The Dismal Economics of Utopia
Imagine a point in our bright future — a glorious time! — when all incomes will be equal. Perhaps this wonderment shall be accomplished by a new global Enlightenment, perhaps it will arrive by fiat: all incomes, the narrowly passed legislation will read, shall henceforth be equal.
Equality at last! Oh, the unbridled joy of knowing that everybody else is finally no better than I am! President Obama’s stated goal of redistribution, at least in terms of income, will have been realized.
If the afterlife which these men said does not exist actually does, Marx, Godwin, Condorcet, and similar intellectual giants will smile down in pride from there, basking in the knowledge that the adolescent human race has finally grown up.
What are the consequences of this fairness?
The exact number of people alive when the blessing comes upon us is irrelevant, as is the mandated income, but suppose it is $50,000. Now, as most economists do, let’s look at the distribution of household income (I owe this example to Thomas Sowell).
The mean household income will be about $116 thousand. About 40% of households will make that much or less, and 60% will make more. Now, $116 thousand makes the people who only pull in $50K look poor: that is, equality will force about 16% of the population to be “poor.”
What about the rich? Depends on what “rich” means, of course, but take $200K as a starting point. That is, after all, four times as much as the “poor” make. About 37% of households will be “rich.” The really wealthy household incomes start around $500K. Just less than 1% of all households will make at least that much.
What about the households of the Bill Gateses and Carlos Slims of the future? Those households which make more than $700K? As now, they will be a rarity: just over 1 out of every million households will be obscenely rich.
What’s going on? Everybody is equal by law! How can there be rich and poor when everybody receives the equality-salary of $50 thousand?
Easy: households are not comprised of equal numbers of people. Some households have just one person, more have two or three, fewer have four, and fewer still have five or more. The exact distribution isn’t important; I picked one in common use by demographers.
The artificial creation of rich and poor households derives from the socialist goal of equality, which demands that every person receive the same income. And “every person” by definition includes infants, the aged, and everybody in between.
“No fair!” you might be thinking, “Your example is silly. Everybody knows that equality does not mean awarding equal salaries to babies and the residents of nursing homes.”
Everybody does not know that. If you lust for equality, the burden is on you to define exactly what “equality” means.
Socialists and other utopians are usually content to let this definition float, and let its fuzziness work to their advantage. This sly trick puts realists on the defensive, who are ever nervous about making statements that might be judged hostile to equality.
So far we have had a hint of the large-scale corruption that occurs when incomes are reported by household. Let me show you how you can go from poor to rich by the flip of a switch.
In real life, most households have one or two bacon suppliers. Some have none, some have three or more. Suppose, judging it to be absurd to award infants a salary (and not every socialist would), equality is defined to mean that each household is only allowed to have one income.
Then the mean household income would indeed be $50K. And there would be no rich and no poor households because each household earns exactly the same.
But consider per capita income. Sixteen-percent of the population will make an average salary of $50K, 24% will make an average of just $25K. These people are rich compared to the roughly 1% who will average just $6,500, and the 1% bottom-of-the-barrel poor who will average about $4,000 or less.
Best of all, our new definition of equality ensures that those who used to be rich under the old definition are now poor! In the new definition, larger households are penalized, under the old they were rewarded.
This result also assumes that people of all ages go into the averages. But neither this nor the first analysis need that assumption. We can eliminate babies: the artificial creation of rich and poor happens even if you consider only “adults.”
Perhaps utopia can still be found by eschewing household statistics and considering wealth instead of income? It cannot. But that is a lesson for another time.
You’ve missed the boat completely. A true Utopian would do away with money entirely. Wealth and income measured in monetary terms are nonsensical to a utopian. The only thing dismal here is pretending that capitalism and utopia could ever meet. You can’t buy happiness!
Peace.
DS
A true Utopian would do away with money entirely. Wealth and income measured in monetary terms are nonsensical to a utopian.
Money is just a concrete symbol of a contract across time. The issuers of money are making a contract with its users that it will hold value and the exchanges made with money by its users are a contract to provide a good or service as part of the exchange. That’s why hyperinflation and severe deflation kill economic activity, by altering the “normal” relationship of money’s value to time.
Are utopians going to do away with the necessity of making promises across time to accomplish things too? Are we supposed to live a in “perpetual present” like lower animals do? I guess that’s a utopia in its own right, since cats and dogs and other animals do seem happy. Wow, so to get utopia all we need to do is devolve. Lobotomies for everyone!
When I imagine an utopian society, I don’t imagine money. I imagine promises being kept, but not because there is the penalty of non-payment looming. Promises are kept, truths are told, and hatred disappears because of a mutual responsibility that everyone ‘feels’ towards each other. There is no need for the physical yoke of money to bind our intentions, because a utopian society has transcended money. Obligations are therefor fulfilled or forgiven based on the needs of the community alone. Now if that sounds crazy, then don’t bring up the idea of utopia. Socialists don’t.
This author seems to be attempting to show how economic equality, or the way he defines it, can be manipulated to produce economic inequality. His argument is an attempt at reductio ad absurdum because he goes from one extreme definition of economic equality to the other, proving each ridiculous. However, at no point does he fairly consider the middle ground where income is given to individuals (not babies), rather than households, in a rational way (read: when the individual is an adult and no longer a dependent). Unfortunately, the author also makes no mention of the inequality of the current capitalist system or ways to combat it.
The author is somehow comforted by offering snarky stabs and vitriolic repudiation, all the while not understanding the task at hand or the terms he uses. It’s unfortunate.
- Troy
Oh, so you ascribe to the “Centralized government as gigantic holding company” theory of socialism, not “utopian socialism”. Fair enough and there are almost as many variants of socialism as there are socialist. I am assuming then that your ideal is one central authority making decisions for everyone and getting rid of that pesky “inefficiency” of having too many choices, right?
Yeah, the problem is that is as “utopian” as the kind of utopia the author makes fun of, the only difference being where the utopian impulse finds its implementation lever. In the “Government as holding company” utopia, the “utopian” impulse mistakenly assumes that there is a way for enough information to flow out of the masses of individuals and up to a central decision-making power, which would then make wise decisions based on this information. While that may sound good in theory, that is as utopian as the view that we could do away with money and still have things function.
Even in Heaven, putting others first means others as individuals, not the collective. Collectivism destroys human dignity by rendering humans to be mere cogs in a machine.
So now we know that you cannot read in addition to making pathetic excuses for your favored ideology.
Socialists don’t bring up the idea of Utopia? Which kinds of socialists don’t bring up the idea of Utopia? I thought that the reason it’s so hard to get to Utopia is the difficult job of creating the “Soviet Man”. Takes some strong controls to create “Soviet Man”.
The other problem is that “Power corrupts”. And there are a few other inconveniences on the road to Utopia. As Andrew Klavan reminds us, every dream of equality (equal outcomes) eventually becomes a dream of tyranny.
“This author seems to be attempting to show how economic equality, or the way he defines it, can be manipulated to produce economic inequality.”
No. The author does not define equality, but rather shows how slippery it is to do so. The author was also far too kind to the concept. You claim a middle ground exists. OK, what is it? Does it take into the account that not all labor is equally difficult, flexible, fulfilling, dangerous, education based, talent based, or requiring the same hourly commitments? Does it take into account that some people like working harder than others so long as they are rewarded for it? Does it take into account that some would very happily trade wages for less work, or trade labor for opportunity and experience?
The greatest difficulty facing a utopia is that few of us can agree even a little bit as to what it would look like. This, I believe, is what the author was illustrating. It wasn’t “snarky stabs” and and misuse of terminology at all, and you presented no evidence to the contrary for such a snotty comment.
Hope that helps.
In the mind of a utopian, there are never shortages. Everybody works as hard as they can everyday, and puts the results of their labor into a common pot. At the end of the day, each person takes what he needs and no more.
Of course your average utopian is a total idiot.
Please define these inequalities of capitalism. Do you mean that it is wrong for someone who works harder, or smarter than others, to get a bigger return?
Don’t quite follow the math at the end, unfortunately this area is not one of my strong suites. So on the follow up could you include further explanation for someone like me?
“… not one of my strong suites.”
It is not alone.
I’m not sure what his source is, but the author is using statistics about the number of individuals per household. If the new Equality! paychecks are apportioned individually, larger households will command more resources than smaller ones. If the checks arrive per household, however, larger households will be much poorer per person (so much so that the author passes over an obvious effect: households would either splinter or at least pretend to splinter for gov’t purposes.)
_De Novâ Insulâ Utopiâ deque Neonovissimâ Terrâ Foxcuculandense Dialogulus_ [0]
“Imagine a point in our bright future — a glorious time! — when all incomes will be equal.”
***
Q. Who gives a hoot about *their* future? The future of neo-sweet-puppiedom, forsooth! The ‘future’ of AstroTu®fbaggin’ victims? Indeed, the ‘brightness’ of ’tu®fbaggees, past, present, or yet to come! Give – me – a – break.
A. Well, but Dr. Bones, presumably the puppies must care themselves?
Q. There is no ‘must’ about it. I suppose you, sir, would have explained to St. Charles Darwin about how species MUST be fixed, or to the Rev. Pan Kopernik that the sun MUST not.be fixed. _Qui pauca considerat facile pronuntiat_.
A. But Neocomrade (6th Class) W. M. Briggs only said ‘imagine’. He admits he is just daydreamin’. Why come down on him like a tonne of brickbats?
Q. Oh, for Pete’s sake. Look, McSpoofster, you must at least have noticed that the wretched critter was tryin’ to be sarcastic about “bright future,” that in fact it supposes that, after a couple of degenerations of rather unaccountable detours, the Western Sieve (Pat. Pend.) product is back on the ®oad to Hayekdom at last — with O’Whoziz, the colourblind Utopican-American fiend from Cook County, back in the saddle of FDR.
A. Well, yes, to be sure, ‘bright’ is ‘dark’ _chez Briggs_, but . . .
Q. … but why suppose it is not trashily sarcazzin’ about Imagination and Futurity as well?
A. Is that a real question or a rhetorical one, sir?
Q. Every time you ask me that I give the same answer, and this is the 13,208th time. Dr. Alzheimer must be about ready to put down his cards and claim all the rest of your tricks.
This time, please make a memorandumb of the answer so we can save some time in future. Whenever I ask a question you feel even slightly tempted to account rhetorical, you may answer it either way, as if it were a genuine act of enquiry or a back-handed positive assertion. Best of all for everbody is when I original-intented a question to be rhetorical, but you come along show that there is some real ‘there’ there. O.K.?
A. Sure. Does that mean you think the Big Management Party neocomrade was only makin’ fun of Imagination and Futurity?
Q. You must see, at least, that it was laughin’ from what it supposes decent political grown-ups to imagine about the World to Come. Kiddies and kiddiemasters–plus kiddiemaster wannabes like this shabby pajamatarian specimen–never mean anythin’ else when they drag out the heavy artillery and start bangin’ away about ‘Utopia’. Bangin’ away AT Utopia, in fact, since the Muses and you and I, like all other DPGU’s, are fools to imagine such a monstrosity, and knaves (if not fiends) to imagine a ‘real’ future [1] that would be even the least bit like so foul an imagination.
A. Are not the puppies’ fever-swamp visions of One Big Ma®ket to be termed Utopian as well? How about that “Investment Society” peddled by George XLIII and the merry men of Kennebunkport-Crawford? Or Neocomrade Herr Prof. Dr. F. von Fukuyama’s mildly notorious _Ende der Geschichte_?
Q. Come along, McSpoofster, you know how rigorously the kiddiemasters weekly-standardise. No silly doo-doo of theirs is ever to be called ‘Utopian’, regardless of how well it might seem to conform to (what they themselves have offered as) a neutral or ‘objective’ definition of the U-word. That kind of offer should *always* be treated as actual or potential Indian-givin’, sir, when it comes from the direction of Rio Limbaugh. _Spernamus Danaos et dona ferentes!_
Despite the noises they like to emit, the kiddies do not seriously believe in any neutrality or objectivity that works against their own neoselves. Remember your Holy Writ, sir! Hath not Neocomrade Karl, Freelord of Rove, vouchsafed that “WE are an Empire now, and when WE act, WE create OUR OWN reality … (&c. &c.) ….”? [http://tinyurl.com/533kj]
To criticize that factious tripe and baloney, the “Rovan Empire,” as it were, as bein’ itself Utopian by any sane standard is pointless. What have sane standards to do with wingnutettes and wingnuts and wombscholars and downdumbees? The señoritoly element, the kiddies’ own ‘conservative’ ‘intellectuals’, possess a purely external workin’ knowledge of sane standardization, no doubt, but their H. Mansfelds and their N. & J. von Podhóretzen are no more goin’ta convert to it merely because they understand it than we shall turn Turk because we find _‘ilm ’ijmálí_ a fine idea that nobody west of Suez seems ever to have thought of.
Kiddie selfservatives proper, infants and juveniles, find it lots more fun to live as noble Rovans and subjects of Foxcuckooland. The real kiddiemasters find it very profitable to help them do so as much as possible. REALLY very profitable.
The señoritos at Wingnut City’s Tanks of Thought and organs of agitprop are rather left out, I’d say. Neocomrade (Sixth Class) W. Briggs is not much of a neoseñorito, I fear, but one must make allowances for fifty percent of everything being subpar. Anyway, it, the neocomrade, will do well enough for _exempli gratiâ_ purposes. As follows:
Almost certainly, it understands tolerably well what decent political adults (not to mention standard reference works) mean by ‘Utopia’ and ‘Utopian’ — and then perceives in a flash that *that* sort of meaning is quite useless in the path of Party an’ Ideology. The words must be snatched away from Sir Thomas More and entrusted to Clarabelle the clown in order that NC-6 Briggs can deploy them for purposes of swiftboatin’ the better sort of enemy, say bad folks actually named by name on ®upert’s List, that _omnium gatherum_ of all the WC dossiermongers’ hard-won dossiers.
“Slay the lords, spare the commons” was, I have been told, the done thing back in Century IX/XIV/LII, or at least the thing attempted to be done. In the Greater Texan language of 1431/2010/5770, that soundbite comes to “Swiftboat the elitists! Turfbag the Reagan Democrats!” More or less. And _mutatibus mutandis_, such as, maybe one could drop the name of the sweet puppies’ adored St. Ronnie? Of whom the puppies entertain some ideas that NC-6 Briggs would colour ‘Utopian’ in half a microsecond, if entertained outside the monkey house. [2]
***
Considering, O Constant Reader, that we have yet to reach the end of NC-6 Buggs’s first sentence, perhaps we had better break off righ
___
[1] There exists an ontological issue about whether any future can really be more than imaginary before it ceases to be mellontic. Allow me to recommend The Master’s _De Interpretatione_: “Let me illustrate. A sea-fight must either take place to-morrow or not, but it is not necessary that it should take place to-morrow, neither is it necessary that it should not take place, yet it is necessary that it either should or should not take place to-morrow.” &c. &c. [I.9 translated at http://tinyurl.com/l98pwd.
"What did Aristotle know about Trafalgar, and when did he know it?" Now *that* would be a fun question for you, McSpoofster! Not for the Pajama People, though, so do it at home and then we'll talk.
[2] (( “Was ‘Mornin’ in America’ a Utopia, then, Neocomrade Goldberg?”
(( “’Course not. Couldn’a’ been. It’s only utopian when *they* do it. You must study your neocatechism more diligently, neocomradess! Try [http://tinyurl.com/ypv7sh], available on line! Or at least please buy it on line and then lay it out on the coffee table in plain sight for when the _Begriffspolizei_ drop by.” ))
My, you put a lot of effort into this rank stupidity. What’s with the footnotes? They add nothing to the conversation.
Maybe Alexander Tytler was right.
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage
In re third-rate: this is not learning, and even less wit, but drooling pedantry with much more than its thumb up its arse.
An astonishingly pointless exercise. More pajamas media vilification of a conveniently constructed enemy. One would have to look long and hard to find any political group of significance who is calling for anything remotely like absolute equality. What has obvious bad consequences is not inequality per se but and an excessive and growing disparity of wealth and income and a corresponding decline in social mobility. The problem is more Madisonian than Marxist: as the U.S. becomes more and more like a banana republic, dollars–but maybe we should switch over to pesos–replace votes.
The prospect of limitless gain is obviously motivating, for example it certainly motivates drug dealers and hedge fund managers to give their all. On the evidence of the last 40 years, however, promoting the prosperity of the already prosperous doesn’t seem to work very well for the economy as a whole. The Reagan rationale for reducing the progressivity of the income tax was trickle down, but Conservative economics haven’t resulted in an era when a rising tide lifts all boats. Absurd disparities of wealth promote bubbles since all that money has to go somewhere and real-economy investment opportunities are limited because of a lack of effective demand.
You’re right about the straw-man, but you’re wrong about the other stuff. The tide did indeed raise all boats. Do you know what a KIA is?
The disparity between the rich and the “poor” means absolutely, absolutely (see, I wrote it twice) nothing. If a child eats, sleeps, and goes to school alright on a minimal budget then the role of Government to create opportunity has been accomplished, and the only justification to take from those with more wealth concerns Envy, or some other unlawful motivation. The range between “rich” and “poor” does not signify anything that concerns the Law. The economics of social justice only concern ensuring that Opportunity has the minimal funds taken from the wealth of the nation to be supportable. Minimal, because going beyond that is not Socialism, as it is being called, but injustice to individual property rights. Social justice does not trump individual rights, because social justice is DERIVED from individual rights.
Okay, people under 18 should get free healthcare, too, but that is the line. And we can see how badly the Democrats overthrew on healthcare – insuring adults under their parents until they’re 26? – so, the question is why? The Democrat Lefties have an ulterior motive, and we are all wracking our brains to figure it out (including the talking Left).
That’s just it- we know what Obama’s agenda is, but the actions he’s taking (and Congress, too) just don’t make any sense according to any theory or strategy. What I’m left to conclude is that he’s malicious, but bad at it.
Obama has taken over college loans (a consequence of taking over the major banking industry and the generation and control of money at the Federal level). He wants them to be supported by their parents to further drain the parents resources after destroying their 401k plans and mortgages.
Need I point out where this is going? Making victims of all “young” people to offset the loss in older people who paid their dues and are now being robbed by Obama and his henchmen.
Nobody has a right to the product of anyone else’s labor. Period.
If you want someone to take care of you, ask.
I believe the Healthcare Bill was SO bad and will just move along far enough, that most people will scream for one payer system to replace it. It will be too messy to do anything else. That is the plan. Look at New York.
As written, the current bill will drive all private insurance companies into bankruptcy. At which point the govt will ride in to the rescue.
You declare that too much inequality is bad, but you fail to define how much inequality is acceptable. So you are as guilty of building strawmen as you claim the author is.
BTW, you assume that there is a bad level of inequality. Why?
You chastise the author for the sin of taking socialists at there word, when they claim they want equality.
Then you declare that all you want to do is eliminate excessive equality, but you fail to define what excessive inequality is? Is it a 100% difference between poorest and richest? A 10%? A 1% difference?
Like all socialists, you make grand sounding statements that become ridiculous when attempts are made to implement them.
BTW, why do you assume that there is some level of inequality that is by definition bad? Are you truely injured when someone has more than you do?
If you don’t believe the poor have gotten richer during the last 40 years, then your eyes are as shut as your mind.
You know, I don’t recall saying Socialism is utopia, that would be stupid ha ha
It is your term, isn’t it…
Yes, the world is far to complex to be run without a free market. I just don’t see why we Americans have to supply and endless pool of poor people so you can get your car washed.
I hate to be the one to point this out, but this is just a straw man argument. I’ve never heard of, nor understood any general notion from the Left that everyone should be making the same amount of money. Haven’t you read A Brave New World? All the lower classes need is something to placate them. I mean, nobody is really fooled (nobody with brains) into thinking that the poor just need to have the empowerment of a good salary, or even a full education (I mean, come on, most people hate school, and just as well). They’d squander it, and they, and everyone, knows it. We are stimulus junkies. 3-D t.v. anyone? Oh, and as an aside, if you don’t think a television is an idol, you’re wrong. You know what t.v. is an idol of? The Mind.
Some awesome safe euphoric drug, some earth-friendly/worshiping State religion will do the trick. All I can imagine that the poor might demand in monetary reward is the ability to once or twice travel to some place on the globe (and speak their own language). A slight uptick in their income solves that, and hey, that’s all Obama is suggesting is necessary. Just enough to placate the people, to buy their vote (so long as we’re still voting). We’ll give you the drugs and creature exalting religious experiences you want in the meantime. Just be patient. Hope.
Money is irrelevant in a true utopia, but human nature being what it is (different ambitions, intellects, abilities, talents, horsetrading smarts, etc.) it can never happen. With no money or even everyone starting out with equal money, that changes pretty much immediately, b/c people will start bartering and a system for issuing units of trade (i.e. money) will come into being so that people don’t always have to trade tomatoes for ties, pickles for pants, shoes for shelled peas, books for bread, corn for, well, you get the idea. If a monetary system didn’t develop, we would have to turn into mini Wal-Marts.
The fact is, capitalism is the best system (not perfect, I’ll admit) for lifting people out of poverty. While it may seem at first glance selfish to seek wealth, it’s often just the opposite, whereby people who make a better mouse trap are rewarded for their inventiveness, creativity and/or ability, and thus improving the lives of others. The Obama administration’s wish to redistribute wealth in order to make things more “equal” will likely accomplish just the opposite: more people in poverty, just as Briggs points out here.
#6 Mr. Harrison, while trickle-down economics may not have accomplished your end of all boats lifted, it may be b/c some people’s boats had holes in them and they didn’t repair the holes. You don’t bring people out of poverty by destroying the rich. Who do you think creates jobs? Do you think it’s the median income welder, electrician, plumber, drywaller, dental hygienist, medical technician, office clerk, or secretary? Those people all perform necessary tasks, but they’re not the ones putting their names on the dotted line to get financing to build the new shopping center, office building or factory. Do you think the job creators are the guys/gals sitting at home doing nothing except drawing a check every month? I’m not seeing it.
The fact is, the job creators are the entrepreneurs, the dreamers, the risk-takers, the people who have an idea and have the inner fortitude to put it into action, most likely taking chances with at least some of their own money and often making sacrifices (being away from family, working long hours, putting off buying frivolities) along the way.
That a rising tide lifts all boats isn’t my idea. It was rhetoric that was used by conservatives to defend lowering the tax rates on the wealthy. I’m sure plenty of conservatives actually believed in their own propaganda, but it just hasn’t worked out, as witness the stagnation of median incomes. The game we’re playing now appears to be musical chairs rather than lifting boats. A lot of folks have decided that the way to success is to increase their proportion of the take rather than to increase the sum total of wealth.
Nobody is proposing “destroying the rich.” Indeed, my point was precisely that utopian egalitarianism just isn’t on the table. Of course folks in these parts are perfectly capable of getting hysterical about a 2% increase in the rate for the highest tax bracket. Remember how a minor adjustment in tax rates at the beginning of the Clinton administration was supposed to destroy the Republic?
The Chamber-of-Commerce bleat about entrepreneurs that Rockthistown emitted in his last paragraph would be more credible if the chief beneficiaries of Republican policies were indeed entrepreneurs instead of people with good sense to be born rich. I work in Silicon Valley. Out here a great many of the people who are actually building new industries support the Democrats because fiscal responsibility, better schools, and protection of the environment are more important than simply piling up a few more millions.
> Out here a great many of the people who are actually building
> new industries support the Democrats because of fiscal responsibility …
Fiscal responsibility from Democrats?
And you write this from the soon-to-be bankrupt Democratic People’s Republic of Kalifornia? What’s the current net rate of exodus from Kalifornia of people earning > $50,000/yr? More than a thousand a week. Meanwhile, Texas is showing a net influx.
Self delusion is the most powerful drug in the human pharmacopeia. You should read this book, and soon.
http://www.amazon.com/Vital-Lies-Simple-Truths-Self-deception/dp/0747534136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271622787&sr=8-1
Fiscal responsibility from democrats? What planet do you live on? I much prefer the stagnant median income under Republicans to the declining median income under the democrats. At what point do you frauds stop lying and start taking responsibility?
The most Fiscally responsible government/administration of our time was from 1992-2000 under Clinton. FACT.
The “Rising Tides lift all Boats” Tax cut meme cam from that renowned tax-cutting Conservative Republican John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
You’re absolutely correct about Kennedy and the rising boat line. The reduction of the highest tax rates did begin with him. For that matter, a great deal of deregulation began under Carter. Both parties have moved right in my lifetime, for all the good it’s done us. In fairness to Kennedy, however, the highest tax rates probably were too high when he took office. I’m not arguing that higher taxes for the rich are always a good thing, just that they are often a necessary thing when irresponsible wealth gets out of hand.
By the way, California’s very real budget problems are largely rooted in a series of goofy initiatives that tied the hands of the legislature, starved localities of tax revenues, and gave a veto power to extreme ideologues. California is one of many places that continues to suffer from the Reagan/Jarvis revolution. I don’t give the Democrats high marks for dealing with the problem, but the obvious solution–higher taxes–aren’t any more popular with them than they are with the Republicans.
I get it–Californians aren’t taxed enough!! I should have figured
Taxes in CA are already so high that businesses and people are leaving in record numbers. Yet you declare that the best solution are more taxes.
Why not eliminate some of the worthless govt programs?
Another point Jim conveniently leaves out, is that while tax rates were higher under JFK, so were deductions. The rich paid a much smaller percent of their incomes under JFK’s “high” tax rates than they do under todays “low” ones.
The rising tide won’t lift all boats equally if some of them were compelled by the government to be tied too closely to the pier, with short, taut lines, and capsize soon thereafter.
Oooooh, exactly.
I have a question, do those median income figures correct for age of the workforce? After all, if young people and immigrants are moving in, they take slots at the bottom of the income distribution, lowering the median income threshold.
1) Don’t forget that the catagory “the rich” include sole proprietorships, who file their business income under their personal tax returns. While the business may bring in a large revenue, it doesn’t mean that the individual can spend that revenue as he/she pleases.
2) What do “the rich” do with their money? Socialists seem to have this idea that – like Scrooge MacDuck – they pile it in a vault somewhere and swim in it. Rich people do two things with their money: They either invest it in an attempt to make more – in businesses that in turn employ people and create jobs, or they spend it – on things like yachts and airplanes, in turn supporting industries that employ people and create jobs.
They can also save the money. In which case the bank invests the money for them.
JFK was a conservative? Not according to the Democrats.
And the rising tide did indeed lift all boats. It has done a better job of lifting boats than welfare ever did.
Half the people in America make below the median income and even you conservotevs have to edmit it! And yes the names on that list change over time but i dont have time to make change and will heve to keep the whole doller, so ther!
Jim
Hate to break this to you, but the reality is this, in Silicon Valley, the great many people who are actually building new industries are supporting the Democrats for one simple reason, to get them off their backs. Fiscal responsibility? How’s California doing right now economically? Better schools, for who, the Silicon valley elite? Because for all intents and purposes, the better public schools only help the elite and the well connected in California. Better environment? It’s just nice to care for the environment when you don’t have to worry for a lot of other things like having a job, paying your mortgage and other worries of the middle class and the poor. Jim, if they are really not concerned on piling more millions in salary and stock options, they could have asked for a lower salary, drive a 20000 dollar car, fly economy and oh yeah, live in a 250,000 dollar house instead of 16 million dollar palatial estate. In my opinion, the only reason why they don’t pile more millions is not because they are altruistic, they don’t want to pay more taxes. They learned their lesson during the nineties and the Microsoft trial.
No Utopian society is possible.
We’re humans. The founders understood.
In a society where to inherently authoritarian institutions (Government and corporations)vie for supreme power, the one that makes the rules wins.
Fear the government; unless the tyranny of government can be checked and transformed into an independent, objective rule maker and enforcer of minimal regulation of the free market – we are doomed.
troy:
How “utopian”. Troy somewhere discovers a new race of humans, a type never seen before in all of human history; who do not behave normally; and populates his dream scenario with these altruistic droids. Time to wake up, troy, and move out of your mothers house. Kansas was several decades ago, son, its time you grew up.
The role of government in such a utopia will be to create the kind of people who will behave in the rquired fashion. Historically, this usually has involved standing everyone else against a wall.
The Federal Government is “officially” $13 trillion in debt — without adding the $50 trillion or so in unfunded mandates — and currently spending $1.5 trillion or $2 trillion more than is brought in (that’s the deficit).
California is $21 billion in deficit with $500 billion out there in unfunded obligations (pensions and medical care promises to state workers and public school teachers). Schwarzenegger has announced a “pension bubble” coming on the heels of the dot com and mortgage bubbles. It’s the first honest thing he’s said since calling the CA assembly “girly men.”
We can talk “equality” all day long, but the fact is, our Federal and state governments have already spent our future in their vain attempt to achieve a “just” society.
Has any civilization this far in debt ever survived?
Do Utopians allow for the concept of “bankruptcy?”
I haven’t heard and advocates for strict income equality, but I have heard many calls from the Left for minimum as well as maximum incomes. In practice this would be only marginally more sustainable.
I know a doctor who makes $600,000 a year and thinks nobody should be allowed to keep more than $250,000. Of course he does not refund his own excess $350,000 to the Treasury, but he is quite vociferous in demanding it for everyone else. Perhaps he intends to blow off paying his own taxes the same as Turbo-Tax Timmy Geithner, what with being an enlightened Democrat and all.
Without consideration of expenses, income is meaningless. So, everyone should have $49.9K of expenses. Hum… no more of that pesky having friends & family living too far (or near), lest that would ruin the egalitarian model. And, since California’s temperature is more stable than say Missouri, we must level that out too – everyone must live in an equally comfortable (or miserable) climate. Some resources won’t be available in our newly fashioned egalitarian city. We’ll need to send someone to get that stuff, maybe if we just pay him a little more for that trek…
One saying comes to mind in describing socialism: You pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.
The Chinese Red Army early on tried to do away with rank in the name of equality. They gave that idea up pretty quick when everyone ignored orders they didn’t like.
Mr. Briggs,
Welcome to Instapundit, a lamp shining in the caves of inequity!
Now I must point out an error in your otherwise excellent presentation.
You have forgotten pets or as they are progressively known “Human Companions”. They have rights too. And feelings. Don’t forget the feelings. And so it follows they have a right to equal shares, too. There there are wild animals and things like helpless little snails. And bedbugs. They have a right to the Mother Earth too. So it follows they also have a right to equal shares.
But to put one over over on the multitude in the best traditions of Fabian Socialism, first we have to train them judiciously not to think. Then we can take the shares of the helpless creatures who can’t speak up and voice their own rights. It’s for the greater good. We’ll hold the shares of wealth and income streams of the creatures far lesser than human. Wait, if we’ve successfully trained the multitude not to think, why shouldn’t we just take it all?
But throw the multitude some cans of Spam. And cigarettes. Then they’d be happy.
spendulus, we like your way of thinking. I’m speaking, of course, for the 62,127 mealy bugs inhabiting my pear trees. They’ve appointed me their agent and lawyer-in-fact and I’m preparing the paperwork to establish their new SSA accounts even as we speak. Gotta go.
I propose renaming the two parties. How about the HTEI and the HTSI? The “Half that Earns It” and the “Half that Spends It” ?
That would make it easier for everyone to understand political language, wouldn’t it?
If taxpayers were to unionize –and if ‘public servants’ can, then why not? –with whom would they collective bargain? Martians?
All percieved Utopian societies are based on envy and the wish that someone else will cary your load. That you can work as little as you want, be as irresponsibly as you want and act against the rules of economic success and yet, someone will make it better for you.
Wake up. Capitalism gives you the greatest opportunity to achieve the success you are fully capable of once you realize its is all up to you. You are the only one with your skills, dreams, and vision and if you achieve that dream, you and the country will benefit.
But if you think that your present job should pay more or provide more security and benefits just because you want more or your circumstances have changed, then you clearly do not unbderstand how the world works. Flipping a burger is worth $7 an hour. Get married with more responsibilities? Flipping a burger is still worth $7 an hour. Have a child and a new mouth to feed? $7 an hour. Your a professional from another country and this is all you can get temporarily. Sorry, $7 an hour. The pay is the measure of the value of the job not the person performing the job.
Want to make more? Create more value for someone else. They will reward you. The bigger the problem solved the more money you can earn. Capitalism allows you to benefit by helping others solve their problems (it’s almost utopian, others working for my personal benefit). As an example, early computers were difficult, requiring punch cards and difficult language codes when some software engineers decided to make it easy. Tada! Microsoft grows and makes a ton of money solving a problem for milllions of people. And we all gained from it. I need to travel, but cannot build a car, so I will pay someone to build one for me. So will millions of others. Car companies solve large transportation problems and make billions. And so on.
Time to grow up and become entrepreneurial and add to the wealth of the country and to your own bank account. Instead of being jealous of those who have more, learn from them and repeat their successes. If you want socialism, pick a country and move. I’ll buy you a copy of the Berlitz of your choice (Oops another company solving a problem and earning rewards from grateful clients).
Marxism, the religion of words, never talks about “time” –the existence of time itself. If you’re a poor person, whether a 22 yr old professional just graduating college, or a 50 yr old with ten children, you’re all the same, and always have been, and always will be.
Only class warfare can save you from misery; you must become a revolting person.
Utopia in obowma’s world never meant equal income. What obowma means that he gets to (1) take as much money and stuff as he wants for himself and guys who live in his neighborhood; (2) take as much away from people whom he doesn’t like as he wants to; (3) make people who don’t have very much come and beg him for some from his stash and sell their souls to get it; and (4) he has lots and lots and lots of power over everyone’s individual lives and daily activities. That’s utopia in obowma’s world.
Speaking of time, one of the things that killed me about Obama’s campaign site was that along with getting youth volunteers, they had plans for getting senior volunteers, by promising that old people who would just work for the government for free would get better health care and housing perks.
Boy, was that chilling.
Who Said That?
A 3 question quickie, multiple guess quiz to evaluate the reader’s grasp of current events:
1. “The second way government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a ‘reservation wage’—the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase [the] reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer:” (http://bit.ly/axiHCb)
Who said that? a) Karl Marx b) Bill Clinton c) Rush Limbaugh d) Larry Summers
The answer is . . . Larry Summers, the Obama White House economic advisor. Summers thereby punched gaping holes in the US Senate plan to extend unemployment benefits to 99 weeks. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1635)
#6.
“One would have to look long and hard to find any political group of significance who is calling for anything remotely like absolute equality.”
Then what, may I ask, does this mean? “To each according to his needs from each according to his abilities”
For the run of the mill liberal, I might add that this is a quote from Karl Marx, one of your heros. This is not utopia, it is called the worker’s paradise. But a true utopia would not be a worker’s paradise, after all, in a perfect world, no one would have to work. That would mean farmers, who would no longer exist. In every home there would be a machine that when you need something, you press a button, A voice would ask what you want, and the requested item(s) would magically appear. The machines will be perfect, because they will not be allowed to break, because when there are no workers, no one will be there to fix them. Of course those machines have yet to be invented (except in liberal fantasies). The people who create things and thus wealth would no longer exist, so nothing would be created. Maybe this sounds better than living in interesting times, but just keep in mind that to make sure there is no obesity, those machines will not satisfy any wishes it is not programmed for…i.e., no cheeseburgers. So to keep total contentment your brains will have to be scrubbed of any desires that the programmers decide are dissident, decadent, undesirable, unfair and unequal. Sad to say that some day those machines will run out of resources, they are ,limited, you know. Then what? Soylent green for breakfast, lunch and dinner until there are no humans left. How very sad. The greenies will never live to see their planet free of we obnoxious CO2 exhaling critters.
Suppose we had true equality in pay. All the movie stars, the famous writers, the politicans, the industrialists, and the lawn guy, and the lazy ones, all get $100,000. Period. If they make more, taken, for the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution. If they make less, given, because their general welfare (happiness) is of equal importance to the society. Free housing. Free food. Free cars. Free medical care (no more need for insurance). Free free free. Would there be anything we’d want at WalMart? How about those Paris fashion shows? You’d see red carpet dresses on kindergarteners, right? No matter how many books a writer writes, or how many tomatoes a farmer grows, $100,000. Period.
In the end, we all starve. We all riot. We all demand. We demand the brightest and best get back to being worth more, and we demand colors and taste and texture that doesn’t come from grey. We demand hot is hot and cold is cold and the pablum of medocrity ceases. We demand reaching, stretching, sacrificing, committment of the mind and body and spirit and talent. In a world of total equality, in a world run by people who think a work week can be dictated with overtime pay or hours per day, there are no farmers who work long days and weekends, no doctors who practice around the clock, no inspiration after 9-5, no brilliance, no sweat, no personal stuggle, oh no, stuggle is outlawed and appalled, not appauled. There is grey. And grey is not enough.
So in the end, social justice is the cruelest of all because it does the maximum damage for the least reward to the most amount of people.
In the end, it will be the black market of capitalism that the people turn to, and then it will erupt like a gieser back into existance. So let’s stop pretending that social justice is anything more than a cheap trick to control as much of the money and people by the least number of people, which in some books is dictatorship. Let’s stop pretending that the theives and Svengali’s are not pumping the rubes so that THEY have the personal jets (Al Gore anyone?) and THEY are special while the rest of us should settle for grey.
Reject the lie.
@Those calling this a strawman argument:
a) Equality of income was one of the main planks of -Looking Backward-, Edward Bellamy’s hugely influential socialist work at the onset of American progressivism and modern liberalism;
b) The argument is precisely a reductio ad absurdum of those obsessed with income equality or various statistical measures of it.
@Those bitter about rising tides and their own boat:
That has far more to do with Deng Xiaoping than with Ronald Reagan. The most his legacy impacts current real wages concerns his allowing the amnesty for illegal immigrants, encouraging still more and kneecapping income growth for unskilled professions.
Even if by some weird twist of statistical science, you are able to come up with a formula by which all families have equal income, you still have the problem of not all families being equally capable of spending their income.
Some will save it, and use the savings to buy good things.
Some will spend it all immediately on trivial things, and never have enough to buy good things.
Some will spend part of the money doing things like weather proofing their houses, so that they don’t spend as much of their income on necesities, and have more left over for good stuff.
Some may even invest their money and as a result have extra income.
Obambi and company have already thought of “Some may even invest their money and as a result have extra income.” They tax interest earned by savings. You can’t sneak anything past that bunch.
According to liberals, there is no problem so large, that raising other people’s taxes won’t solve it.
I couldn’t agree more that income disparity is utterly meaningless.
Who cares about the difference between incomes? It doesn’t help me one bit if CEOs suddenly get paid less. If you cut the CEO down to 3x or 5x the average for his corporation, the resulting difference would net everybody else a few pennies per year. How does harming the corporation I work for, while doing no good for myself, become a worthwhile exercise? By advertising that we won’t pay for top-notch talent we won’t ever GET top-notch talent. So instead of taking a gamble and perhaps finding a brilliant CEO that does something innovative and interesting and perhaps grows the entire company so that everybody ends up with more money, we go with bean-counter #17,000,304 who only cares about cutting costs, so what does he do? Cuts costs, which means salaries and jobs. So how am I better off now that I’m looking for a new job? Does it matter anymore to me that while I made $50k my boss only got $250k?
And of course when we’re talking about inherited money, income from interest might be many times my salary, but reducing it once more doesn’t help me. Where does that interest or dividends come from? Whether idiotically invested in a savings account or ‘safely’ in US bonds, that money is being used. It doesn’t sit around doing nothing. Every dime in the stock market is moving and shaking all the time. Whether you invest in a local mom’n'pop or in a giant multinational your money is being used to pay salaries, build buildings, string a kagillion wires across the world, etc. What would I gain by limiting the income of a rich kid to $500k or 10x my $50k supposed income? I’d get them investing somewhere else. Why would they bother to keep putting their money at risk for no return? Who would invest $500 million in riskier ventures when they couldn’t get anything but a 1/100th of a percent return?
The problem with all the ‘redistribution’ people is they don’t actually think people exist. It’s narcissism as politics; there are no real people besides themselves and their fellow-travelers. Everyone else is a cardboard cutout or herd animal. So long as their solutions never take human beings into account, they’ll always fail. The problem is they won’t accept that their failure is due to their own stupidity and blindness, which is where you get your Pol Pots and Maos and Stalins.
You said it Mr. Briggs. Income inequality is absolutely completely totally and in all ways meaningless.
Great article, William.
Hmm i hope you dont get offended with this question, but how much does a blog like yours earn?