Global warming alarmists will have to find another excuse to justify begging big government to rescue human society. I see in OWS another alternative: the idea that rising wealth inequality risks the implosion of modern society.
Shouldn’t the government do something to fix rising wealth inequality. Isn’t wealth inequality bad??!!?
Wealth inequality isn’t bad or good per se. it is a natural feature of all market economies. THat isn't to say wealth inequality can never be stretched to a point that becomes a serious social and economic problem. we see social and economic stresses from excessive income inequality in Latin America and increasingly in China and of course in the US. The cause of income inequality, however, is NOT the free market. the market doesn't DO anything. the market facilitates specialization and division of labor and free exchange which makes everyone wealthier. As people specialize labor and accumulate wealth, income inequality naturally results in a health economy. The cause of unhealthy income inequality IS NEVER THE FREE MARKET. the free market can't favor some over others.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer when the government gets in the game of choosing winners and losers. the market can't determine winners, but the government can!!! we can blame the evil market for failing us when income inequality rises, but the cause of whatever is "excessive" income inequality (beyond what is the natural rate of inequality) must be some well intended government intervention. regulations, redistribution schemes, central banking (easy money) are all ways that government funnels power and wealth to politically connected special interest groups.
So hear it is one more time: the cause of what i would call "exaggerated" wealth inequality (like we see in LATAM or China or the US) isn’t caused by the “free market.” The free market will always result in wealth inequality. That is a fundamental nature of markets. people with different skills pursue comparative advantage are going to end up with different income levels and wealth accumulation. but the market system increases EVERYONEs standard of living over time by driving sustained productivity gains!!! you can't get sustained productivity gains without division of labor and private property. if you start with division of labor and private property you will end up with a society that has some natural wealth income inequality distribution. Wealth inequality is not a market failure.
Wealth inequality is a market feature. Wealth inequality only becomes a problem when the government starts to intervene in the economy ostensibly to fix other market failures, but really to accumulate power via currying favor with special interest groups. the more power government accumulates, the more it is able to funnel wealth and power to special interests ... and so on in a never ending cycle of government gaining power and sharing it with special interests. special interests have special access to rent seeking activities --- and wealth inequality goes up.
the market doesn't fail us. WE FAIL THE MARKET when government interventions ostensibly aimed at fixing a market failure -- BUT REALLY aimed at currying favor with special interest groups -- create systemic distortions.
there are no free lunches in life except through free trade. the sort of free lunches promised by government (e.g. free education, universal health care, free cradle to grave safety nets, level playing fields, stable markets, etc, etc.) are Utopian fantasies; there are only trade-offs and hard work.
society doesn't get to enjoy the benefits of free trade (standard of living increases driven by productivity gains) without the natural features that come along with free trade. free trade / capitalism naturally results in industrial pollution, creative destruction, income inequality, asset bubbles and other "negative" features. but these features SHOULD NOT be mistaken for market failures. NAtural disasters such as hurricanes are features of the earth biosphere; we cannot get rid of hurricanes any more than we can get rid of wealth inequality.
If we want more income inequality there is going to be a net negative trade off for society. the government would have us believe the fantasy that since excessive income inequality is bad for the economy, then if we reduce income inequality via government intervention, we can kill two birds with one stone: we can reduce a bad thing (income inequality) and improve the economy at the same time.
The real world doesn't work like this. that is the same sort of logic that people use to support government subsidies for green energy. we are supposed to believe that green energy is a win/win for society. YEs, green energy is win/win WHEN THE outcome results from free MARKET processes. As soon as the government gets involved with investment subsidies and new regulations promoting some new standard, the win/win result from market exchange turns into lose/lose.
Government can't magically reduce income inequality or pollution or business cycles and it can't offer "free health insurance" and free education without also causing and triggering a massive wave of unintended consequences that overwhelm the well intended policy with negative results.
we've seen the result of public education: it is a disaster for those from most disadvantaged households. the poor are held hostage in a dysfunctional government monopoly. why do liberals hate private monopolies but they love public monopolies. the fact is monopolies can't survive in the private sector without some government mandate or support or barrier to entry. public monopolies are insidious destroyers of public resources. public education is designed to succeed by ostensibly well meaning public servants, but the result of any public monopoly is certain failure given the lack of feedback between success and failure in a system designed around a public monopoly.
Government can’t solve macro social problems. As soon as government comes in to solve macro social or economic or financial problems, what happens next is that big labor, big business and/or big finance come in and hi-jack big government for their own selfish purposes.
Big government will always end up in bed with Big biz. That is the nature of the two headed beast. Trying to use big government to help protect the little guy is a contradiction in terms. This is why OWS is so upside down. OWS condemns the big government / big finance nexus on Wall Street, but then in the same breath OWS screams for big government to provide free education, free healthcare, more income equality … Big government cannot deliver such Utopian wishes. Big government ends up fueling the very income disparity and unfair playing field most condemned by the OWS crowd.
Should we throw our hands up at social problems? Of course not. We should pitch in and help on a local micro level. We should contribute our time to a soup kitchen or help build a house or contribute time to a charity or become a big brother or a coach or help with a local fund raiser. But, do not let government pass a law that commands society wide results or promises to eradicate poverty or that promises to reduce income inequality or that promises any other macro outcome.
the best government can do is protect fair treatment under the law. it cannot guarantee "fair" outcomes. social justice is a myth.
As soon as we put government in charge of determining macro outcomes, we set in train a series of unintended consequences that – by definition – end up resulting in a net welfare decline for society as a whole. Even worse, the very so called "disadvantaged groups" that big government aims to help are the most vulnerable to unintended consequences of well intended policy. the rich and politically connected will always be better off from well intended government policy while the poor suffer more, one way or the other.
as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. that is where we are headed as long as we look to government for answers.
NOVEMBER 29, 2011
The Great Global Warming Fizzle
The climate religion fades in spasms of anger and twitches of boredom.
· By BRET STEPHENS
How do religions die? Generally they don't, which probably explains why there's so little literature on the subject. Zoroastrianism, for instance, lost many of its sacred texts when Alexander sacked Persepolis in 330 B.C., and most Zoroastrians converted to Islam over 1,000 years ago. Yet today old Zoroaster still counts as many as 210,000 followers, including 11,000 in the U.S. Christopher Hitchens might say you can't kill what wasn't there to begin with.
Still, Zeus and Apollo are no longer with us, and neither are Odin and Thor. Among the secular gods, Marx is mostly dead and Freud is totally so. Something did away with them, and it's worth asking what.
Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.
As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term "climate change" when thermometers don't oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other "deniers." And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.
This week, the conclave of global warming's cardinals are meeting in Durban, South Africa, for their 17th conference in as many years. The idea is to come up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire next year, and to require rich countries to pony up $100 billion a year to help poor countries cope with the alleged effects of climate change. This is said to be essential because in 2017 global warming becomes "catastrophic and irreversible," according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency.
Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. Namely, the financial apocalypse.
The U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU have all but confirmed they won't be signing on to a new Kyoto. The Chinese and Indians won't make a move unless the West does. The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible, especially after they've spent it all on Greece.
Cap and trade is a dead letter in the U.S. Even Europe is having second thoughts about carbon-reduction targets that are decimating the continent's heavy industries and cost an estimated $67 billion a year. "Green" technologies have all proved expensive, environmentally hazardous and wildly unpopular duds.
All this has been enough to put the Durban political agenda on hold for the time being. But religions don't die, and often thrive, when put to the political sidelines. A religion, when not physically extinguished, only dies when it loses faith in itself.
That's where the Climategate emails come in. First released on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit two years ago and recently updated by a fresh batch, the "hide the decline" emails were an endless source of fun and lurid fascination for those of us who had never been convinced by the global-warming thesis in the first place.
But the real reason they mattered is that they introduced a note of caution into an enterprise whose motivating appeal resided in its increasingly frantic forecasts of catastrophe. Papers were withdrawn; source material re-examined. The Himalayan glaciers, it turned out, weren't going to melt in 30 years. Nobody can say for sure how high the seas are likely to rise—if much at all. Greenland isn't turning green. Florida isn't going anywhere.
The reply global warming alarmists have made to these disclosures is that they did nothing to change the underlying science, and only improved it in particulars. So what to make of the U.N.'s latest supposedly authoritative report on extreme weather events, which is tinged with admissions of doubt and uncertainty? Oddly, the report has left climate activists stuttering with rage at what they call its "watered down" predictions. If nothing else, they understand that any belief system, particularly ones as young as global warming, cannot easily survive more than a few ounces of self-doubt.
Meanwhile, the world marches on. On Sunday, 2,232 days will have elapsed since a category 3 hurricane made landfall in the U.S., the longest period in more than a century that the U.S. has been spared a devastating storm. Great religions are wise enough to avoid marking down the exact date when the world comes to an end. Not so for the foolish religions. Expect Mayan cosmology to take a hit to its reputation when the world doesn't end on Dec. 21, 2012. Expect likewise when global warming turns out to be neither catastrophic nor irreversible come 2017.
And there is this: Religions are sustained in the long run by the consolations of their teachings and the charisma of their leaders. With global warming, we have a religion whose leaders are prone to spasms of anger and whose followers are beginning to twitch with boredom. Perhaps that's another way religions die
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