Recent commentary by "Liberty Voice" [Ed: you 'gotta love it...] on the Piketty book here.
Some choice excerpts:
In her now-famous speech on the floor of the British House of Commons, the late Prime Minister Lady Margaret Thatcher beautifully described the socialist obsession against wealth when she pointed out that the left would be more than willing to see the real incomes of the poor decrease so long as the wealthy became “less rich.” Piketty confirms Mrs. Thatcher’s assessment, albeit unintentionally, throughout his exhausting dissertation as he uses data and statistics to point out not a decline in the standard of living for the poor, but rather the gulf between their wealth and that of the world’s elite.
Rather than viewing tax rates as a necessary evil (as is acknowledged by conservatives and taxpayers alike) to provide the needed revenue to fund government, progressives tend to look at the issue as does the mystery writer who drafts a conclusion to their novel and builds on their story from there.
(Of course here comes Darwin right on cue):
The laws of nature are fairly consistent. Once an entity is created, its primary function is to sustain life and thrive. This applies to a government agency just as it does to the cockroach or our own species. [Ed: LOL!]
The instinctive view of Thomas Piketty and the left is that by using taxation as a punitive weapon against the wealthy we will improve the lives of the poor. They of course feel no obligation to explain how this improvement will occur, they will simply point to Piketty’s book sales and inevitable Pulitzer (and possibly Nobel) Prize as proof positive their views are self-evident.Interestingly, some recent commentary by Mankiw also includes a Darwinian reference here:
Mankiw: Let me offer a few immediate reactions. The book has three main elements:
A history of inequality and wealth. A forecast of how things will evolve over the next century. Policy recommendations, such as a global tax on wealth.So we can see a common Darwinian paradigm operating from both the more radical and perhaps more moderate libertarian/"free-market" sources of commentary... here the Liberty Voice people think "survival of the fittest" and Mankiw thinks "things evolve...".
The make three glaringly wrong or highly questionable assumptions.
ReplyDelete1. Taxes fund governments that are sovereign in their currency. Wrong
2. Social Darwinism is scientifically demonstrated in evolutionary theory. Wrong.
Social Darwinism is an assumption of neoliberalism and Libertarianism. Where evolution does enter is apparently in the development of two distinct and conflicting personality types, one more tribal and the other more universal in hereditary disposition.
Those that are indifferent to asymmetries in status, power, and wealth are more tribal in disposition, and they prefer laissez-faire capitalism to democracy.
In fact, they view popular democracy as a threat and seek to impose a hierarchical structure that ensures minority control through asymmetry that emerges "naturally."
3. They also assume that the issue is chiefly economic inequality when it is asymmetry in status, power, and wealth that leads to privilege, a double standard of justice, political power, and a tilted playing field that makes free market competition a joke. This isn't even wrong. It's missing the point because it is ruled out the worldview of economic liberalism as undesirable. In this world view asymmetry of status, power and wealth is not merely desirable, it is the objective.
4. They also assume TINA, which is highly questionable, although I do admit that under capitalism, which by definition puts money and machines above people, this end up being the only alternative owing to the asymmetries involved.
The equation of capitalism with a market state rather than a welfare state with the consequence being that this is the only alternative through which to maximize individual utility, political effectiveness and economic efficiency is a performative assumption designed to advocate for a normative policy position.
It boils down to the difference in social, political and economic philosophy between Jay's propertarianism — those who own should govern — and Lincoln's popular democracy — government of the people, by the people and for the people. This is based on the ontological difference between those that view humanity atomically in terms of ontological individualism and those who view human being as social being, so that relationships in the social system are as significant as the elements of the system.
Tom
ReplyDeleteMankiw starts talking at about 25:00 in this NPR Piketty audio segment:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/04/29/thomas-piketty-inequality-gregory-mankiw
At one point he really cautions about govt "interference" (to me) with savings results implying that govt should NOT seek to interfere with what he must view as some sort of "natural order" that results in savings ... this is from my perspective a textbook Darwinian paradigm... and then he uses the term "evolve" here in the post.... he is imo at least a textbook Social Darwinist...
And then we have the Liberty Voice people who throw in the govt=cockroach metaphor! LOL!
so the two ends of the libertarian spectrum we see here, both imo relying heavily on Darwinism at core...
rsp,
The "natural" market is social Darwinism. It's a pile of crap and anyone with half a brain knows that status, power, and wealth tilt the playing field.
ReplyDeleteThe presumption of natural processes in the social sphere implies the law of the jungle where might is right.
Human being are social animals that regulate social interactions informally through culture using custom and convention, and formally through institutions such as governing, legal, regulatory arrangements.
The idea of individuals interacting on a level playing field in which outcome are due to merit and reward due to jut deserts is just made up as advocacy for a constituency. Mankiw is a mouthpiece.