[MD] Unreality of Equality

[Ham Priday]

Arlo, Platt, Khaled, and all --

As a rule, I make it a practice to avoid political arguments -- even those
made in the name of Philosophy.  However, since the interest demonstrated in
this topic since Platt introduced it yesterday rivals anything I've seen
here in a 48-hour period, I may as well step into the ring.  (I do this at
my own peril, knowing full well that nobody here is going to like what I
say.)

First of all, unlike SA, I don't think we're anywhere near agreement.  As
usual, everyone is coming to the forum from a different perspective and
"repackaging" the ideas expressed by the previous poster into suitable
ammunition for his particular argument.  If nothing else, this is should be
a clear indication that the notion of human equality is a myth.

Andrew Bernstein, a Philosophy professor at the University of New York,
believes it's a fundamental fact of man's nature and the world in which he
lives "that he must create the values upon which his survival depends."
(Feel free to substitute Quality for Bernstein's "values" in this excerpt):

"Human beings must work productively to support their existence, and that of
any children they choose to bring into the world.  Any ostensibly benign
scheme of paternalism, which offers to support men with no productive effort
on their part, gives to human beings a false message.  It severs the tie
between productivity and values, between an individual's creative work and
his capacity to consume.  It tells man that he can subsist without the
creating values. The welfare state is the secularized equivalent of religion
's Garden of Eden, substituting a bountiful Society for God as the source of
man's support. The theory is as false as the religious fantasy it is based
on; it is false in reality, it is metaphysically false, whatever Marxist
intellectuals and politicians believe.

"The welfare state conducts a war on value creation - and its recipients
remain mired in poverty, because having been seduced onto the dole they have
struck a Faustian bargain with the devil. ...[T]he welfare state's
fundamental horror is its assault on the mind.  Man's rational faculty is
the fundamental means by which he creates values and achieves prosperity on
earth. The welfare state, by severing the connection between values and
productive work, renders the mind unnecessary as a tool of survival.  Its
development and use is no longer required, because it has been replaced by a
paternalistic state."

My dad used to have a saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it, too."  I
think this is an apt description of what society expects today, and how
trying to implement this fallacy is destroying the entrepreneurial incentive
which is the cornerstone of Capitalism.  Americans got along fine as
capitalists until 1913 when Woodrow Wilson levied an income tax of 1% on
incomes above $3,000 and applied a 2% - 7% surcharge on income from $20,000
to $500,000.  A few years later the Supreme Court added "progressivity" to
the federal tax system, with the result that the money raised ballooned from
$1 billion in 1939 to $19 billion in 1955.  The average American now works
20 years of his life for the government.

Why does our government need all this money?  Because Americans now demand
'cradle to grave' protection as a civil right and will vote for the
politicians who promise to satisfy them.

Arlo says:

> Personally, I'd favor a culture that feeds its hungry
> and heals its sick over one that spends billions to put a man
> on a distant rock while people starve and go without shelter.

The truth is, we can't have both.  We can't advance intellectually and
technologically as the world's most powerful nation by going into bankruptcy
to support the myth that everyone should have equal status.  Arlo will have
an anxiety attack, but Milton Friedman showed how we could achieve equality
of income on a do-it-yourself basis, instead of having the government
appropriate our money to do it.

"You can, if you are an egalitarian, estimate what money income would
correspond to your concept of equality.  If your actual income is higher
than that, you can keep that amount and distribute the rest to people who
are below that level.  If your criterion were to encompass the world -- as
most egalitarian rhetoric suggests it should -- something less than, say,
$200 a year per person would be an amount that would correspond to the
conception of equality that seemsa implicit in most egalitarian rhetoric.
That would be the average income per person worldwide."     -- Friedman:
"Free to Choose"

Arlo also asked:

> Should we abolish minimum wage laws? Worker's
> compensation? Workplace safety regulations?
> Anti-monopoly laws? Product safety laws? I won't
> argue that some of these as they exist couldn't use rethinking,
> but should they all be tossed out the window in favor of the
> invisible hand?

I don't know what the "invisible hand" refers to, but Government was never
conceived to be a caretaker for the n'ere-do-well, uneducated, and
low-achievers who are increasingly turning a once vigorous nation into a
"victimized" society.  This isn't an issue of "compassion for the little
guy" versus "right-wing zealots" (to use Arlo's terms).  It's common sense
that has little to do with politics.  We may all be "equal under God", but
nature didn't make us equal, nor is it either fair or feasible for
government to ensure the feeding, housing, education, health and purchasing
power of all its citizens on an equal plain by penalizing its income
producers.  (By the way, Arlo, our government is not an "oligarchy" but a
burgeoning bureaucracy.)

The real world is neither fair nor equal for any of us.  Life is a challenge
to make the best of the opportunities available.  It would be a dull place,
indeed, if we were all alike and everybody did the same thing.  I found this
quote by Murray Rothbard which expresses the same thought more eloquently:

"A fundamental reason and grounding for liberty are the ineluctable facts
that each individual is a unique person, in many ways different from all
others.  If individual diversity were not the universal rule, then the
argument for liberty would be weak indeed.  For if individuals were as
interchangeable as ants, why should anyone worry about maximizing the
opportunity for every person to develop his mind and his faculties and his
personality to the fullest extent possible?"
                -M. Rothbard: "Equalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature"

One of the prerequisites for a successful free market system is that the
playing field NOT be level.  The uneveness of the free market depends on the
un-equality of participants and opportunities so that adjustments can be
made effectively and without government intervention.  The same is true for
the individual who, whatever his socio-economic status or talents, has the
responsibility to sustain himself in a society of diverse skills and unequal
opportunities so as not to become a victim of the welfare state.  This, it
seems to me, is a minimal requirement for enjoying the freedom and living
standards of the world's most envied nation.

Just a few thoughts to bring some balance into this discussion.

Regards to all,
Ham