Daily Archives: 30 January 2012

Outcome Inequality

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The Daily Caller is writing about “The Inequality Trap,” in the context of income inequality.  Indeed, TheDC points out the hypocrisy generally inherent in the plaints:

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, heads of state and billionaires from around the globe lamented the fact that some people are not as well off as they are, and called for government to do something about it. Then they went skiing.

And our favorite uncle Warren Buffet decries the premise that he pays less (income) tax than his secretary and wants government to raise his taxes—all the while declining to make donations to the Treasury and while doing everything legally within his and his accountants’ skill to reduce his own total tax bite.

Income or tax inequality, though, is just a small part of a larger item—inequality of outcomes generally.  The fact is, we can have equality of opportunity, as the principles statement of our social contract, or Declaration of Independence, promises us; or we can have equality of outcomes, as the Progressives today want us to have.  We can’t have both.

Not every individual has the same degree of talent, or capability, or work ethic of every other individual.  John Adams understood this:

Although, among men, all are subject by nature to equal laws of morality, and in society have a right to equal laws for their government, yet no two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity, and virtue, or ever can be made so by any power less than that which created them.

Forcing equal outcomes, then, is nothing more than denial of a more successful man’s right to the fullness of his Liberty and Life by denying him the right to the fruits of his success, his right to achieve his fullest potential, and it holds him back for no other reason than that others have not kept up.  This also subsidizes the less successful so they have the same outcomes as the more successful independently of their own labors.  This government subsidy, then, usurps that individual’s right to make his own decisions and makes the government responsible for each individual’s welfare, eliminating that individual’s own responsibilities and obligations.

But restraining the more successful, or subsidizing the less successful, are the same thing: the more successful are denied full value for their work, their talent, and their skills.  In the first instance, the more successful are held back directly, with the full measure of their success denied them.  In the second, the more successful are denied the same extra return to their performance that is awarded the less successful through subsidy.  Here, for instance, is every child receiving a prize, independent of the outcome from his effort or skill or talent, and so both the self-esteem of the child who did not do well and that of the child who won the competition are damaged by not being able to reap a reward consistent with actual effort or reap the consequences of failure and the opportunity to learn from that—with its own concomitant return to self-esteem.  Each child functionally receives only a participation award.  Here, too, is the high school orchestra, having won a state-wide competition in one year denied by rule the opportunity to compete at all in the following year.  This punishment for success denies the successful orchestra the opportunity for further success, and it denies the newly “winning” orchestra the opportunity to show that it is truly the best by outperforming last year’s winner.  Here, too, is the man who worked hard, both at the particular endeavor and at acquiring the skills necessary for success in the endeavor, and who was able to bring his talent to bear, being forced to give up some portion of the results of his more successful effort to another who did not do as well.  This concept of equal outcomes punishes the successful for their success, and it denies the unsuccessful the opportunity to do better and to become successful in their own right.

Instead, under our social compact, each American has an equal opportunity to achieve his version of the American dream, to achieve the full potential of his own capabilities.  This necessarily produces unequal outcomes when measured merely by fiscal wealth or material possession.  However, this equal opportunity is a grand implementation of American rights and liberties, as it provides the greatest equality for the protections of each one’s existence, rights, freedoms, and social well-being.  This also produces the greatest moral strength.

Thomas Jefferson understood this, too:

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not, exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

The Republican Primaries

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I haven’t posted on the Republican race for a presidential candidate in a while.  I’ve been wrong every time before; what’s one more?

Gingrich’s ads and campaign are beginning to have the air of a desperate man.  They’re getting increasingly shrill and personal, and they do not contrast (favorably) his own ideas and policies either with those of his fellow Republican candidates or those of President Obama.  His presence does, though, have a positive effect on the primary campaign in general.

For one thing, the longer the Republicans go without a clear front runner, the longer the question of who the Republican nominee will be remains unanswered, and the longer the campaigns run, the debates, whether on a stage or via dueling ads and speeches, will force the candidates to clarify their positions, their policies, their ideas, and their solutions in their own minds and in the minds of Americans before this fall.  This can only work to the good of the eventual nominee as he faces a Progressive candidate whose record of governing failure is as clear as is his skill at obfuscation, changing the subject, and raising straw men for his own opponent to defend.

For another thing, Gingrich’s continued survival as a viable candidate is forcing all of the other candidates to sharpen their own debating and communications skills, which also can only work to the benefit of the eventual nominee when he faces that Progressive in the fall.  This improvement in skill and clarity of communication is palpable.

Congressman Ron Paul has gone from frequent mumbling incoherence, from reliance on the inside oral shorthand that he and his coterie have evolved over their 30 years in relative isolation in the House, to a much clearer enunciation of his principles and a much sharper expression of his ideas and solutions.  And once we can understand him, his domestic ideas and solutions are very much worth taking seriously.

Senator Rick Santorum has become a much less a one-dimensional, only anti-abortion candidate.  He’s been forced to talk more about his economic ideas—and he has good ones—and to talk more about solutions to entitlements, the role of self-confidence and self-reliance, and the place of education in facilitating these.  And the Federal government’s (lack of) place in that education.  And in Thursday’s debate, he had the clearest comment of the night, when on the subject of government-provided health care, he pointed out (for the first time by anybody, with this degree of clarity) that it didn’t matter whether it was the Federal government or a state government that forced an individual to buy health insurance as a condition of existence: it was still government run health care, it was still top-down control and not individual choice.

Governor Mitt Romney was, in the beginning, a pure technocrat, who could only speak in the details and weeds, without clarity, and with too much mildness—often perceived as timidity.  The debates—with Gingrich’s sharp participation—have forced him to develop a sharper approach, and he, too, has gotten much clearer as he explains his policies and solutions.  He needs to improve his explanation of the role and benefits of capitalism, particularly against the background of the Bain rap (unfounded, but still there), but he’s improved on this a great deal.  Likewise, he needs to improve his explanation of his position on health care, but he’s gotten better there, as well.  He’s finally said in so many words that he’ll work to repeal in toto Obamacare; although as Santorum pointed out Thursday, he still needs to work on his explanation for Romneycare.

Speaker Newt Gingrich, though, isn’t getting any better.  Certainly one reason is that he’s already very good, and his opponents have been unable until recently to challenge him as he’s been able to challenge them.  However, one of the raps on him is that, for all his debating skills, when he meets someone who can match him, he folds.  This was clearly demonstrated in last Thursday’s debate when he began to remonstrate with the moderator Wolf Blitzer.  When Blitzer pushed back, Gingrich backed down.  Later, Gingrich admitted he was flat generally in that debate: he doesn’t know how to debate effectively when the other debater is manufacturing “facts,” distorting issues, and so on.

You cannot debate somebody who is dishonest.  You just can’t….  I can’t debate somebody who won’t tell the truth….  I know what he’s saying is untrue. And I also know that, in that particular audience, it would not have worked to take him head on, so I backed out.

Given this admission, and given the audience stacking we can expect the Progressives to do, what should we expect from Gingrich in any debate with Obama, who will do exactly that on steroids?

Gingrich needs to pick two or three ideas and push those to the exclusion of all else; he needs to show how they’re better ideas than Obama’s and more so than are the ideas of his Republican competitors.  But he’s never been able to stay this focused.  He’s an outstanding idea man, but his inability to stay centered also works against his capacity to be President.

So….  These are desperate times, but that means we cannot afford a desperate man for our President.  Additionally, Paul’s foreign policy plans demonstrate his dangerous naiveté concerning the ways of the outside world.  I’m beginning to lean toward a Romney/Santorum ticket.  I don’t see Santorum on the top spot because I don’t think he has the temperament for President, but he does have the temperament to ride herd on the Senate, and he can certainly be an effective bad cop to the President’s good cop.