Levellers and the French Revolution
Nov. 18th, 2006 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drscottThis bit of writing is a cleaned-up response to a comment I received on my Friedman post.
"Privileged" implies not natural ability or potential, but "unfair" access to support from others. This trope of denying what someone has to say because they are "privileged" is used by leftists to avoid logical response to any point made by someone insufficiently handicapped by prejudice, and it is tiresome. It is another argument ad hominem to be ignored.
Compassion towards others is best expressed by exerting yourself directly -- with your personal attention -- to assist those you come in actual contact with, not delegating to a distant government the responsibilities to care for others as you think everyone should.
During the period just before major welfare reform (a Clinton / Republican Congress joint endeavor), people who think as you do warned us of all the terrible consequences -- death in the streets, starvation, loss of a generation of children's futures, etc. These people have no shame and have never acknowledged that the result was the opposite -- that the threat of being cut off from the dole encouraged millions of long-term welfare recipients to join the workforce, and that the vast majority of them, when interviewed now, are happier with their lives, integrated into society, and progressing toward entering the middle class. While there may have been room for doubt before, this "experiment" on a vast scale proves that the existing welfare apparatus was holding back the supposed beneficiaries and expanding the size of the so-called underclass. It's a fine demonstration of why unintended consequences make any attempt to level outcomes by government action problematic and often counterproductive.
This set of memes goes way back, to the Levellers of the 17th century, who wanted to remove inherited privilege and unequal treatment from society. The US was founded on Leveller principles, but it was easy for the meme to mutate into a quest for government to force equality of outcome, not just equal treatment of all under the law. We still live with the consequences of people's lack of understanding of economics and free markets, with ignoramuses thinking trade with foreigners hurts them and that government should control prices to prevent "gouging." Thus the paean to Friedman, who helped educate millions of people around the world that freedom to trade and produce without interference is in the long run best for everyone. From a help-the-downtrodden perspective, it's clear that government power in the marketplace almost always ends up serving the already wealthy and powerful, and that most social welfare programs are a sop to useful idiots that allows the well-connected to continue to enrich themselves further at the poor's expense. I remember well the upper-class lady who dropped by one day while I was working on a small subdivision to ask why I couldn't build homes somewhere else -- "those people" should live on the other side of the mountains where they belonged. Making sure that the privileged don't have to see, feel guilty about, or worry about competition from the poor and newly-arrived is a primary reason why the most comfortable and exclusive communities support symbolic affordable housing programs and social services, unless they happen to be sited nearby....
See this post for more...
"Privileged" implies not natural ability or potential, but "unfair" access to support from others. This trope of denying what someone has to say because they are "privileged" is used by leftists to avoid logical response to any point made by someone insufficiently handicapped by prejudice, and it is tiresome. It is another argument ad hominem to be ignored.
Compassion towards others is best expressed by exerting yourself directly -- with your personal attention -- to assist those you come in actual contact with, not delegating to a distant government the responsibilities to care for others as you think everyone should.
During the period just before major welfare reform (a Clinton / Republican Congress joint endeavor), people who think as you do warned us of all the terrible consequences -- death in the streets, starvation, loss of a generation of children's futures, etc. These people have no shame and have never acknowledged that the result was the opposite -- that the threat of being cut off from the dole encouraged millions of long-term welfare recipients to join the workforce, and that the vast majority of them, when interviewed now, are happier with their lives, integrated into society, and progressing toward entering the middle class. While there may have been room for doubt before, this "experiment" on a vast scale proves that the existing welfare apparatus was holding back the supposed beneficiaries and expanding the size of the so-called underclass. It's a fine demonstration of why unintended consequences make any attempt to level outcomes by government action problematic and often counterproductive.
This set of memes goes way back, to the Levellers of the 17th century, who wanted to remove inherited privilege and unequal treatment from society. The US was founded on Leveller principles, but it was easy for the meme to mutate into a quest for government to force equality of outcome, not just equal treatment of all under the law. We still live with the consequences of people's lack of understanding of economics and free markets, with ignoramuses thinking trade with foreigners hurts them and that government should control prices to prevent "gouging." Thus the paean to Friedman, who helped educate millions of people around the world that freedom to trade and produce without interference is in the long run best for everyone. From a help-the-downtrodden perspective, it's clear that government power in the marketplace almost always ends up serving the already wealthy and powerful, and that most social welfare programs are a sop to useful idiots that allows the well-connected to continue to enrich themselves further at the poor's expense. I remember well the upper-class lady who dropped by one day while I was working on a small subdivision to ask why I couldn't build homes somewhere else -- "those people" should live on the other side of the mountains where they belonged. Making sure that the privileged don't have to see, feel guilty about, or worry about competition from the poor and newly-arrived is a primary reason why the most comfortable and exclusive communities support symbolic affordable housing programs and social services, unless they happen to be sited nearby....
See this post for more...
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 09:14 pm (UTC)thanks for the reference!
best regards,
pete
no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 10:39 pm (UTC)Not just the Left anymore- singling out the priveleged has become part of any rhetoric used to avoid logical reponse. It's one of the reasons we have a president who went to Yale (as a legacy admission)beloved by Nascar moms and dads.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 03:31 am (UTC)