OUTSTANDING essay/post, dear Jeff! Thank you so very much!
WRT the above italics, just two observations. (1) Economic "progressives" can't even define what "fairness" IS; for they absolutely reject the notion that there is any objective standard of moral truth. "Fairness" is just a mindless incantation they use while they keep on moving the goalpost of "fairness." (I.e., fairness is "what 'I' say it is," not something based on any objective standard, nor on the facts of human nature. This is an exercise in pure solipsism.)
(2) WRT the economy, 0Bamaniacs come in two basic kinds: those who do not have a CLUE about what capitalism is and how it functions; and those who DO know these things, but detest capitalism because it is ineluctibly premised on human liberty — and they detest human liberty as inimical to the implementation of their statist, tyrannical plans.
In recent times it has become fashionable to conceive of the national economy as a zero-sum game: An existing "pie," if you will, that never grows in size, so it has to be shared out to all comers "fairly." In practice, this means that no sharer can take more than his "fair share" of the pie except he does so at the "expense" of all the other sharers. That is to say, the "rich" can only get "richer" by making the "poor," "poorer." We need gummint to prevent this from happening!!!
Which, of course, is perfectly MINDLESS. A capitalist economy is not a static, fixed zero-sum game: It is a dynamic, superbly creative system based on risk/reward as assessed by free human beings, which alone of all other economic systems that have been tried, brings new ideas, new information, new products, and new wealth (new capital that didn't exist before, but which is now available for reinvestment) into existence. It doesn't just make an existing pie bigger — it is constantly making new "pies." (So to speak....)
The capitalist economy
...is not a closed system [i.e., a zero-sum game] like Newton's universe — or Keynes' "macro-economy." It is forever growing and changing, and is biological rather than mechanistic in nature. — Peter DruckerBut if it is NOT "mechanistic" in nature, then it cannot be managed by scientistic "technocrats" who see only exploitable mechanism all around them. The technocrats delude themselves, and misrepresent the meaning and essentially moral character of capitalism in order to destroy it. But —
The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort. — Joseph SchumpeterAnd that's just a fancy way of saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats," as Ronald Reagan put it.
Of course, progressive economists make their zero-sum arguments because they want to frighten people into believing that capitalism is "unfair" — which is the prime justification for levying even more taxes on the "rich," who have "unfairly profited" from the system. [Which happens to be the best tactic to ensure that the economy and jobs production will never grow.]
On that score, a final word from Joseph Schumpeter:
The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare [are] written in its fiscal history.... He who knows how to listen to its message here discerns the thunder of world history more clearly than anywhere else.The dirty little secret — which to the discerning really is not so secret — of the 0Bama administration is that it does not want America to flourish and prosper at all. It wants to "cut America down to size, " to punish it for its past success.
I dunno. I hate to think it, but in gloomier moments, I feel that the next election will be a referendum on the stupidity, cupidity, and sheer cluelessness of the American people....
Thanks again, dear Jeff Head, for your outstanding analysis!