Our National Blind Spot

American Thinker ^ | February 06, 2010 | Mark W. Hendrickson

[neverdem]

Nobody will dispute the fact that there are differences between private and public behavior. We can all think of things that we do privately that we would never consider doing in public. 

This holds true in politics, too. Specifically, the vast majority of Americans would never dream of stealing from another person, yet they have no compunction about wanting government to take property from some citizens to give it to others.

Friends with whom we would entrust the keys to our house and all our worldly goods are often enthusiastic supporters of government programs that redistribute wealth. Few of us would imagine that a Washington lobbyist would peek out his window at home, wait for his neighbors to leave, and then sneak into their houses to take their possessions. The very image is absurd. And yet, those same lobbyists spend their working hours trying to persuade politicians to grant favors to them and send the bill to someone else.

Decades ago, the oldest free-market think tank, The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., published Lewis Love's short parable, "A King of Long Ago." In the story, an artisan, a mason, and a lame beggar petition their king for aid. The artisan can't attract enough customers to meet his sales goals, the mason isn't getting hired very often, and the beggar isn't receiving sufficient alms. 

They implore the king to correct this unsatisfactory state of affairs. The king commands that each petitioner be given a sword. He then authorizes the three to "go forth in the land and compel those who will not voluntarily deal with them to obey their command." 

"No! No!" the three men demur. "We are men of honor and could not set upon our fellow man to compel him to our will. This we cannot do. It is you, O King, who must use the power."

"You ask me to do that which you would not do because of honor?" questioned the king. "I, too, am an honorable man, and that which is dishonorable for you will never be less dishonorable for your king."

Besides illustrating the ideal of the rule of law -- in which everyone, regardless of wealth, rank, and position, is equally constrained from infringing the rights of others -- this little parable shows the inconsistency of believing that private citizens should respect private property, but government leaders need not. Is that which is personally immoral politically moral? 

What causes otherwise-honest people to condone the political plunder and redistribution of personal property? Immorality? That's too harsh for my taste. I prefer to say that there is a blind spot in their thinking.

Maybe what we're dealing with is mob psychology. Perhaps it's rationalization. "It's for a worthy cause," we tell ourselves, oblivious to the fact that the Eighth Commandment doesn't say "Thou shalt not steal ... except by majority vote or unless it's for the poor." 

Perhaps the explanation for this blind spot is self-delusion. We see nothing wrong with receiving benefits from the state. What we remain blissfully unconscious of is that the state has nothing to give us but what it takes from our fellow citizens. Indeed, Bastiat called the state "the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." It is a dream, a myth, and a fiction to believe that government gives you wealth out of its own productive bounty. Governments don't produce wealth; they only take it and redistribute it, substituting the political judgment of the few (the governing elite) for the economic verdict of everyone (a genuinely democratic process) acting in free markets. 

Many reason that democracy somehow sanctifies and legitimates the forcible redistribution of wealth. For them, democracy sanitizes and civilizes the process of taking someone's honestly earned property. They don't perceive this as robbery. 

But if this isn't robbery, then what is it? If the state's would-be victims resist being plundered, the state will retaliate by confiscating even more of their property and/or incarcerating them. The democratic process rests on force and the implied threat of force every step of the way. 

We don't bat an eye anymore when someone glibly proposes "spreading the wealth." In fact, many Americans enjoy spreading the wealth, as long as it isn't their own. In a recent survey, three out of four Americans agreed that Obama and Congress should raises taxes on that minority of Americans with annual incomes above $200,000. Apparently, most Americans believe that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their minions have more of a right to spend those dollars than the citizens who earned them. 

If you think this line of thought is crazy, then let me ask you a question: What percentage of a person's honest income should he or she be allowed to keep? The only guidelines I am aware of are "all of it" (the original American way, since income taxes were unconstitutional until 1913) or nothing beyond what anybody else (except the governing elite) can keep, according to the communist principle "from each according to his ability to each according to his need."

Between those two polar extremes, any percentage one chooses would be arbitrary. In practice, the degree to which property is redistributed depends on whatever shifting political coalition has enough votes -- enough power -- at any given moment. Stripped of grandiose pretenses and specious idealism, contemporary political life has descended into a constant, contentious squabble to see who gets what at the expense of whom.

Somehow, we're going to have to find a way to correct this ethical blind spot if we ever hope to avoid national bankruptcy and to live in greater harmony than we do today.

Mark Hendrickson teaches economics at Grove City College and is Fellow for Economic & Social Policy at the College's Center for Vision & Values.

[metmom]

Ping

[firebrand]

Agreed. It is partly the partisan divide that has created the all-or-nothing mentaliy on both sides and prevents moderation.

[iceskater]

Awesome article. Thank you so much for posting it.

[bamahead]

Many reason that democracy somehow sanctifies and legitimates the forcible redistribution of wealth. For them, democracy sanitizes and civilizes the process of taking someone's honestly earned property. They don't perceive this as robbery.



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[stephenjohnbanker]

“Many reason that democracy somehow sanctifies and legitimates the forcible redistribution of wealth. For them, democracy sanitizes and civilizes the process of taking someone’s honestly earned property. They don’t perceive this as robbery. “

When I was 25, in 1979, I was fortunate to get a job that paid $8500.00 per month. When I got my first paycheck,(payable every 2 weeks) the net was 1999.00, out of 4250.00.
I went to the comptroller, and asked him what happened to the rest of my money, and that I expected about 3000. You should have heard him laugh.

[RipSawyer]

“A biblical model of legitimate human government allows for taxes.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

So did the original constitution, but it strictly limited how they could be applied. Simply taking a portion of the working man’s pay was not allowed.

[csmusaret]

This article is total hogwash. Everyone knows that the Government has a gold mine out in Colorado or someplace. Whenever they need more money to give to the people who won’t work, they just put on an extra shift. If that weren’t true the Government would be forced to take the money at the point of a gun from the people who do work. No one actually believes our benevolent Government would ever do such a thing. Do they?

[bamahead]

They don't percieve this as robbery.

It's actually worse than that. Many of these otherwise honest people have been conditioned to think that a private business or even a public corporate interest using a human being as a source of labor is somehow robbery or a transgression against the human.

It's as if they don't grasp that said resource is being compensated (sometimes on several levels) for their labor. Their conditioning concludes that the business/corporate interest is taking advantage of them almost to the point of calling it 'slavery' (many do), because the fruits of the individuals labor can enrich other individuals, who are also laboring toward the same goals. They fail to grasp that those fruits also enrich the individual who is performing the labor, and who in many cases is given room for growth and advancement in both their compensation and social status, provided they perform to a level that pleases their employer. This self direction and ownership by the individual is another aspect that many of these people are conditioned to recoil against.

It's a conditioned anti-capitalist response that only the state can properly service the needs of the citizen. Therefore, the labor must enrich the state, not individuals, because only the state can properly redistribute this from those with ability to those with their percieved 'need'. If a state uses the back of a laborer for gain, that's OK. The mentality is that this contributes to the collective. Even though the state is likely (as history has shown) taking even greater advantage of the laborer, and compensating him even less (if at all) than a private interest would. Since in this type of society, the importance of state is elevated above the individual, the labor is looked upon as something necessary for the state to survive, almost like a discardable consumable for the leviathan There is no room growth or self direction in such a society, because the state must control these aspects of an individual. It needs to suppress these qualities of humanity, to ensure uniform, predictable production for the purposes of planning the redistribution.

This sad and hopeless mentality can permeate among citizens only if the state has become the only means of compensation and survival for the individual. This is why (as I and many others feel) this Administration is working around the clock to destroy the value of our currency, and enact anti-business policy and law, so the system can be thrown into a tailspin, and the state can take it's rightful place (in their minds) as the sole, benevolent provider and redistributor of all things.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here!

[bamahead]

I should add as a side note - where does all of this ‘conditioning’ usually come from?

Why STATE operated education, of course!

Thanks metmom :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[sickoflibs]

That was a big battle lost in the 1930s with Obama’s hero Roosevelt. O wants to repeat Roosevelts successes.

This conflict which is stated as black and white was muddied greatly by Social Security and Medicare. Because now seniors, a great part of the conservative Republican base are convinced it's OK to 'steal' (as the post puts it) , as long as they are told they have 'earned it', or as posted here ‘a verbal contract’, or ‘a promise’. So the socialists will always use that as an example why there really is no private property. And the seniors will be told that to keep their vote.

Fortunately this democrat strategy failed on health reform.

[sergeantdave]

” Because now seniors, a great part of the conservative Republican base are convinced it’s OK to ‘steal’ (as the post puts it)”

Some people have seen hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from them as social security payments. Are you proposing that this money not be paid back to them? If you’re saying that SS should not exist, I agree with that. If you’re saying every penny paid into SS should be given back to every person as a lump sum payment and then SS ends, I agree with that, too.

What’s your solution for people who have paid into SS their entire lives?

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Some people have seen hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from them as social security payments. Are you proposing that this money not be paid back to them? If you’re saying that SS should not exist, I agree with that. If you’re saying every penny paid into SS should be given back to every person as a lump sum payment and then SS ends, I agree with that, too.”

I am saying that like you, seniors believe and are told that it's OK to ‘steal’ young workers money, because the dead did the same to them. Do you understand how SS works? There is NO lump sum to ‘give’ back. That money is long spend by people dead. My grandmother got it for 35 years after working three. Do you know the federal government will borrow a third of this year's budget?

Your SS money was also spent on education, pork projects and rebuilding Iraq. It's gone. It's a lie that it's there to 'give back'.

[SunkenCiv]

"It's for a worthy cause," we tell ourselves, oblivious to the fact that the Eighth Commandment doesn't say "Thou shalt not steal ... except by majority vote or unless it's for the poor." ...Indeed, Bastiat called the state "the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." ...Governments don't produce wealth; they only take it and redistribute it... Many reason that democracy somehow sanctifies and legitimates the forcible redistribution of wealth. For them, democracy sanitizes and civilizes the process of taking someone's honestly earned property. They don't perceive this as robbery. But if this isn't robbery, then what is it?

Thanks neverdem. And if this isn't robbery, then what is?

[gogogodzilla]

Good post. I agree completely!

[metmom]

How else are they going to condition the unwashed masses?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Thank you metmom.

I like Lewis Love’s short parable [mentioned in article], “A King of Long Ago.”

An artisan, a mason, and a lame beggar petition their king for aid. The artisan can’t attract enough customers to meet his sales goals, the mason isn’t getting hired very often, and the beggar isn’t receiving sufficient alms.

They implore the king to correct this unsatisfactory state of affairs. The king commands that each petitioner be given a sword. He then authorizes the three to “go forth in the land and compel those who will not voluntarily deal with them to obey their command.”

“No! No!” the three men demur. “We are men of honor and could not set upon our fellow man to compel him to our will. This we cannot do. It is you, O King, who must use the power.”

“You ask me to do that which you would not do because of honor?” questioned the king. “I, too, am an honorable man, and that which is dishonorable for you will never be less dishonorable for your king.”

[Tolik]

Thank you for the ping.

BTTT

[Tolik]

Nailed It!

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[DuncanWaring]

Do you know the federal government will borrow a third of this year's budget?

More than that, actually.

42%, I've read.