The outsourcing of private morality to the state is a particularly modern affliction, but equally as pernicious. We witness the startling paradox that today’s private society is crasser, less honest, and more uncouth even as its government’s official morality stresses gender, race, class, and green ethical superiority. But just because the state now thankfully mandates disabled parking spaces does not mean that we honor a crippled relative more than in the past, or that our children are more likely to write a note of thanks to a grandparent’s gift. I can surely see an erosion in the public expression of manners and morality even as I sense our government is now more “fair” and “equal” than ever before.

Just because the state will sue you for the appearance of sexual harassment does not mean that leaving your laptop in a college university carrel means it is less likely to be stolen than, say, a wallet in 1955. The frightening worry is that the two are connected: the more the state steps in to to assure that we are cosmically moral, the more we assume we can relax and therefore become concretely immoral. Detroit is a symptom of that transition from family to state definitions of morality. Go to Athens today, and one can read high-sounding praises of the all-encompassing welfare state, and see all around private machinations to get out of taxes and boasts about getting a public job that requires no work and earns lots of pay.

When poverty is defined as relative want rather than existential need, states decay and societies decline.

From

Victor Davis Hanson’s article,   Why Does the Good Life End, published in Pajamas Media 9/25/11.

Money is the barometer of society’s virtue.  When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing- when you see that men get richer from graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice- you may know that your society is doomed.  Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality.  It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence.  Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper.  This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values.  Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.

From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  This passage is from a long monologue from Franciso d’Anconia in response to a character who contended that money is the root of all evil.

HKO comment:

Capitalism is the function of economic self interest. Regulation and restriction of free enterprise substitutes political self interest for economic self interest. Individual liberty usually suffers as a result.  Note for example how many of the special interest groups who pushed for the Obama health insurance plan now seek and receive exemptions from the same government who is forcing it on everyone else.  Wealth is being less generated by competition in the market place and more generated by success in obtaining political power.

A few gems from Thomas Sowell from the last chapter of the Thomas Sowell Reader.

“There is no greater indictment of judges than the fact that honest people are afraid to go into court, while criminals swagger out its revolving door.”

“Few skills are so well rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims.”

“Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like national interest.”

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth.  When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

“Ideology is fairy tales for adults.”

“No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: “But what will you replace it with?” When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?”

“People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often unaware that they do not have one-tenth of the knowledge of all of the average persons put together.”

“My favorite New Year’s resolution was to stop trying to reason with unreasonable people.  This has reduced both my correspondence and my blood pressure.”

“Some ideas sound so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time.  Other ideas sound so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and stil not be believed the tenth time.”

“It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into to law.”

“As a rule of thumb, Congressional legislation that is bipartisan is usually twice as bad as legislation that is partisan.”

A contrarian assumes the crowd is wrong without necessarily understanding why.   A true independent thinker will isolate themselves mentally from the crowd and common information and research the best information available, relying as little as possible on second hand resources, to reach their own conclusions.  They are skeptical of the sources that move the crowd more than the crowd itself.

Being independent requires a lot of work but starts with the same skepticism of a contrarian.  It is better to be independent than to be a contrarian, but if you do not have the time or inclination being a contrarian will put you on the correct side more times than not. The more drastic the trend you oppose the more likely you are to be correct.

Be skeptical of the mass media.  We tend to enjoy news that confirms our bias.  It is emotionally uncomfortable to be a contrarian.  We are not as independent as we think we are.

Elizabeth Warren is running against Scott Brown in Massachusetts.  She has elicited praises from liberals for her comment that “no body got rich on their own.”  She added “part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that (your profits/ earnings)  and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Jeff Jacoby retorts in his Boston Globe article Professor Warren’s ire – 9/28/11

excerpts:

Warren’s words reflect the infatuation with government and condescension toward private initiative that have been such hallmarks of the Obama presidency. Her eagerness to minimize the entrepreneur’s achievement while exalting the role of the public sector may win cheers on the Left, but it puts her sharply at odds with mainstream voters.

By overwhelming margins, Americans think well of small businesses and those who create them – Gallup found last year that 84 percent of respondents had a positive image of “entrepreneurs,” and 95 percent felt positive toward “small business.” The public’s view of government, by contrast, could hardly be worse: In a poll out this week, 81 percent of Americans — a record high — express displeasure with their government. Last month, respondents ranked government dead last among 25 business and industry sectors.

Of course that doesn’t mean that some government isn’t necessary. Warren’s implication that Republicans or conservatives who decry “class warfare” are unwilling to pay for roads, schools, or police and fire protection is childish. Not even the most libertarian Tea Partier, never mind a moderate like Brown, wants to zero out basic public services. Warren doesn’t need to hector factory owners, imaginary or otherwise, into acknowledging that they benefit from highways and police departments, or that those benefits need to be paid for.

What’s a lot harder to explain is how they benefit from the kind of government incompetence that can turn a $2.8 billion Big Dig project into a $22 billion Big Dig scandal. Or from government loan guarantees thatsquander fortunes on Solyndra and other ventures in “green” crony capitalism. Or from vast government entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, with their trillions in unfunded obligations andunsustainable costs. Or from government subsidies for airports nobody uses and broadcasters that can support themselves.

And even a Harvard law professor — at least one who aspires to the US Senate — has to realize that most entrepreneurs get rich only when they create value for others.

Yes, there is an “underlying social contract” on which civilized society depends. But there are two sides to that contract — and more to its terms than just taxing away ever-bigger “hunks” of wealth from people who succeed. When 81 percent of Americans are fed up with their government, and when that government already spends far beyond its means, is it really the risk-takers of the private sector who deserve Professor Warren’s ire?

HKO comments:

One of the tricks played with the truth is a false choice.  The choice is not between no taxes and high taxes.  It is childish to propose otherwise. We all know taxes are necessary for property protection and infrastructure and some social services. But to assume that the government can spend whatever amount it desires as part of the social contract is intellectually false. To assume that half the people should pay no taxes is equally shallow.  To ignore the reality that higher taxes can reduce both economic growth and government revenues is economically ignorant.  And to assume that paying people money they did not earn for long periods of time will not disrupt our social fabric is morally blind.