Common sense or common cents?

Class Warfare, or Common Sense? Elizabeth Warren on the social contract

 

"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,'" Warren said. "No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."1

 1. "Elizabeth Warren On 'Class Warfare': There Is Nobody Who Got Rich On His Own (VIDEO)," Eric Kleefeld, Talking Points Memo, 09-21-2011.

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/09/class-warfare-or-common-sense-elizabeth.html

A predictable rant, c/o Victor Reppert. He never lets philosophy get in the way of his reflex liberalism. By way of response:

i) A systematic problem with Warren’s statement is the vicious circularity. If gov’t gives itself a monopoly on education, public safety, and education, then, by definition, a business must rely on public largesse–since it was never afforded an alternative. There is no op-out.

But what’s that supposed to prove? That takes the status quo ante for granted. But of course, that’s the very thing which limited gov’t types challenge.

This is one of those typical cases in which the nannystatist is imputing his assumptions to the libertarian (or variation thereof), then accusing the libertarian of hypocrisy. But if the libertarian had his druthers, that wouldn’t be the status quo ante. What’s a given for Warren is not a given for the libertarian.

BTW, I’m not a libertarian myself, although my own views intersect with libertarians here and there. My immediate point is that Reppert is guilty of mirror reading. This is a totally insular criticism.

ii) In principle, gov’t doesn’t have to build roads. After all, if gov’t didn’t build the railroad (that was private biz), gov’t doesn’t have to build highways and freeways.

iii) And, or course, gov’t doesn’t actually build the infrastructure. That’s contracted out to bidders in the private sector. Only gov’t buries the construction company under a crushing weight of regulation.

iv) To take a personal anecdote, I’ve resided in my current location for 8 years. Most of the time I don’t have to commute very far to do what needs to be done. But a few times a year I have to take a freeway to another freeway to get where I need to go.

The first year I moved here, the freeway had a center lane that was under construction. My second year here, the same stretch of freeway was under construction. My third year here, the same stretch of freeway was under construction. My fourth year here, the same stretch of freeway was under construction. My fifth year here, the same stretch of freeway was under construction. My sixth year here, the same stretch of freeway was under construction. My seventh year here, the same stretch of freeway was under construction. My eighth year here, the same stretch of freeway is still under construction, with no completion date in sight.

Think gov’t red tape might have something to with that? What about union labor?

v) Many businesses, especially large companies, have their own security guards. Is Warren so out-of-touch that she never noticed?

In principle, you can have a private fire dept.

vi) BTW, one advantage of having business do things wherever possible is that corporate executives can be sued, whereas gov’t officials immunize themselves from legal liability.

vii) Does our public school system really focus on marketable job skills? If public school is so indispensable at training future employees, why are Democrats constantly clamoring for more jobs programs? That’s after graduation, remember?

BTW, jobs programs don’t create jobs.

viii) Likewise, why think public schools do a better job of training future employees than a private vocational schools?

ix) Finally, no one asked me to sign the social contract Warren is alluding to. I’m not even a cosigner.

I'm not claiming privatization is a panacea. But liberals are so conditioned by their paternalistic outlook that they can't imagine leaving home.