[MD] Unreality of Equality

[Platt Holden]

Ham -

Your post should be required reading at least twice a semester for 
every college student and four times a year for every secondary school 
student in the nation. It reflects the philosophical foundation of 
America as distinct from socialist outlook of Europe as well as any 
short piece I've ever seen. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to 
contribute this to the archives of this site. Now if we could just 
unite your metaphysics with Pirsig's . . .  :-)

Best regards,
Platt

> 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