Escalation of the politics of envy and class warfare within the editorial pages of our local paper is dismaying. Aside from the ethics of these positions, there are numerous statements which are factually incorrect.
For example, in a recent letter ("Helping the Rich get Richer"), the following claim was made: "How should money for public education be raised? Or should this crazy dream of the Founding Fathers -- that all children should be given a chance by virtue of a public education system funded by all citizens -- be abandoned? Or will bake sales do it?"
Our Founding Fathers most certainly did not believe in publicly financed education. In fact, publicly funded education didn't exist at any appreciable level in the US until around 1850 in New England, rapidly spreading from there to the rest of the nation. Up until then, the dominant American educational model was decentralized and privately funded. The movement towards government funded and operated schools contradicted many of the guiding principles in which our Founding Fathers believed most passionately: limited government, individual freedom and personal responsibility.
In today's editorial ("Middle Class Moving Backward Financially"), the title's claim is not correct by any historical measure. For instance: items that would have been considered luxuries in the 1970's are now common in households that make less that $15,000 per year (Microwaves, Dishwashers, Color TV's). Just about everyone who is old enough and able to drive a car has one. At the beginning of this century virtually noone could afford to retire - now almost half the labor force retires in their fifties supported by generous pensions. Total liesure time has more than tripled since 1900. A quick thumb through the US Statistical Abstract should quickly convince you things are, in fact, "getting better all the time."
What is really being claimed is that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the middle class. If life were like the Olympics or a Red Sox / Yankees game I would have to agree. Sports are zero-sum games - for you to win I have to lose. Fortunately, that is not the way markets and our economy work. That is a positive sum game. In a free society where we exchange goods and services only because we want to and not because we have to, both parties end up better off. That is the building block of wealth. It is that simple.
Bill Gates isn't getting richer at your or my expense; neither do I lose one penny if my neighbor makes a thousand dollars in the next minute. Why? Because each of them had to provide something of greater value to someone else in our society to get those dollars. It was done voluntarily. Noone was mugged, held up or swindled.
In fact, it's quite likely that many of us will indirectly benefit from these entrepreneurs getting richer. Entrepreneurs don't stuff the money they make in a mattress; they invest it in other ventures, or save it - providing capital for new business opportunities that create the very jobs that will allow others to have gainful employment they might not otherwise enjoy.
Here's a quote to consider, from Cox's and Alm's Myths of Rich & Poor: Why We're Better Off that we Think:
"Free enterprise has been good to us -- so good, in fact, that it has given rise to expectations that may well be too high. We can't reasonably anticipate total elimination of poverty, unemployment, dead-end jobs, or bankruptcies. These hardships -- and others -- will always be with us. They're part of the economic landscape, and other systems have worse faults. Americans ought to accept the world as it is. As good as it gets, capitalism will never be perfect. What's more, Americans expect more than ever before out of life. They now know it's possible to get fresh fruit in the wintertime, air conditioning in their cars, the complete array of household appliances. They don't want their children embarassed by crooked smiles, and so don't feel well-off until they slap braces on their kid's teeth. This is a society of rising expectations. We take for granted devices that didn't even exist for our parents and grandparents. What were once luxuries are now viewed as necessities, made reasonably affordable by the forward march of our economic system"
How much more satisfying it would be to see our editors focusing on
that and spending time developing ways of connecting its readership to the principles that promote that economic system: limited government, low taxes, individual liberty and personal responsibility.
The free enterprise system is to be celebrated, as are our differences -- in personalities, tastes, histories, and yes, even our wealth. Being "rich" is something to work hard for, to aspire to - not to denegrate or attack. Larry Reed has said:
"Each of us is a unique being, different in endless ways from any other single being living or dead. Why on earth should we expect our interactions in the marketplace to produce the same results?
We are different in terms of our talents. Some have more than others, or more valuable talents. Some don’t discover their highest talents until late in life, or not at all. Michael Jordan is a talented basketball player. Should it surprise anyone that he makes infinitely more money at basketball than I ever could?
We are different in terms of our industriousness, our willingness to work. Some work harder, longer, and smarter than others. That makes for vast differences in how others value what we do and in how much they’re willing to pay for it.
We are different also in terms of our savings. I would argue that if the President could somehow snap his fingers and equalize us all in terms of income and wealth tonight, we would be unequal again by this time tomorrow because some of us would save it and some of us would spend it. These are three, but by no means the only three, reasons why free people are simply not going to be equal economically."
Amen.
