe" was hauled off a plane bound for France and charged with sexual assault. He stands accused of attacking a maid in a hotel like some sort of caveman. So far, this is certainly news but not totally unheard of; sociopaths sometimes achieve high positions and then do horrible things. I want to stress at this point, that I am not condemning socialism or the European welfare state because one particular politician stands accused of committing a crime. It is just as impossible to draw a line from his alleged criminal behavior (even if he turns out to be guilty) to his political convictions as it would be to do so when a conservative politician betrays his wife with an adulterous affair.
However, the reaction of French left-wing intellectuals to this case is an entirely different matter. Clearly, the left-wing intellectual elite in France has exhibited an attitude of entitlement, class-superiority and probably racism in their reaction. Instead of commending the New York police for doing their job, admiring American society for giving all people equality before the law and holding Strauss-Kahn responsible for his actions, they blamed the victim, condemned the police for treating a rich, powerful Eurocrat like anyone else and suggested that Strauss-Kahn was set up and actually innocent.
Instead of a rush to judgment there was a rush to rationalization.
This is no isolated case. These are the same people, Bernard-Henri Levy for example, who supported child rapist Roman Polanski when the authorities had the nerve actually to arrest him. Jonah Goldberg quotes Levy:
Jenn Q. Public at NewsReal Blog describes the media rape of the victim in the French press in sickening detail. This is her introducton:
You want to talk about American Exceptionalism: here it is on display. In Guniea and France, rich men can rape poor women and get away with it. In New York City, the rich guy wears handcuffs and is denied bail. There is American Exceptionalism in a nutshell.
Now, I ask you, which country of the three is really civilized? Which is the one you want to live in if you are poor? It looks like the "savage capitalists" win hands down. Why? Because equality before the law is fundamental to human dignity and justice and much more important than welfare for the masses and elite privileges for the socialist elite.
I'm with the "savage capitalists" and if that shocks the French, that is because they are socialist savages who need to catch up with history.
America is built on the principle of equality before the law for rich and poor. This is Capitalist Equality. But Europe has re-defined equality to mean relative equality of income through the redistribution of wealth by the welfare state. This is Socialist Equality.
The European elites have a phrase they like to bandy about to make themselves feel superior to the Anglo-Saxon world: "savage capitalism." By this they apparently mean free market societies in which the poor actually have jobs and where the welfare state is minimalist and designed to get people back on their feet and self-reliant as soon as possible. The alternative to "savage capitalism" is a paternalistic welfare state that turns most of the population into wards of the State and the governing elite. For the contemporary European Left, "Equality" looks suspiciously like the old class-stratified Europe of the 19th century in which the rulers pay off the working classes with perks to keep them from bloody revolution. Despite all the Marxist rhetoric and socialist platitudes, Bismarck's welfare state is still the operative norm. The goal is to destroy liberalism by having the upper classes embrace a kind of socialism that provides bread and circuses for the masses in exchange for freedom. Dostoevesky's Grand Inquistor turns out to be a socialist, just as he prophesied.
All this was made clear once again in the Strauss-Kahn scandal in New York City. A "Master of the Universe" was hauled off a plane bound for France and charged with sexual assault. He stands accused of attacking a maid in a hotel like some sort of caveman. So far, this is certainly news but not totally unheard of; sociopaths sometimes achieve high positions and then do horrible things. I want to stress at this point, that I am not condemning socialism or the European welfare state because one particular politician stands accused of committing a crime. It is just as impossible to draw a line from his alleged criminal behavior (even if he turns out to be guilty) to his political convictions as it would be to do so when a conservative politician betrays his wife with an adulterous affair.
However, the reaction of French left-wing intellectuals to this case is an entirely different matter. Clearly, the left-wing intellectual elite in France has exhibited an attitude of entitlement, class-superiority and probably racism in their reaction. Instead of commending the New York police for doing their job, admiring American society for giving all people equality before the law and holding Strauss-Kahn responsible for his actions, they blamed the victim, condemned the police for treating a rich, powerful Eurocrat like anyone else and suggested that Strauss-Kahn was set up and actually innocent.
Instead of a rush to judgment there was a rush to rationalization.
This is no isolated case. These are the same people, Bernard-Henri Levy for example, who supported child rapist Roman Polanski when the authorities had the nerve actually to arrest him. Jonah Goldberg quotes Levy:
And what I know even more is that the Strauss-Kahn I know, who has been my friend for 20 years and who will remain my friend, bears no resemblance to this monster, this caveman, this insatiable and malevolent beast now being described nearly everywhere. Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally, but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate, obviously no, it’s absurd.There is more - much more - here. As Goldberg says, without knowing any of the facts Levy leaps to the defense of his friend and leaves himself very little wiggle-room. I suggest that the most telling part of Levy's remarks are the final sentence, which basically says that there should be one system of justice for the masses and another, more lenient, system for European big-shots like Strauss-Kahn, Polanski and Levy.
This morning, I hold it against the American judge who, by delivering him to the crowd of photo hounds, pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other.
Jenn Q. Public at NewsReal Blog describes the media rape of the victim in the French press in sickening detail. This is her introducton:
One gets the sense that even the New York Times, which is the slavish follower of European social democracy most of the time, is not quite sure what to make of the French reaction. They simply reported it mostly without comment trying delicately to put the French concern for Stauss-Kahn and lack of concern for his alleged victim in the best possible light.The size of her breasts, the shape of her backside, and of course, her name. These are some of the details Le Monde, the French “journal de référence,” and its subsidiary Le Post published about the woman who says IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn groped her genitals and forced her to perform oral sex on him in a room at the Sofitel near Times Square.
France-Soir described the cut of her hotel maid uniform and how good she looks for a woman in her thirties, while France’s RMC radio reported that Strauss-Kahn’s attorneys were surprised by how “unattractive” she is.
As our colleagues Steven Erlanger and Katrin Bennhold report, “The arrest in New York of one of France’s leading global figures and a possible next president, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on charges of attempted rape produced an earthquake of shock, outrage, disbelief and embarrassment throughout France on Sunday.”
Though horrified by those alleged crimes, the French press and political elite on Monday seemed perhaps more scandalized still by the images of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s brusque treatment by the New York police, and his exposure in the American media.
Even the NTY couldn't cover up the fact that the French reaction contained far more concern for a rich, powerful Eurocrat than for a victimized woman.
This is not an anomoly; this is standard operating procedure for the French Left and for the European media. This attitude is one of entitlement, pride, arrogance, self-righteous superiority and racial superiority. When elitist Leftists think that poor women are rightly to be regarded as the prey of powerful men, this is objectively and accurately described as a bunch of socialist savages prowling around our society devouring the weak and the defenseless.
These socialist savages support abortion to cover up their sexual promiscuity and they contribute to the culture of death in several other ways as well. The rule of law is for the "little people" and the idea of natural law or objective moral right and wrong is a primitive superstition. The rhetoric of concern for "the poor" is useful in getting the naive and idealistic clergymen to fall into line and it looks good on campaign posters. But that is all it means: slogans and manipulation. In this Orwellian world, servant means master and social democracy means raping the help.
You want to talk about American Exceptionalism: here it is on display. In Guniea and France, rich men can rape poor women and get away with it. In New York City, the rich guy wears handcuffs and is denied bail. There is American Exceptionalism in a nutshell.
Now, I ask you, which country of the three is really civilized? Which is the one you want to live in if you are poor? It looks like the "savage capitalists" win hands down. Why? Because equality before the law is fundamental to human dignity and justice and much more important than welfare for the masses and elite privileges for the socialist elite.
I'm with the "savage capitalists" and if that shocks the French, that is because they are socialist savages who need to catch up with history.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Michael Moore: One Smart Capitalist
Jerry Zandstra of the Detroit Daily News is fed up with Michael Moore's hypocrisy. Every time he gets a chance to proclaim loudly his support for Marxism Moore manages to deflect attention from his own anti-working class actions as a wealthy capitalist. Zandstra writes:
What would you say to someone who made $50 million in an industry in which 90 percent of his fellow union members made less than $5,000 per year?
How about someone whose last project grossed over $220 million but who hired nonunion workers to save money? Unions should be up in arms. People across the country should be protesting outside this guy's house. Commentators like Rachel Maddow should be raining condemnation on his head in disgust over the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in America.
He should be the left's poster boy for all that is wrong with our country. But what if the person who does such things is Michigan's own Michael Moore?
Moore has made himself infamous by making outrageous documentaries and ridiculous statements. In his latest tirades, he told GritTV that the wealthy's income should be nationalized. All property, income and wealth should be thought of as belonging to "the people," he said, rather than any one person. . . .
The state of Wisconsin, for example, isn't broke, Moore says. The wealth is just congealed in the hands of a few and the state needs to take it from them on behalf of the people.
Of course, this is nothing new. Karl Marx believed the same and so have other purveyors of communism for decades.
What's new about Moore is the sheer hypocrisy of his statements.
Having just completed renovations on a multimillion-dollar vacation home in Torch Lake, Moore showed up in Wisconsin telling union workers he stands in solidarity with them. He then appeared on Maddow's show spewing trumped-up anger against rich people, saying that they need to be handcuffed and taken to jail. He even brought handcuffs as a prop, in case we weren't getting the message. . . .
We could argue the economics and constitutionality of his demands if not for this simple fact: Moore's personal wealth puts him at the top of the heap in the United States. What's worse is that he has made his $50 million by taking advantage of tragedies. In his 1989 documentary, "Roger and Me," he describes the economic pain felt by 30,000 General Motors employees who lost their jobs, positioning himself as the champion of the little guy. In theatrical box office alone, the film earned $7.7 million, with millions more from DVD and other sales. Not a blockbuster, but a decent enough start.
In his 2002 documentary, "Bowling for Columbine," Moore focused on the devastating violence unleashed in a Colorado school in 1999 as a means of examining violence in general in the United States. It brought him international attention and won numerous awards. His star began to rise, as did the balance in his checkbook. "Bowling for Columbine" made $58 million in theaters and tens of millions more in ancillary sales.
Moore's ship really came in with the terrorist attacks on 9/11. His 2004 film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," took a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush and the war on terrorism. It turns out that rich people were behind it all. Big surprise. The movie became the highest-grossing documentary of all time, earning more than $220 million.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Stealing Democratically
It has become a widely accepted position that the voting public can vote in politicians who promise to change laws so as to seize part of the wealth of certain people - deemed to be 'the rich' - and then turn around and redistribute that money to other people - deemed to be 'the needy' - and that this action is morally right.
Why is stealing right?
Augustine tells of an encounter between Alexander the Great and a pirate, who cheekily said to the Emperor: "Why is it that when I do with my one ship what you do with your great fleet, it is called robbery?" Well, that is a good question. Alexander, like many other emperors before and since was roaming around the world invading, conquering and looting territories too weak to defend themselves from his army and navy.
Private property is private property and stealing is stealing. I don't see any escape from this logic. The Bible is full of calls to the rich to share generously with the poor but I don't see any calls in Scripture for governments to play Robin Hood and steal from the rich in order to give to the poor. Insofar as the king is rich, he too is obligated to be charitable and insofar as a government is rich it too is obligated to be charitable.
But to be charitable to the poor, who have a claim on our generosity because everyone has to live and to ignore the needs of the poor is scandalous in God's eyes, is not the same as adopting a government policy that wealth should be relatively equal and that this should be accomplished by the coercive power of the state.
Karl Marx offered a possible theoretical justification for government redistribution of wealth in the theory of surplus value, which says that workers are entitled to the full value of the products of industry after the costs of production are subtracted. In other words, profits are immoral. But this is a myth based on the fallacy that entrepreneurship, risk-taking and creativity are of no value in the production of goods and services. This is simply implausible.
So why do so many of us so readily assume that government redistribution of wealth by coercion is morally justifiable? Why do so many even go further and claim that it is morally obligatory and urgently required by justice? Why is stealing deemed morally right when it is done by a large, powerful entity against which there is no recourse and varnished with the trappings of procedural democracy in which the majority vote themselves a share of the private property of the few?
I got thinking about this today because of the events taking place in Madison, WI, where a special interest group, the public sector unionized workers, are attempting to subvert democracy and frustrate the will of the people. Gov. Scott Walker ran on a platform of balancing the budget by rolling back the power and excessive benefits of public employees and he won decisively. Yet, when he proceeds to implement his election platform as promised, the public employees march, scream and call him Hitler.
It is funny, isn't it, how social democrats scream "injustice" when democracy works against them, yet are happy to utilize it whenever they can to loot the public treasury. Unions spend hundreds of millions electing Democratic politicians, who then become their employers. These politicians clearly have a conflict of interest but they never declare it. Instead, they pay off their supporters with cushy contracts and collect the next round of donations in preparation for the next election. It is a corrupt system run for the benefit of the politicians and the unions at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. And it is all justified in the name of "democracy" until the majority of taxpayers catch on to the game
Now the majority is going to take back from the few what the few originally took from the majority. But it is all so democratic.
Maybe the problem here is that democracy is being misused and abused. Maybe the problem is that stealing is still stealing even when it is done democratically. Maybe the problem is that democracy is not the right way to set prices and wages. Maybe the market should do that and government should restrict itself to the limited functions of maintaining law and order, national defense and such matters.
Maybe stealing democratically is still stealing. After all, the Eighth Commandment does not say: "Thou shalt not steal, unless by majority vote."
Why is stealing right?
Augustine tells of an encounter between Alexander the Great and a pirate, who cheekily said to the Emperor: "Why is it that when I do with my one ship what you do with your great fleet, it is called robbery?" Well, that is a good question. Alexander, like many other emperors before and since was roaming around the world invading, conquering and looting territories too weak to defend themselves from his army and navy.
Private property is private property and stealing is stealing. I don't see any escape from this logic. The Bible is full of calls to the rich to share generously with the poor but I don't see any calls in Scripture for governments to play Robin Hood and steal from the rich in order to give to the poor. Insofar as the king is rich, he too is obligated to be charitable and insofar as a government is rich it too is obligated to be charitable.
But to be charitable to the poor, who have a claim on our generosity because everyone has to live and to ignore the needs of the poor is scandalous in God's eyes, is not the same as adopting a government policy that wealth should be relatively equal and that this should be accomplished by the coercive power of the state.
Karl Marx offered a possible theoretical justification for government redistribution of wealth in the theory of surplus value, which says that workers are entitled to the full value of the products of industry after the costs of production are subtracted. In other words, profits are immoral. But this is a myth based on the fallacy that entrepreneurship, risk-taking and creativity are of no value in the production of goods and services. This is simply implausible.
So why do so many of us so readily assume that government redistribution of wealth by coercion is morally justifiable? Why do so many even go further and claim that it is morally obligatory and urgently required by justice? Why is stealing deemed morally right when it is done by a large, powerful entity against which there is no recourse and varnished with the trappings of procedural democracy in which the majority vote themselves a share of the private property of the few?
I got thinking about this today because of the events taking place in Madison, WI, where a special interest group, the public sector unionized workers, are attempting to subvert democracy and frustrate the will of the people. Gov. Scott Walker ran on a platform of balancing the budget by rolling back the power and excessive benefits of public employees and he won decisively. Yet, when he proceeds to implement his election platform as promised, the public employees march, scream and call him Hitler.
It is funny, isn't it, how social democrats scream "injustice" when democracy works against them, yet are happy to utilize it whenever they can to loot the public treasury. Unions spend hundreds of millions electing Democratic politicians, who then become their employers. These politicians clearly have a conflict of interest but they never declare it. Instead, they pay off their supporters with cushy contracts and collect the next round of donations in preparation for the next election. It is a corrupt system run for the benefit of the politicians and the unions at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. And it is all justified in the name of "democracy" until the majority of taxpayers catch on to the game
Now the majority is going to take back from the few what the few originally took from the majority. But it is all so democratic.
Maybe the problem here is that democracy is being misused and abused. Maybe the problem is that stealing is still stealing even when it is done democratically. Maybe the problem is that democracy is not the right way to set prices and wages. Maybe the market should do that and government should restrict itself to the limited functions of maintaining law and order, national defense and such matters.
Maybe stealing democratically is still stealing. After all, the Eighth Commandment does not say: "Thou shalt not steal, unless by majority vote."
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Alasdair MacIntyre's Flawed Critique of Capitalism
Robert T. Miller has a great article in the February 2011 First Things entitled "Waiting for St. Vladimir" in which he critiques Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of capitalism. (It is not available online except by subscription so I can't link to it.)
I have taught MacIntyre's great book After Virtue (hereafter AV) in my Christianity and Culture class for the last 7 or 8 years and I have greatly profited by reading and re-reading it. Like Miller, I revere MacIntyre as one of the greatest living philosophers and I think AV is one of the great books of the 20th century. It amazes me how lucid and engaging it is compared to some of MacIntyre's other books, which leave me cold and bored.
But AV is a story and a corker at that. It is the story of how we got to the point where, as a culture, we can no longer articulate coherent reasons for moral positions and are thus left drifting aimlessly along with no way to resolve moral disagreements other than by force. It seems clear that a culture in this predicament faces the alternatives of collapsing or embracing tyranny. And that is a lot of insight to get from one 300 page book.
I completely resonate with him when Miller calls MacIntyre one of his "intellectual heroes" and so Miller's criticism of MacIntyre is not based on any desire to undermine MacIntyre's ethics in general or to discredit him as a Christian philosopher. I believe MacIntyre is right about so many things that it pains me to find him wrong at one very important point. For the past several years now, in my final lecture on AV I have had to point out that MacIntyre seems to be somewhat naive about Marxism and Capitalism insofar as he seems to think that the Marxist critique of Capitalism is valid even though Marxism itself has been completely discredited. Miller explains the root of MacIntyre's critique of Capitalism and thus throw light on this puzzling position of MacIntyre's.
Miller describes a lecture given by MacIntyre at Cambridge in the summer of 2010 on the financial crisis of 2007-08 in which MacIntyre reiterated his anti-Capitalist views and expounded on them. Miller points to the classical Marxist theory of surplus value as the foundation of MacIntyre's argument. Miller writes:
Miller points out that if MacIntrye is right, the only solution is not regulation but revolution. The whole system is rotten morally and must be replaced. So we are not waiting for a new St. Benedict, but for a new St. Vladimir (as in Lenin). In the 1995 preface to his 1953 book Marxism and Christianity, "MacIntyre mentions 'relatively small-scale and local communities' such as certain ancient cities, medieval communes, and 'modern cooperative farming and fishing enterprises.'" He claims that in such communities the uses of power and wealth are subordinated to the goods internal to communal practices. While it is not clear in AV, Miller observes that "the local communities in which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained" that MacIntyre mentions in AV's conclusion turn out to be economic communities.
As Miller observes, the Marxist theory of surplus value is rejected by most economists today. Theologians and philosophers, apparently, have not all received the memo as yet, however.
Why is the theory wrong? It is because the value of goods is determined by all the inputs into the production process and not merely the labor of human beings alone. It depends on the cost of raw materials, plant and equipment, patents and technology and other inputs. Workers are entitled not to the entire value of the goods produced, but only to the portion of the value of the goods due to their efforts. Owners of capital deserve the portion of the value of the goods attributable to the capital.
Miller points out that MacIntyre's argument is implausible. For one thing, capitalists are not really able to set wages at any level they want because of stiff competition from other firms who compete for the services of workers. Wages set in a competitive environment are fair.
MacIntyre speaks as if all capitalists functioned as a collectivity, when in reality they are competing against each other. As Miller points out, capitalism has produced, through this kind of competition, a greater equality of wealth and income than any other system in history. Even workers are investors (capitalists) in contemporary societies. Most large companies are publicly traded and owned partially by workers. Workers invest their retirement savings in mutual funds, which invest in companies.
Credit products like mortgages exist because they meet a need, not because capitalists scheme to inflict debt on unsuspecting workers. A young couple thus can buy a house when their children are young, rather than waiting until the children are grown.
Miller is clear that capitalism is not perfect. But the costs of the capitalist system are less than those of the alternatives. All that need be claimed is that it is the least imperfect system in a fallen world; no Utopianism is required. Thus, as Miller says, an attack on capitalism is really an attack on poor people, who have been most helped by capitalism.
MacIntyre admits that capitalism has generated more material prosperity than any other system but is still unjust because of the surplus theory of value. But this theory is simply false.
Miller may well get to a deeper reason why MacIntyre thinks capitalism is evil when he notes that MacIntyre, following Aristotle, thinks that all communities have a purpose and that since capitalism is so good at generating wealth that must be its purpose. However, Miller argues that capitalism exists not to facilitate any particular purpose but rather to facilitate the attainment of the goals individuals set for themselves.
MacIntyre has made some serious mistakes in political philosophy. But Miller demonstrates that MacIntyre's anti-Capitalist view are not derived from his Aristotelian philosophy. They are merely the barnacles of MacIntyre's rather old-fashioned Marxist ideology.
I have taught MacIntyre's great book After Virtue (hereafter AV) in my Christianity and Culture class for the last 7 or 8 years and I have greatly profited by reading and re-reading it. Like Miller, I revere MacIntyre as one of the greatest living philosophers and I think AV is one of the great books of the 20th century. It amazes me how lucid and engaging it is compared to some of MacIntyre's other books, which leave me cold and bored.
But AV is a story and a corker at that. It is the story of how we got to the point where, as a culture, we can no longer articulate coherent reasons for moral positions and are thus left drifting aimlessly along with no way to resolve moral disagreements other than by force. It seems clear that a culture in this predicament faces the alternatives of collapsing or embracing tyranny. And that is a lot of insight to get from one 300 page book.
I completely resonate with him when Miller calls MacIntyre one of his "intellectual heroes" and so Miller's criticism of MacIntyre is not based on any desire to undermine MacIntyre's ethics in general or to discredit him as a Christian philosopher. I believe MacIntyre is right about so many things that it pains me to find him wrong at one very important point. For the past several years now, in my final lecture on AV I have had to point out that MacIntyre seems to be somewhat naive about Marxism and Capitalism insofar as he seems to think that the Marxist critique of Capitalism is valid even though Marxism itself has been completely discredited. Miller explains the root of MacIntyre's critique of Capitalism and thus throw light on this puzzling position of MacIntyre's.
Miller describes a lecture given by MacIntyre at Cambridge in the summer of 2010 on the financial crisis of 2007-08 in which MacIntyre reiterated his anti-Capitalist views and expounded on them. Miller points to the classical Marxist theory of surplus value as the foundation of MacIntyre's argument. Miller writes:
"Following classical Marxist theory, MacIntyre defines surplus value as 'the difference between what the labor of productive workers earns in wages and what capitalists receive for the products of that labor' - that is, the difference between the value of the goods produced by a firm and the amount paid in the aggregate to its workers. Capitalists appropriate this difference and so exploit labor." (38)MacIntyre argues that capitalists are caught in the dilemma of wanting to maximize profits by minimizing wages, on the one hand, and needing consumers with buying power to purchase the goods, on the other. Capitalism solves this dilemma by inventing credit, what he terms "the infliction of debt." (38) In creating the necessary financial products to facilitate debt, capitalists transferred a high amount of risk to unsuspecting individuals without explaining what was going on and thus caused a debt crisis.
Miller points out that if MacIntrye is right, the only solution is not regulation but revolution. The whole system is rotten morally and must be replaced. So we are not waiting for a new St. Benedict, but for a new St. Vladimir (as in Lenin). In the 1995 preface to his 1953 book Marxism and Christianity, "MacIntyre mentions 'relatively small-scale and local communities' such as certain ancient cities, medieval communes, and 'modern cooperative farming and fishing enterprises.'" He claims that in such communities the uses of power and wealth are subordinated to the goods internal to communal practices. While it is not clear in AV, Miller observes that "the local communities in which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained" that MacIntyre mentions in AV's conclusion turn out to be economic communities.
As Miller observes, the Marxist theory of surplus value is rejected by most economists today. Theologians and philosophers, apparently, have not all received the memo as yet, however.
Why is the theory wrong? It is because the value of goods is determined by all the inputs into the production process and not merely the labor of human beings alone. It depends on the cost of raw materials, plant and equipment, patents and technology and other inputs. Workers are entitled not to the entire value of the goods produced, but only to the portion of the value of the goods due to their efforts. Owners of capital deserve the portion of the value of the goods attributable to the capital.
Miller points out that MacIntyre's argument is implausible. For one thing, capitalists are not really able to set wages at any level they want because of stiff competition from other firms who compete for the services of workers. Wages set in a competitive environment are fair.
MacIntyre speaks as if all capitalists functioned as a collectivity, when in reality they are competing against each other. As Miller points out, capitalism has produced, through this kind of competition, a greater equality of wealth and income than any other system in history. Even workers are investors (capitalists) in contemporary societies. Most large companies are publicly traded and owned partially by workers. Workers invest their retirement savings in mutual funds, which invest in companies.
Credit products like mortgages exist because they meet a need, not because capitalists scheme to inflict debt on unsuspecting workers. A young couple thus can buy a house when their children are young, rather than waiting until the children are grown.
Miller is clear that capitalism is not perfect. But the costs of the capitalist system are less than those of the alternatives. All that need be claimed is that it is the least imperfect system in a fallen world; no Utopianism is required. Thus, as Miller says, an attack on capitalism is really an attack on poor people, who have been most helped by capitalism.
MacIntyre admits that capitalism has generated more material prosperity than any other system but is still unjust because of the surplus theory of value. But this theory is simply false.
Miller may well get to a deeper reason why MacIntyre thinks capitalism is evil when he notes that MacIntyre, following Aristotle, thinks that all communities have a purpose and that since capitalism is so good at generating wealth that must be its purpose. However, Miller argues that capitalism exists not to facilitate any particular purpose but rather to facilitate the attainment of the goals individuals set for themselves.
MacIntyre has made some serious mistakes in political philosophy. But Miller demonstrates that MacIntyre's anti-Capitalist view are not derived from his Aristotelian philosophy. They are merely the barnacles of MacIntyre's rather old-fashioned Marxist ideology.
Monday, November 8, 2010
A Brief Meditation on Charity: In Continuation of the Last Post
I think we are hopelessly muddled up in thinking about charity today. This one word is shot through with contradictions and used in so many different ways that nobody knows what it means anymore.
To begin: charity is good. Charity is those with enough sharing with those in need. This is a virtue and it is good for both the giver (who is liberated from the vice of greed by sharing) and for the recipient (who has a pressing physical need like hunger met which would otherwise go unmet). Charity of this sort ought to produce the virtue of gratitude in the recipient as well as the virtue of generosity in the giver.
But when a system encourages people to become dependent on charity, then it is attacking human dignity. To come to rely on charity when one could do something else destroys self-respect, decreases initiative and leads to self-loathing. So to accept charity when one does not need charity is destructive of one's character. And to give charity when it is not needed is to place oneself in a position of patronage and power over the recipients. It is to assume a parental role toward them that infantilizes them and disempowers them.
So charity is a good thing when it is needed because of unavoidable circumstances beyond the control of the recipient and when its intention is the short-term relief of real, physical needs that would not otherwise be met. But when charity is systematized into the modern welfare state so that entire underclass of dependents is created and people are locked into multi-generational poverty and dependency, then what we have is the creation of a monster state lording it over its subjects through its bureaucracy.
Getting people off welfare, not preserving, making permanent and expanding the welfare state, should be the goal of all those who care about human dignity and actual poor people. The socialist critique of capitalism cannot be that it does not foster the welfare state; that is its strength not its weakness. Socialism does not occupy the moral high ground here.
To begin: charity is good. Charity is those with enough sharing with those in need. This is a virtue and it is good for both the giver (who is liberated from the vice of greed by sharing) and for the recipient (who has a pressing physical need like hunger met which would otherwise go unmet). Charity of this sort ought to produce the virtue of gratitude in the recipient as well as the virtue of generosity in the giver.
But when a system encourages people to become dependent on charity, then it is attacking human dignity. To come to rely on charity when one could do something else destroys self-respect, decreases initiative and leads to self-loathing. So to accept charity when one does not need charity is destructive of one's character. And to give charity when it is not needed is to place oneself in a position of patronage and power over the recipients. It is to assume a parental role toward them that infantilizes them and disempowers them.
So charity is a good thing when it is needed because of unavoidable circumstances beyond the control of the recipient and when its intention is the short-term relief of real, physical needs that would not otherwise be met. But when charity is systematized into the modern welfare state so that entire underclass of dependents is created and people are locked into multi-generational poverty and dependency, then what we have is the creation of a monster state lording it over its subjects through its bureaucracy.
Getting people off welfare, not preserving, making permanent and expanding the welfare state, should be the goal of all those who care about human dignity and actual poor people. The socialist critique of capitalism cannot be that it does not foster the welfare state; that is its strength not its weakness. Socialism does not occupy the moral high ground here.
Michael Moore, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Irrational Hatred of Capitalism
Some time ago Daniel Hannan noted how frequently the Left resorts to language of evil when discussing capitalism. In "Michael Moore and the unquestioning self-righteousness of the left" Hannan quotes Moore as folllows:
The Archbishop of Canterbury made headlines recently by sounding like a typical left-winger by attacking the coalition government's plan to reform welfare by requiring people to work for welfare. Williams was quoted as saying:“Capitalism is evil,” says Michael Moore. “You have to eliminate it.” . . .
The beauty of his position, of course, is that it doesn’t require him to come up with any alternatives. “What I’m asking for is a new economic order,” says Moore, adding feebly: “I don’t know how to construct that, I’m not an economist.”
OK, Mike, but all the people who have tried to construct it have ended up creating tyrannies.
'People who are struggling to find work and struggling to find a secure future are, I think, driven further into a sort of downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair, when the pressure is on in this way.''Yesterday, Hannan had this to say about the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent statements criticizing the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government's plan to reform welfare along the lines that the Clinton administration and a Republican congress reformed it so successfully in the US in the 1990s.
I like Rowan Williams. He is an intelligent man who always does his hearers the courtesy of addressing them intelligently. This habit often gets him into trouble, either because he is genuinely misunderstood or because his detractors affect to misunderstand him. But he admirably refuses to dumb down.
Still, I think he was unwise to criticise Iain Duncan Smith’s scheme to make the receipt of benefits contingent on a willingness to work. IDS hadn’t come up with his plan on the back of an envelope; nor was he motivated by the need to save money. He has spent five years looking at the root causes of worklessness and poverty, and has concluded that keeping unemployed people in touch with the rhythms of a working day is likely to make them more employable as well as more content. I happen to agree with him, although, of course, you can honourably disagree. What is less honourable is to question the Tories’ motives, to call them morally wrong rather than intellectually wrong.
What the Archbishop and Moore have in common is a reflexive antipathy toward capitalism and a tendency to frame the economics debate in a simplistic manner as good (welfare state) versus evil (capitalism). This seems to be a bedrock, core conviction with people on the whole spectrum of the left which never goes away no matter how much evidence comes in to support the idea that socialism does not work. They still believe they are morally superior because they oppose capitalism even though capitalism is the only alternative to tyranny. It is hard to make sense of this position.
Christine Odone, however, in her blog post, "Rowan Williams wants to be like Thomas More but risks looking like Don Quixote," helps immensely, in my opinion:
Rowan Williams, the most interesting Archbishop of Canterbury in years, is as capable of a sophisticated analysis of Dostoyevsky as an innovative interpretation of Aquinas. Yet when it comes to politics he is a simple, old-fashioned socialist who believes the State should intervene when its citizens can’t cope. Hence his attack on the Coalition’s plans for welfare reform: Williams wants to cushion every blow for every citizen, and believes no one should ever feel the pinch of poverty or the pang of hunger.
For my colleague Janet Daley, Williams’s broadside seems a daft attack on work. The Archbishop’s target, in fact, is much more ambitious: capitalism. It is a system that he instinctively deplores, seeing in it greed-generating machine that cannot be controlled and that causes injustice and misery. Williams champions benefits as the humane face of the cruel market. . . .
Capitalism may be hugely flawed, but communism has been totally discredited, and the socialist experiments have evolved into capitalist-lite economies that owe little to Marx. Even the most hard-bitten Lefties, although they may have forgotten to tell Rowan Williams, have moved on from the “Capitalism Must Go” position.In this new global understanding, the Christian ethic of William Temple and Rowan Williams, with its emphasis on community and mutual responsibility, still has a role to play. The Churches, with their voluntary groups and inclusive ethos, can establish themselves at the centre of the Big Society. They can provide a guiding light and a moral grounding. . . .
Instead, in a move that betrays a dangerous unworldliness, the Archbishop seeks to be the troublesome priest, the man of conscience who will make life difficult for government. It’s the wrong role, and the wrong target. It shows a misunderstanding of contemporary politics but also of contemporary principles such as “aspiration”.For the unworldly Dr Williams, aspiration lies somewhere between unfettered ambition and greedy accumulation. It’s about having and achieving worldly goods which, in the great scheme of things, should not matter a jot. Aspiration smacks of “me”, not the caring sharing “we” that is at the heart of the Christian message.
This is why, when the Coalition – and in particular Iain Duncan Smith – argue that the present welfare system stifles aspiration, their words make no impression on Dr Williams. He refuses to consider that withdrawing some benefits might enable some citizens to create their own good fortune; in his view, a government that wants to reduce its role as provider is ducking its responsibility.
In fact, as Duncan Smith has argued, aspiration is as much about the single mum on the council estate wanting to improve her children’s chances as about the City banker gunning for the big Christmas bonus. Judicious, carefully targetted benefits do not hold back the citizen fizzing with get up and go. But a benefits culture, in which welfare guarantees you a better lifestyle than you can earn through hard graft, risks clogging the arteries of even the most eager, leaving them paralysed if not lifeless.
The Coalition is working to change this culture: the disadvantaged will benefit from its success. That is why the Archbishop of Canterbury must rein in his Don Quixote tendencies.
I have quoted Odone extensively here because she is so utterly lucid about what is the problem with old-fashioned left-wingers like Moore and Williams. As she explains, their relentless opposition to the notion of "aspiration" ends up hurting the very people they purport to be wanting to help. They cannot keep a firm grasp what is good, noble and humane about the virtue of working hard to support oneself and one's family because they cannot separate the idea of "aspiration" from those of greed, immoral manipulation and hoarding.
I think Odone is profoundly right on this and she has put her finger on the central problem of the old-fashioned socialist critique of capitalism. It fails to value highly enough something that is intrinsic to human nature: the need for self-respect that arises from working hard to gain a living. This self-respect must be earned; it cannot be received as a gift. This is a profound insight into human nature that seems to have escaped the socialists.
Capitalism needs to be defended as more than a necessary evil; it needs to be defended as being in harmony with the essence of human nature itself and not merely fallen human nature.
More on this theme will follow.
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