It occurs to me now that we were missing something that's not merely a thought experiment or even a cautionary tale, but a real live, functioning economic system:
A welfare state threatens to become a system in which the most valuable service some voters can offer the market is to elect a politician who will drain resources from those who didn't elect him. The politician pays for this service by routing a fraction of the loot back to his loyal voters. The welfare state differs from our earliest attempts at state-administered charity in that the politician no longer is commandeering and redistributing only a small fraction of the nation's wealth to a small number of the most desperately needy. Now he's commandeering from 49% of voters and redistributing to 51%. Once the politician realizes that that's the path to staying in office (where he makes a handy living by skimming off the top of the redistributed funds), we are well on our way back to a command economy, one in which a centralized power directs where most of the resources shall be routed. That way lies poverty for everyone.
How do we stop a pernicious system of votes for hire? Honestly, I don't know. On my darkest days I think the franchise should be weighted by the amount of taxes one pays. Obviously that system would create its own problems. I'm tempted to say that, once the wheels come off the cart in this particularly way, it can't be fixed. And yet many countries that suffered behind the Iron Curtain have turned their kleptocracies around and begun to increase their prosperity again, so it's clearly not impossible. Is it like drunks, who have to hit a hard, hard, rock bottom before change can come?
...many countries that suffered behind the Iron Curtain have turned their kleptocracies around and begun to increase their prosperity again, so it's clearly not impossible.
ReplyDeleteWell, it helped them that there was a current, functioning example of the payoff from individual responsibility and individual liberty. That's on the verge of no longer obtaining.
Eric Hines
How do we stop a pernicious system of votes for hire?
ReplyDeleteMany (most?) drunks, addicts, et al., know the trouble they're in, and they want to get out of it; they just think they can't or they don't know how.
But there's AA, there are drug rehab programs, etc. While many of these also work the physical and psychological addiction aspects, they also work heavily the moral aspect.
Moral arguments still hold sway, even in today's moral equivalence world. It just takes laying out the facts of the matter, both secular and moral, a demonstration that moral equivalence really isn't, and a demonstration of the moral, as well as the prosperity, power of individual liberty and duty and of individually determined, local collective action, without need of government blessing.
We won't convince all, but we don't need to.
Eric Hines
Now, I don't see any reason for you to beat up on the drunks. Drunks spend their own money (and stop when they run out).
ReplyDeleteAll kidding aside, the comparison doesn't make sense for another reason. Drunks experience negative consequences personally: at work, maybe, or if they are arrested for DUI, or in their families, or in their health. Voters of the sort you describe experience no such consequences. For the politicians you mean, it's the road to power. They're never going to stop. There is no rock bottom.
Not until the revolution comes, at least.
Don't worry, the money will run out, sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Illinois State Democratic Party Chairman tells the Unions that they're going to have to face the same economic realities as the rest of us (at least in some degree), we're getting close to that point.
ReplyDeleteCloser to Eric's or Grim's prediction, I do not know.
Douglas hit the jackpot.
ReplyDeletePublic employee unions elect politicians (both votes AND finance support), and the politicians send the money back to the PEU's membership.
Drunks experience negative consequences personally....
ReplyDeleteI was discounting politicians in my remarks. Too few of those have morals or courage--they would be statesmen, instead. The way to deal with them is to fire them. We've been over that in several other threads.
I think many of those on welfare, and many voters and non-voters (and there's a measure of overlap between the first and the the second two), do experience negative consequences--the embarrassment, if not the shame--of their state. Certainly not all do, but the embarrassment was widespread when I was younger (and a motivator of my wife's and my rejection of it personally), and it's still extant today (anecdotally, it's less so today, but only anecdotally, as far as I know). Others would be embarrassed if they knew better. Still others would be impressed by the possibilities open to them were they not so "secure" on welfare. That's where we can direct our efforts.
Public employee unions elect politicians (both votes AND finance support), and the politicians send the money back to the PEU's membership.
It'll be a close-run race between unions influencing government and (public or private) union power falling too far to have such influence.
We can always revolt tomorrow. I'm not convinced we need to today.
Eric Hines
I think relying on "shame" is not in the cards, especially when that's something the government is ACTIVELY trying to remove (with the EBT cards and such so that it's easier to pretend you're scanning a credit card at the supermarket rather than using everyone else's money to buy your food).
ReplyDeleteHonestly I don't know that it can be fixed unless we remove the franchise from those completely on the public dole. The problem is, such a solution will never be supported by the voting public. I'm sure that the same was said in the past about expanding the franchise to certain groups, but expanding rights is a LOT easier to sell than restricting it. Unless we hit some kind of "moment of clarity" (which not even Greece has yet), I don't see that a fix will be put into place.