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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

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.


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. 

10 comments:

  1. What did you use to create this post, Steve? Was it your computer? And how is it that I am able to read it? Is it through the internet? Who funded the research that lead to those things?

    "And, or course, gov’t doesn’t actually build the infrastructure. That’s contracted out to bidders in the private sector."

    But the government can't contract things unless it has money to buy them. It gets money through taxes. Warren is pointing out that taxes were collected from others and the result is that you have computers, the internet, roads, a police force, education, fire departments. Because of that you've managed to get where you are with this popular blog and an educating that allows you to do what you do. So are you here on your own? Could you do this without the taxes of others? You really can't. You've reaped the rewards of the taxes that went before you. Why now say that you won't do for future children what your ancestors were willing to do, and which obviously made your life so much better?

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  2. DAVID SAID:

    "What did you use to create this post, Steve? Was it your computer? And how is it that I am able to read it? Is it through the internet? Who funded the research that lead to those things?"

    And where does the gov't get its money to fund research? From corporate taxes as well as income tax on corporate employees (as well as small businesses).

    So it traces back to the private sector, not the public sector. Therefore, you can't say the private sector is dependent on the public sector. Just follow the bouncing ball.

    "But the government can't contract things unless it has money to buy them. It gets money through taxes. Warren is pointing out that taxes were collected from others and the result is that you have computers, the internet, roads, a police force, education, fire departments."

    I see you blew right past the whole point about vicious circularity. You're taking the status quo ante as your unquestionable frame of reference, as if there's no possible alternative.

    You might as well ask where gov't gets computers. From the private sector, of course.

    Nice job of illustrating your Pavlovian conditioning.

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  3. "You're taking the status quo ante as your unquestionable frame of reference, as if there's no possible alternative."

    No. Maybe if the government hadn't taken that money and funded the creation of computers, the internet, roads, police, fire departments, and education, maybe things would be better. I don't really know.

    What we can know is the world we live in produces success that happens to be dependent on the contributions of others. That's the way our country did it whether you like it or not. Your success happens to be dependent on computer development which came about because the government took tax dollars and funded research.

    Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe they shouldn't have done that. But our country is the world's economic leader. We must be doing something right. Maybe taking tax dollars and funding research was part of the reason for our success.

    You aren't going to deny that your life is better due to computers, are you? And you aren't going to deny that computers wouldn't be here if the government hadn't taken money from others and funded the research, are you? If the government never did anything and nobody else helped you then you could say you did it on your own. But whether you like it or not this is not what happened. You did not do it on your own.

    And you didn't complain when you were reaping the benefits, like enjoying the use of computers or when the fire department comes and puts out the fire on your house. You only complain when you are asked to give back so that others can enjoy the kind of benefits you enjoyed. Now that you've reached the summit you look back on the young and poor and tell them that they must do it on their own and they can't take what you've earned. That's a strange attitude.

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  4. Can someone point me to the Social Contract that Warren claims to be in place that apparently replaced the Constitution?

    When was this Social Contract enacted?

    The original social contract, The Constitution, limited government to specific enumerated powers and left to individuals all other powers, regardless of whether specific liberties were enumerated or not.

    Apparently this new Social Contract reverses the Constitution.

    If Americans are obligated to this new Social Contract should there not be some document that enumerates these new governmental powers, one that somehow overturned the Constitution on a democratic basis?

    Implicitly the social contract of the Constitution has been overturned. Liberals, not being the virtuous type, are happy to have undermined the Constitution through subversive means and then blithely claim this new Social Contract.

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  5. A number of political commentators have covered this already, but why not?...

    "You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for."

    She assumes that the factory owner didn't pay any taxes. In reality, the rich factory owner and those like him probably paid for most of the cost of the roads. He's getting the services (i.e. use of the roads) *he* paid for.

    "You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate."

    Again, she assumes that the rich man didn't pay taxes. He did, and so, the product of the public school system is partially *his investment*. He has every right to hire them without owing anything else to society.

    Second, why does she think that the workers work for the factory owner? Are they his slaves? No, he *pays* them.

    Third, with the liberal-control of the schools, test scores have been plummeting, and universities have been forced to offer low-level math courses to get students up to where they should be. Too much time spent learning how to put on a condom.

    Lastly, education should be privatized. Enough with the propaganda.

    "You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory"

    Again, she acts as if the rich man doesn't contribute to the government taxes that fund the police force. He does, and he's getting the services *he* paid for.

    Second, according to conservatives, this is the one job that government is *supposed* to do.

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  6. By similar logic, I suppose if you enslave someone and part of their slavery consists in preparing gruel that the slave will partake in, the slave has no right to complain.

    Amazing logic there, Liz and Dave.

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  7. In Victor's defense, he didn't really comment much on this article. He just passed it along and left it to the commenters.

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  8. This is very important. Dave has not responded and there are a few problems with his point of view. To wit:

    1 - a bureaucratic mechanism that is good when it is controlled by good men, becomes a source of evil when controlled by evil men.

    For a simpleton like Dave to declare that because government once did something useful therefore we can never complain against it is nonsensical. We might conclude that at one point government did a competent job of educating people, but now that Obama has appointed people like Kevin "fisting" Jennings to oversee schools, it might be better to gravitate towards private schools or home schooling.

    For Dave to suggest otherwise is as idiotic as a corrupt political candidate being called on his misdeeds and protesting "But my predecessor wasn't as corrupt, and did much good". It's simply irrelevant at that point. Big Government has failed to deliver on its promise, it is dominated by corrupt individuals, and has failed.

    2 - There are some goods that could occur due to government coercion, but we would agree that the price of coercion is TOO HIGH A PRICE to pay. People could be better educated if their TV's were confiscated and replaced by a library of edifying books supplied by Dave or Liz. All cases of assault and battery, or deaths by traffic accidents could be eliminated if there were a law that people's arms should be amputated at birth.

    But there are some prices too high to pay and we may have to live with injustice, because to try to impose a 1984 type tyranny over people's thoughts would be even worse, and be subject to the possibility of worse abuse.

    I wonder if David and Liz believe in individual rights such as are laid out in the Declaration of Independence.

    I find it odd that David cites US Government support of scientific initiatives and how successful we have been, but he does not mention Europe, how repressive their governments have been compared to us, and how they have failed miserably compared to us. He has actually made a case for reduced government.

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  9. S&S, when rich people start out they haven't yet contributed money because they haven't earned it yet. They really haven't paid for the roads yet. They're using roads they didn't pay for. They were possibly educated because others paid taxes. Others who went before them paid. Now they are rich and they pay, but they don't want to pay like their ancestors did. They want to pay a lot less and say "People need to earn it on their own." But they didn't.

    C. Andiron, you are addressing a different question. Sure, we should ask whether government programs are good or not. But we're addressing a question proposed by the rich today. They say they've earned their money on their own, so they should be allowed to keep it all. But they didn't. Maybe they should be allowed to keep all their money and not give back to the government. Maybe government wastes too much money. That's a different argument. Should they be allowed to keep all their money BECAUSE they earned it on their own? They didn't earn it all on their own, so that's a bad reason.

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  10. "S&S, when rich people start out they haven't yet contributed money because they haven't earned it yet. They really haven't paid for the roads yet. They're using roads they didn't pay for."

    REPLY:

    a.) That depends on whether that now-rich person had a job before he got rich. His previous taxes would be considered as an investment.

    b.) Even if that is true, then his current taxes pay for his use of the road as well as the building of other roads that he will potentially never use. He's paying for services rendered.

    "They were possibly educated because others paid taxes."

    REPLY:

    And the rich man will pay the taxes which will go to educate the next generation. He may not even hire the next generation. [Even if he did, he will still be paying taxes in that time period thus paying for the generation after that.] So in my mind, it turns out to be a fair deal.

    You have yet to make the case that all of society should somehow be seen as a collective. Every example that Warren cited actually fits the 'pay for services rendered' system.

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