24 May 2009

Some interesting quotes from Decline and Fall by Bruce Thornton:

Olaf Gersemann: "The attitude still most widely held in Europe is that that it is the job of politicians to distribute and redistribute society's goods - be it jobs, income, or wealth."

T.R. Reid: "The state has a reponsibility to insulate and protect people from the harsh vicissitudes of modern life" and the people "need to be taken care of by the government and not left alone to bear the consequences of ill fate or their own bad decisions."

I went back and pulled out these quotes this morning after reading an article about a schizophrenic man in California who had hung himself in prison; his mother sued and collected a million dollars via several intersting legal machinations, that I won't bother to discuss.

But then we cannot forget the saga of General Motors, where labor unions pushed the company to the brink by their demands and then were awarded more than half the company as investors received almost nothing.

Share the wealth; strangely, however, in our world of clever power manipulation there are always those who will find ways to capitalize on the sharing: we are all equal, but some are more equal than others.  To each according to his needs and from each according t0 his abilities.  So who determines needs and abilities?

We are clearly sliding in that direction, in our own way of course, and the result will be predictable, even if American-unique.  As Thornton put it: "The result of Europe's combination of social welfare spending and government interference in the market is low growth, chronic unemployment, and economic stagnation" but we will be protected from the harsh vicissitudes of modern life.  Deal?  Why not?  In the short term more benefit than not, and very few have either a clue or interest in anything beyond short term.  Besides, in a society strongly influenced by the dynamics of envy, spreading the wealth removes that vicious driver; we'll all be equal, more or less - except for those who find ways to be more equal than the others.

It will not be socialism, state ownership of the means of production, nor will it be a now bankrupt notion of a dictatorship of the prolotariat; it will be the American way; call it statism (paternalism isn't American enough), an American nanny statism.  And sadly (at least to me) most will welcome it; and in a couple of generations we'll never know any different.