Bad Luck

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.”

― Robert A. Heinlein


I'm a little hesitant at quoting Robert A Heinlein; I have read the majority of his science fiction output, and certainly don't agree with all of his apparent ideas, but in this case I think he has a point.

The point in question is made in more detail by Daniel Hannan:

http://www.capx.co/nelson-mandela-was-wrong-about-poverty/

One thing that leftists don't seem to take into account is that wealth is not a static thing - there isn't a fixed amount to be shared out; instead, wealth is dynamic, with it constantly being destroyed as well as created.

(If you find that concept a little alien, think of the most basic forms of wealth creation: the production of food. Food, once harvested, has a value, but not once it has been consumed; moreover, even when not consumed, it mostly deteriorates over time. It's similar with other forms of wealth; who wants a 10 year old mobile phone? Even houses wear out eventually.)

Of course, a large proportion of economic activity is neutral, and just shifts wealth from one person to another: for example, a rock concert can hardly be said to create any lasting value.

Therefore, if a large number of people are engaged in activities that do not create any lasting wealth, and yet are consuming wealth themselves, then it surely must follow that others are creating a substantial amount of wealth, enough to account for the wealth consumed/destroyed by everyone else, with what's left over accounting for economic growth.

On a personal level, how many people genuinely create the wealth themselves that they consume? If not, then they are dependent upon those who do create wealth.

My impression is that we, as a society, having progressed so far from an agricultural economy, have become dependent for our standard of living on a very small minority of wealth creators. The point being that, if we do anything to deter them, our own standard of living will surely suffer grievously.

Welfare Reform

This cartoon was widely circulated amongst leftists on social media in the aftermath of the 2015 General Election:

(You can find the original here: http://wondermark.com/c1122/)

The inference I draw is that this is a criticism of Ian Duncan Smith's reforms to the welfare state (unless they think that Tories are completely against all forms of welfare?).

If so, and if taking things to absurd levels is acceptable in political discourse, then perhaps the welfare state could be visualised as a system whereby a drowning person is rescued from the water, and then has their clothes dried out for them by placing them in front of a fire, but in such as way as to tether them close by, with the fire being fed by equipment that would otherwise be used for future rescue attempts. Meanwhile the person rescued is slowly being roasted...

Seriously, though, can leftists not realise that welfare is a double-edged sword?

People need four things from life to avoid misery:
1) a basic standard of living;
2) purpose;
3) self-determination;
4) meaningful interaction with other humans.

Welfare provided by the state might address the first of these, but subverts the second and the third, and over time can result in an erosion of the fourth (partly due to the disengagement of remainder of the population).

Employment can address all four (in this country, anyway - but clearly not in the case of migrant workers in Qatar, for example).

I'm not saying that welfare isn't a necessary short-term measure, nor that those who are genuinely unable to care for themselves in the long-term should not be provided for generously; instead, I'm saying that we need a better system than something provided remotely and facelessly by the state. There needs to be engagement with welfare claimants from the wider community, especially with assistance to retrain those lacking in skills to find employment, but there also needs to be some sort of reciprocity. We are all interdependent on each other, so we need to sweep away the culture of entitlement.

A question I would like to ask is: why should welfare claimants in this country be entitled to a better standard of living not only than those in most other countries in the world, but also than that enjoyed by a typical worker in this country in the days of their great-grandparents?

If the answer is "because we're a rich country and we can afford it" then my response would be: we might be rich, but even we are not that rich; if we were, then we wouldn't have such a large budget deficit. Isn't it immoral to borrow now for consumption? That's the same as throwing the rescue equipment on the fire - eventually, we will run out and not be able to save anyone else in danger of drowning...