House of Eratosthenes

To progressives, income disparities and economic winners and losers are intolerable injustices reflecting capitalism’s rigged rules and privileging of profit over people. Use the power of the state to correct those rules and intervene in the market through regulations and tax policy, and you can eliminate those injustices, for, as the President let slip, “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Hence the relentless public demonization of “greedy” Wall Street and corporations, and the attempt to use regulatory and taxing power to siphon off their capital and put it to achieving the progressive vision of “social justice.”

Questioning these assumptions is where the political discussion has to start. We need to make not only the practical point that punitive taxation and regulation of the economy retards growth and leads to unemployment, lower tax revenues, and a reduced standard of living. We also need to attack the false belief that something as complex and intricate as a 14-trillion-dollar economic system, one predicated on the trillions of free choices and transactions made by free people, can be understood by “experts” the way we understand an engine, and thus tinkered with in order to achieve an idealized world in which we “spread the wealth around” so everyone has roughly the same standard of living.

This notion, moreover, runs counter to the underlying philosophy of capitalism, and if acted upon will eventually destroy the economy. The point of the free market was not to make everybody rich, but to create and increase wealth over time so that fewer people would suffer the abject poverty typical of the vast majority of our ancestors. Predicated on freedom, capitalism understood that the great variety of talent, virtue, and luck meant that there would still be losers. But there always will be losers in human life. Capitalism created economic mobility, and over time could give those with talent and drive the opportunity to become winners, rather than fixing them and their children in immutable economic and social roles.

There’s only one definition of conservatism that works. It is, after all, not a point or a region on an ideological spectrum, nor is it a prejudice or a fear. It is a willingness.

It is a willingness to renounce things that do not work. After an idea has been given a try a few times, it is a willingness to say “this does not work, let’s stop trying it until someone provides some solid evidence dealing with how it can work.” It is sanity. It is a hopping-off from a merry-go-round, and it requires maturity. A lot of people don’t believe in it, not because they have risen above it, but because they aren’t capable of achieving it.

In their world, the only difference between the current situation and everlasting success is one more lap. But that is the way children think when they wrestle with a problem that is too big for them.

Conservatism is what adults say. Conservatism says wait a minute…results matter. So far your results suck, so take this albatross out of here, back to the drawing board, and bring back some good results from there — until then, we’re done. We’re through. And you get just as mad about that as you want, but you’ve made as many “oopsies” on the production floor as you’re gonna.

Our liberals react to this pretty much every single way they possibly can. They rename themselves to “progressives,” they talk about punishing enemies (hat tip to Gerard), they make a lot of noise about bitter people clinging to Bibles and guns. They tell lies that whoever is opposed to what they’re trying to do, must be opposed to new ideas. That’s not the case at all. The only thing they don’t do, is what mature, responsible, intelligent people with new fancy ideas do: Confine them to a proving ground. No, in liberal-land, the sandbox is not a sandbox at all, it is the universe. It is wherever the results will be felt immediately, irreversibly, by everyone. You can’t put an experimental elixir in a laboratory, to be fed to volunteers; you have to put it in the water supply of the township, the county, the state. Even better to just drop it in the ocean. Nobody can opt in to liberalism, slogans notwithstanding. Opting in might lead to opting out.

This is where Thornton’s point comes in. Liberals do not think government is sacrosanct. They don’t even like government any more than normal people do. They want their experiments to be tried out, for the very first time, all over the place. Step One always seems to be to empower the government, because there isn’t any legal way to get away from it. It is practically universal, and it operates by force rather than by choice. That is why they can’t get enough of it.

Conservatism just says: Don’t. It is a very accommodating and flexible brand of conservatism we have been seeing lately — it waits until the liberal plan does its damage, in production, before it says “that’s enough, stop now.” Real conservatism would insist on the laboratory setting, involving voluntary, opted-in subjects, before the plan was ever tried. Real conservatism would say: If you want to experiment, congressman/senator/President, you have the wrong job. The office you occupy has to do with serving the public, not using that public as a lab rat.

One other point: There is no moderate position between these two things. That is a myth. Once experience has shown an idea to fail much of the time, you either pull it out or you don’t.

[…] There is a basic deception in conservative politics, to wit: business is virtuous and government is evil. This is factually incorrect. Human nature is corrupt. To say, for example, that it is “leviathan” or “authoritarian” to pass laws is the political equivalent of a Playboy and a 13-year-old. Every time I hear that kind of talk I put what I’m reading away. What’s the point? Unless and until the writer faces the central theme — human nature — the “discussion” is masturbatory drivel. What I want to see is human nature engaged. Until the writer gets that far, I’m not interested. Bumper stickers are available by the pixel-load. It is, after all, not a point or a region on an ideological spectrum, nor is it a prejudice or a fea…. […]
- The Great Conversion | Washington Rebel | 10/31/2010 @ 12:12
Nothing has every given people freedom close to the freedom they have enjoyed with unfettered capitalism. The profit motive is not a bad thing — it just happens to be the ONLY thing that unleashes personal creativity and freedom.

Somehow folks have been brainwashed into believing that political motives are nobler than private enterprise motives. People do the right thing when they are undisturbed by a repressive government. Free enterprise is the true answer. Let the markets decide. Hell, that’s even scientific. One man, one vote. It’s called a dollar. How’s that for human nature?

There have never been any successful political solutions. Never have, never will. This does not require anyone’s acceptance. It’s a fact.
- BillW. | 10/31/2010 @ 20:17
Well said.
- mkfreeberg | 10/31/2010 @ 20:22
[…] I always return to Social Security as the primary symbol of what it’s like to be a Republican. A payroll deduction of 16% . . . . is a brake on the economy, a brake on savings, a brake on investment, yet for 3+ generations the Democrats have been allowed to package this deduction as “essential to prosperity.” Thanks to a steady barrage of propaganda from unions, school teachers, and “liberal” initiatives, if George Bush said “We’re giving your money back to you”, the average Democrat saw that as a lie, a Rovian trick. The “end game”, as everyone likes to say, seems inevitably to be Wholesale economic collapse. Other than Newt Gingrich, there doesn’t seem to be a solitary soul out there who can articulate a positive capitalist position on the business of Social Security. So here we are, and the many “progressive” reforms of the New Deal, instead of being repealed when their utility has been disproven by facts, became rallying points for the “good” Americans. The conservative position may as well not exist. Conservatism is what adults say. Conservatism says wait a minute…results matter. So far your results suck, so take this albatross out of here, back to the drawing board, and bring back some good results from there — until then, we’re done. We’re through. And you get just as mad about that as you want, but you’ve made as many “oopsies” on the production floor as you’re gonna. Morgan Freeberg […]
- Lost? Found? To Win or to Lose? | Washington Rebel | 11/03/2010 @ 08:34

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What This Election is AboutSaturday, October 30th, 2010

What This Election is About
Saturday, October 30th, 2010