House of Eratosthenes

Consider one conundrum in American politics. Income inequality has been increasing, according to standard statistics. Yet most Americans do not seem very perturbed by it.

Conundrum Schmomundrum. That’s exactly the way it should work. Anyway, the article goes on…

Barack Obama may have been elected president after telling Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around. But large majorities in polls approved when Obama and congressional Democrats abandoned oft-repeated campaign promises to raise taxes on high earners in the lame duck session.

Why don’t voters care more?
:
[A]s George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen writes in the American Interest, “The inequality of personal well-being is sharply down over the past hundred years and perhaps over the past twenty years as well.” Bill Gates may have a bigger house than you do. But you have about the same access to good food, medical care and even to the Internet as he does.
:
Cowen is worried that high earners in financial industries benefit hugely when they bet correctly but are sheltered from losses by government bailouts when they bet wrong. It’s a problem that the financial regulation bill passed by the outgoing Congress addressed but, in his opinion and those of many others I respect, did not solve.

But there’s little evidence that most Americans begrudge the exceedingly high earnings of the likes of Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg or J.K. Rowling. We believe they have earned their success and don’t see how taking money away from them will make the rest of us better off. [emphasis mine]

Americans are grown up, and her politicians have been left behind.

In my lifetime, I have seen a great push in social circles and in Tinseltown (means movie-making) to celebrate the “common man”; not just the guy whose circumstances keep him shut out from a life of wealth, but the guy who chooses a more rustic existence. He tells his kids that money isn’t everything…and he’s right!

Me, I regard myself as a centrist in such matters. Each proposition should be weighed from all four perspectives: Benefits of chasing the dollar, drawbacks to chasing the dollar, benefits of refusing to go running after it, liabilities of of refusing. Case-by-case basis all the way, in other words. But I’m clearly in the minority — there is a rather pungent scent wafting through the air, a prevailing viewpoint that says money is bad, straight-up, and the only good people are the people without money.

Well…after you’ve taken care of the essentials. Including the winch on the truck and the big-screen.

Maybe we’ve reached the level of maturity where we understand: If, indeed, you are going to forsake money and live this life of privileged poverty…this poverty that means so little, including as it does a college education for all your kids, every recognizable electronic retail item imaginable (the year it comes out, not a little while down the road when it’s affordable) and a five-dollar drink in a cardboard cup every single morning…if, after those “staples” one is to swear off any extra loot so one can stay “good” — then, one must acknowledge the choice that one has made, such as it is. And part of that acknowledgment is to throttle back on this whole idea that, because someone else has more, that someone must be out to destroy you.

You can’t blame the other guy for you having less, when you chose to have less. Maybe we have reached the level of maturity where we realize it is OUR decision, not his. He might not be out to screw us.

Next step? You can tell by the undertone, I think, that I’m none too fond of this vow-of-poverty stuff. You know what they say about life; it is not a dress rehearsal. It seems to me this business about “only poor people can be decent” is a thought nurtured by those who think they enjoy the luxury of choosing a life-lodestar casually, carelessly. They seem, to me, to be thinking: If I’ve screwed that up, I’ll polish off the rough edges the next time ’round. And I think that’s a mistake because there’s no next-time-’round.

And money is something you use to buy what you need and what you want. To say “I don’t need any more than $$$ so I’m never going to have more than that” has always struck me as irresponsible, especially since you don’t know what’s going to happen next year or the year after. I can’t think of anything more foolish.

Oh, I shouldn’t say that — I can think of one thing more foolish. Defining your entire life’s pursuits according to the virtues of living in poverty, while living out that life entirely ignorant of what poverty really is. Thinking oneself noble because one has succeeded in avoiding decadence and extravagance…and for little other reason…while consuming those daily five dollar drinks that take longer to order than they do to suck down. I think if people are to take a vow of poverty and identify their mortal value according to this, they ought to at least know what poverty is.

But I’m having none of it. If I ever were to have thought highly of President Soetoro, He would’ve had me completely turned around the minute He said “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” I’m not going along for that ride. If I’ve earned it, I’m taking it, and I’ll choose my own charities after that thank you very much. And if that means I’ve earned more than somebody else it isn’t gonna bother me one little bit. I’ll sleep like a baby that night. What if it’s the other guy who’s earning more than I am? Ditto. Not bothered. Got bigger fish to fry.

I’m glad to see the country is coming around to my point of view. Yay, America is growing up. We’re not living on a Monopoly board anymore, fixating with an envious gaze on that chubby short guy with the walrus mustache with the fat cigar. We’ve matured out of the 1930’s.

The other problem with the “vow of poverty” scenario is that no leftist would ever actually practice it. As you yourself have pointed out, they give next to nothing to charity. Bellyaching about “the poor” is just an excuse for liberals to feel all self-righteous while living like the fat, prosperous bourgeoisie they are. Cf. liberal arts professors, who drive BMWs from gated communities to preach class warfare at undergraduates for an hour and a half twice a week. (In my college town, us closet reichwingers joke that you can always tell the biggest frothing-at-the-mouth communist in any department by looking at the faculty lot — he always drives the most expensive car).

You can tell they aren’t serious by the very language they use — “poverty” is always defined as “income X percent below average,” meaning that if the average was a million bucks a year somebody with a “mere” $750K salary would be “poor.” Hence all the “poor” people with flatscreen tvs and $200 gym shoes. I sometimes think this is the real reason liberals hate WalMart so much — they make the trappings of a middle-class lifestyle available to just about any tax bracket.
- Severian | 01/04/2011 @ 11:25
This is the fundamental thing that makes Leftists uncomfortable. That is; most people believe they can take care of themselves and their families provided government stop getting in the way.

Most of them are in the “getting in the way” business. Either as, Gaia save us, “Community Organizers” or spokescritters or lobbyists for “public interest” groups and blah blah blah.

Protect me from force or fraud and leave me be. That’s what I want. That’s what I think most people want.

We also understand that if you have eleventeen bazillion dollars and I have $1000 it does not harm me. Mostly because i know that wealth can be created by me as long as you let me do it. Lefties believe that there is a finite amount of wealth and that if you have more than me there’s no possible way I can get more without taking yours or knocking you down a peg or two.
- Duffy | 01/04/2011 @ 11:30

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Americans Don’t Care About Wealth InequalityTuesday, January 4th, 2011

Americans Don’t Care About Wealth Inequality
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011