Twenty Crazy Beliefs on Economics and Politics

Excellent questions posed here...

Twenty Crazy Beliefs on Economics and Politics

Donald J. Boudreaux – November 25, 2019
 
1. Why do so many American Progressives, fearing that rich people abuse state power, aim to reduce the riches of rich people, instead of the state power that Progressives admit is subject to being abused?

2. Why do so many American Progressives wish to put even larger swathes of our lives under political control given their belief that politics is so very easily corrupted by oligarchs and big-money donors?

3. Why do so many American Progressives – fearful of corporate power and understandably dismayed by cronyism – support tariffs and export subsidies (such as those dispensed by the U.S. Export-Import Bank)? After all, each tariff and every cent of subsidy is an unearned privilege granted by government to corporations at the expense of consumers, workers, and households – a privilege that creates corporate power and fuels abuse by corporations that would otherwise not arise.

4. Why do so many American Progressives, with one breath, criticize free-market economists for allegedly failing to take account of the immense importance that we humans attach to community, cultural identity, and other non-monetary values and features of our existence, and yet with the next breath talk as if the only inequality that matters is inequality of monetary incomes or wealth? (That this “Progressives” criticism of free-market economists is baseless is a subject for another day.)

5. And why do so many American Progressives, given their correct understanding that monetary values are not all that matter, treat differences in monetary incomes and wealth as sure evidence of economic malfunction?

6. Why do so many American Progressives believe that ordinary Americans are far too incompetent to choose for themselves, each individually, the appropriate levels of safety for their automobiles, workplaces, and pharmaceutical products, but supremely competent to choose which political ‘leaders’ are best for the entire country?

7. Why do so many American Progressives revile business people who seek greater wealth by succeeding in commerce, yet revere politicians who seek greater power by succeeding in politics?

8. Why do so many Americans Progressives hurl accusations of “greed” at private citizens who wish only to keep for themselves more of the money that they’ve earned, yet celebrate as selfless and noble politicians who wish to take from private citizens money that these politicians did not earn?

9. Why do so many American Progressives tout the alleged virtues of locally “sourced” foods and of locally produced goods while incessantly pushing for more and more power over individuals and locales to be exercised in far-away state capitals and in even farther away Washington, DC.?

10. Why do large numbers of American conservatives believe that U.S. government tax hikes and other interventions into the American economy are ham-fisted and, hence, harmful to the American economy, yet believe that similar interventions by foreign governments into foreign economies are genius surgical operations that inevitably strengthen those foreign economies?

11. Why do these very same conservatives also believe that the U.S. government somehow becomes capable of intervening successfully into the American economy if such intervention is advertised as being a response to foreign-government interventions into foreign economies?

12. Why do large numbers of American conservatives oppose taxes but support tariffs? Are these conservatives unaware that the latter is simply one of many different species of taxes?

13. Why do so many American conservatives boast about the strength of America and the resilience and greatness of her people but insist also that to allow these same American people to freely purchase goods and services supplied by low-productivity (and, thus, low-wage) foreign workers paves a sure path to America’s impoverishment and demise?

14. Why do so many Americans across most of the ideological space think they are offering sound and operational advice when they tell someone who is unhappy with existing government policies to “change” these policies by going to the polls to vote?

15. Why do so many Americans across most of the ideological space equate freedom with democracy? Do these Americans not see that oppression by a majority of one’s fellow citizens is oppression no less than is oppression by a minority of one’s fellow citizens?

16. Why do so many Americans, across most of the ideological space, who have ever waited in a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew a driver’s license or to register a vehicle, or who have suffered long delays in a cavernous passport-control room to reenter the country after traveling abroad, want to turn over to the same institution that is responsible for the inefficiencies regularly on display in those government offices more control over our lives?

17. Why does not every American who has ever listened to a speech by a successful 21st century politician, or who has ever attended or tuned in to a “debate” among these office-seekers, come away from such an experience filled with terrible fear at the thought of any of these office-seekers exercising even the tiniest bit of say in the lives of ordinary Americans?

18 Why do so few American conservatives who were rightly appalled by Barack Obama’s performance in the Oval Office – and who rightly fear how that office would be abused by a President Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden – wish to reduce the power of the presidency?

19 And why do so few American Progressives who are rightly appalled by Donald Trump’s performance in the Oval Office – and who rightly fear an additional four years of Trump’s abuse of that office – wish to reduce the power of the presidency?

20. Why does the goal of restraining the power of government in all areas of life have so little political clout given that confidence in government is at historic lows?

A ‘Wealth Tax’ is a Morally Evil Policy Proposition

A ‘Wealth Tax’ is a Morally Evil Policy Proposition
By William Sullivan

The late Dr. Charles Krauthammer wrote in 2002 that to “understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.” But many of today’s leftist policy propositions are not only practically stupid, but morally evil.

Consider that Bill Gates has come under fire for appearing skeptical of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s new “wealth tax.” For example, Anand Giridharadas, editor at large of TIME magazine, recently tweeted:

Astonishing.

@BillGates, the great philanthropist of our age, is so attached to his own wealth that he refuses to rule out voting to re-elect a white nationalist demagogue over Elizabeth Warren. 

It should be noted that Giridharadas is making a moral argument here, not a practical one. By not supporting Elizabeth Warren’s policy proposal to confiscate an arbitrary percentage of his wealth for the workings of government, Gates is not only advancing “white nationalism,” but he’s somehow morally suspect as an actual “philanthropist.”

Contrary to Anand Giridharadas’ claim, however, what is truly “astonishing” is how anyone can make an argument suggesting that Bill Gates is not philanthropic with a straight face. “Gates is among a group of billionaire philanthropists who have said that they would give away at least half of their wealth to charities under terms of the Giving Pledge,” writes Mark Decambre of Market Watch.

Note the words employed in that sentence. “Philanthropists.” “Give.” “Charities.” “Pledge.” Each and every one of them requires an individual action which is voluntary. Bill Gates is willing to give half his wealth to vetted charities of his choosing, and I don’t think that anyone could argue that such a pledge is not morally admirable. What he seems less willing to do is give the government license to forcibly confiscate his property at arbitrary and ever-changing levels, as it deems appropriate ongoing, to serve the purposes of government.

Gates made a statement that he didn’t think that Elizabeth Warren would like to speak with people like him on the matter, prompting Warren to say that she’d love to sit down with him about her “wealth tax” proposal. “I promise, it won’t be $100 billion,” of his estimated $107 billion net worth, she tweeted.

Bernie Sanders, the millionaire politician from Vermont who once honeymooned in the Soviet Union and espoused the economic virtues of governmental “bread lines,” apparently felt that Warren isn’t going far enough. “Say Bill Gates was taxed $100 billion,” Sanders tweeted. “We could end homelessness and provide safe drinking water to everyone in this country.”

So why shouldn’t the government steal $100 billion of his wealth? That seems to be the argument.

It’s easy to point out the practical failings in such arguments as Bernie’s.

Bill Gates claims he’s paid over $10 billion in taxes, and I have no reason to believe that’s untrue. If the government seizes $100 billion of his wealth and spends it today, then that’s it. He’d be a turnip with little else to bleed for such grand political schemes. But Bill Gates has earned his wealth through decades of unprecedentedly successful entrepreneurship and investment, and he’s proven that he’s far better with his own money than the government has been with ours.

If you need proof of the silliness in Bernie’s claim, consider that, this year alone, the federal government will confiscate from its citizens roughly 37 times the amount that Bernie Sanders argues could cure homelessness forever. And lack of sufficient revenue isn’t stopping additional spending beyond receipts, mind you. That same government will spend roughly 47 times that amount this year. So, we’re incurring debt of $1 trillion in an annual budget deficit, or ten times what Sanders says we need to cure homelessness and provide safe water to everyone. Why wasn’t America’s problem with homelessness and unclean water cured long ago, if simply having the government throw a hundred billion of other people’s dollars at any given problem is some kind of social and fiscal cure-all that no one’s thought of before?

Of course, any sane person knows that what Sanders is arguing is nonsense, in a practical sense. Any sane person knows that the federal government doesn’t have an income problem, but a resource allocation and a spending problem. But it’s compelling for many that he’s speaking to, nonetheless, because the practicality of his “solution” isn’t the point.

He’s making a moral argument that Bill Gates shouldn’t have as much money as he does. That’s the real problem that he’s looking to “solve,” and he’s proven that. The stated goal of his aggressive plan, called “The Tax on Extreme Wealth,” is literally to “cut the wealth of billionaires in half over fifteen years.” “I don’t think billionaires should exist,” Bernie says.

That is the true ideological impulse driving socialism, and it should be the most glaring problem with it. The obvious goal is to tear down successful individuals, not to empower the less-successful masses.

It’s not that socialist leaders like Bernie Sanders, a lifelong rabble-rouser who has never created any jobs or wealth without taxpayer funding, don’t have a clue what they’re talking about when it comes to the broad economics or practical outcomes of these Marxist policy propositions like the “wealth tax.” It’s that, in their immoral pride and lust for power, they stoke envy among the populace, nurturing and courting a growing gaggle of envious grumblers who, in turn, seek only to outsource their chosen moral depravity to government enforcers who may “equalize” economic outcomes by robbing others of their property.

Unmistakably, there is an eternal moral difference between Bill Gates pledging his own wealth to provide for the public good via charitable institutions, and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders telling you that they will confiscate his wealth in order to provide “charity” for others via government redistribution. The moral argument as to why one is morally righteous and the other is morally evil really couldn’t be simpler, and we never have to look at a single number to understand why.

Consider, for example, a circumstance where I donate my car to a fellow less fortunate than me. I am charitably pledging my property to benefit someone else. That is a culturally understood to be a positive moral decision that I was free to make. It is that freedom to choose which makes such a decision morally “good.”

If, on the other hand, someone takes my car against my will so that he might use it as he sees fit, it is equally well-understood to be a criminal act. It doesn’t matter if that someone steals my car so that someone else might use it, because it would not change the fact that my property was stolen from me. It’s still theft. And if every single one of my neighbors decides that the neighborhood association should confiscate my car so that it can be used by others in the neighborhood, I would thankfully enjoy the legal protection of my property. However, even if that association were able to exercise its power by stealing my car so that others might use it, the moral dynamic of the circumstance remains unchanged, because the element of my freedom to choose what to do with my property is never considered.

Okay. Save a few outliers who may harbor some peculiar notions about morality, we should all be able to agree that all of that is true. So, here’s the question. What if that car is one of fifty, a hundred, or a thousand cars that I own? In what way does that change the fundamental moral dynamic involved? And if it does, in your estimation, then why? Should I not be afforded the same rights to property that another might have who owns less property than I?

I should be so protected, in a culture where genuine morality is intact and individual rights are equally applied. So should Bill Gates, and any other American citizen. However popular the unconstitutional notion of a “wealth tax” may become, it will never be anything more or less than a morally depraved and evil proposition which can only serve to erode Americans’ property rights.