[MD] Unreality of Equality

[LARAMIE LOEWEN]

Dear Ham,

Your taking a "step down" into the political arena has made the world a better place.  A genuine tour de force.  Bravo brother!

Larz
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ham Priday<mailto:hampday1 at verizon.net> 
  To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org<mailto:moq_discuss at moqtalk.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 11:01 PM
  Subject: Re: [MD] Unreality of Equality



  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


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