We may say of the Framers that they did not account for the fact that some may have had an affluent childhood, or that it is more onerous to sweep streets than to manage hedge funds. That this is an oversight on the part of the Framers is clear to privileged adolescents. Unclear to them is the plight of anyone unskilled and desperate for a job, and the monstrous capacity of Government for destruction when indulging in “feelings” (see not only Affirmative Action, but the Japanese Internment, the Dred Scott decision, the idea of “hate crimes”).
The adolescent, the Marxist, and the Liberal Left dream of “fairness,” which can be brought about by the State, forgetting that, in order to pay the street sweeper and the physician the same, one must raise the wages of one or lower the wages of the other.
How can Government raise the wages of the street sweeper? Only by taxing its citizenry, which is to say only by overriding the societal decision that the skilled worker is entitled to higher pay than the unskilled.
This decision was never pronounced by Authority, nor blessed by any authority other than the free market. It was arrived at through interaction of human beings perfectly capable of ordering their own affairs; and this group decided, through innumerable interactions known as the Free Market, that some jobs should be better paid. Why? Because of the job holder’s education, because of his skill, or for no defensible reason whatsoever (for example, the shape of their chins).88 Is this folly? Would it be greater folly to allow the Government to decide the criteria by which newscasters were appointed?
In the newscaster we see the operation of the free market. Is it “fair” to pay him tens of millions of dollars because he has a square jaw? Who is to say?
Phrenologists were once considered scientists for disseminating the hogwash that a person’s character may be determined by the shape of his head. The fad passed, but in a top-down, Government-controlled economy, where the citizenry gave to the Government the opportunity to rule its actions upon an inchoate and subjective determination (fairness), our tax dollars might still be paying phrenologists. 89 For a government will not and cannot admit mistakes. Its members thrive through taxation and by ever widening their spheres of influence, selling influence to the highest bidder. We are still paying oil and wheat subsidies, and it is mere luck that the phrenologists of that day did not have sufficiently skilled lobbyists to ensure their own eternal subvention. You might say it is absurd to claim to determine a person’s deserts on the basis of the shape of his head. It is equally absurd to make the claim on the basis of the color of his skin.
Government cannot correct itself—which is why we periodically hold elections. But society, convened as the free market, can and does correct itself, and that quickly, for to tarry is to risk impoverishment. We have paid the big-chinned newscasters fortunes over the decades, and have enjoyed their solemn ability to correctly read a sheet of paper before a camera. But now the Internet has grown, and the day of the newscaster is passing, and another generation will shake its head in wonder at our “trust” of those with well-shaped chins.
Is it a sin, or is it unfair, that the street sweeper is paid less than the surgeon?90 The Left, the Socialist, the privileged adolescent may say “yes,” but their prescription is “You (the taxpayer) pay him more . . .”
This, which has been called the essence of Marxism, person A getting person B to do something for person C. Is this fair? That the surgeon be taxed because some good-willed other would thereby feel momentarily better about himself and his society; that the citizenry be taxed so that the good-willed might implement their vision of a perfect world (sweepers and surgeons paid alike)?
The Leftist would enjoy feeling that his vision brought about some good, but, finally, what is it but the enjoyment of a fantasy? Environmentalists insist on the inviolability of Yellowstone Park, but how many Liberals are actually going to use Yellowstone Park? Yet they want to ban their fellows who do use it from using snowmobiles.
Why? The snowmobile offends the Liberals’ fantasy of the pristine nature preserve. So be it. We are all entitled to our fantasies, but are we entitled to impose their costs upon others? The Liberal is free to pay to achieve his fantasy. What stops him from digging in his own pocket and correcting the pay differential in the two jobs, from actually giving actual money to the street sweeper?
This, in fact, is part of the actual unfairness of those confiscatory taxes which are the inevitable companion of big Government—that the individual is prohibited from disposing of his income in the way he sees fit. If the Leftist were actually more interested in a more “fair” redistribution of income—which is to say, a distribution more in line with his own worldview—let him vote to lower taxes, and distribute his now larger share of his wealth, to the street sweeper.
Giving the money to the Government, even that Government which proclaims an agenda with which the Liberal agrees, is folly. For a simple perusal of history will reveal that the money the Government strips from the surgeon to pay the street sweeper, far from ending in the sweeper’s pocket, will most likely arrive somewhere else altogether. It will be diverted by Government into “costs of administration,” or “a general fund”—or it will—like Social Security—merely vanish.91
Called to task, the only way the Government can appear to make good its claim of Fairness to the Sweeper is to print more money, which is to say, impose a new tax. And the best that can be said of this destructive force of inflation is that, at least, it is a tax which is demonstrably “fair,” for it impoverishes everyone.
In addition to actually giving more money of his own to the street sweeper, the Inspired Leftist may, today, without let or hindrance, give more money to the cabdriver, the dry cleaner, the restaurateur, and to all others whose services he employs. He is free to give them more money than they request, and so feel good about himself. But I doubt he will do so. For he does not want to pay what is here visible as essentially an “entertainment tax.” “Here, let me tip you, as I am a Big Spender.”
No, he refrains from paying above the stated price for goods and services. To do so would reveal to him the idiocy of his position.
In his day-to-day life, the Leftist, like everyone else, wants the dry cleaners, the restaurants, the car dealerships, the gas stations to compete, for he knows that only then does he stand a chance of getting a fair (which is to say happy) price.
The Leftist, in his own dealings, likewise strives to compete, in order to gain an advantage over his competitors. He burns to compete. For if he cannot improve the quality or lower the price of his goods and services, potential customers will take their business from him. He must compete, unless he has access to the power of government. (This is how lobbyists grow rich, through promise or reality of their ability to subvert the free market through government intervention. What else did anyone think they were doing?)
If the Government determines that the street sweeper be paid as much as the surgeon, must it not, further, insist that the bad street sweeper be paid as much as the good? The bad surgeon paid as much as the superior?92
The Left might say that this is folly, and, of course, it is, and it is practiced every day in affirmative action, and set-asides, in preferences, where the Government, we see, has already determined that accomplishment and performance may, and in some cases must, be put outside consideration. (See also Union rules, for example in the teachers union, in their intractable opposition to merit pay. They claim to educate our children, but insist the bad teacher be paid as much as the good. What lesson, then, are they teaching?)93