The Lesser of Two Evils?

My parents wanted me to be responsible for myself, to do my best and to respect other people — it’s the way they tried to live their lives and it’s the way I still try to live my own life. Their ethics was rooted in Anglican Christianity (‘do unto others’ and the parable of the Good Samaritan), policed by an all-seeing God who pricked your conscience when you strayed from the straight and narrow. Although I share their moral code — completely — I have learned that it springs from a consideration of human rights, not from any religious doctrine.

So, I would like, I would like passionately, everyone to enjoy better and more fulfilling lives. I would like everyone to be able to enjoy improving standards of living, better healthcare and education, better access to the arts and to technology. I am a humanist and I believe the world will be a better place if we work for the great principles of the Enlightenment - ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. Achieving these goals requires resources, so the great moral question is: What is the best way to produce the resources required to eliminate poverty? Looking for the answer to this question cuts through all the political hype and gives me a pointer about how to vote in May 7th’s General Election. See what you think.

Using the metaphor that resources are a cake, everyone would like more. There are two fundamentally different approaches - either get a larger slice of the cake as it is, or make a bigger cake. Some people think everyone should have the same sized slice of cake, so they work for ‘redistribution’. Those who understand where the cake came from in the first place think that a larger cake would mean more to go round, so they set out to make a bigger cake.

In practice ‘redistribution’ is always done by someone and when deciding on ‘fair shares’ someone has to decide what ‘fair’ means. That requires a ‘top-down’ approach — someone in charge dictating who gets what. The ‘larger cake’ approach means individual creative people having the freedom to follow up their ideas, establish viable businesses and produce the profits that are the metaphorical cake. That is a ‘bottom-up’ approach; it recognises that talented individuals are the creative element of society and only when such people are allowed the freedom to work will resources be produced that allow the enhancement of individual and social wellbeing.

Left of Centre politics is the politics of redistribution; it sounds like a nice idea but in practice always runs into the problem that there is only so much cake to go round. Right of Centre politics is the politics of greater productivity; it may appear harsh but it produces a bigger cake. I conclude therefore, because I try to follow humanitarian principles, that I must vote for a party that believes in individual freedom, acceptance of responsibility for one’s own actions and equality of opportunity.

In practice only either Ed Miliband or David Cameron is likely to be the next Prime Minister. In my opinion David Cameron is massively mistaken in many of his policies, some of which are more socialist than entrepreneurial, but he is less mistaken than Ed Miliband. Miliband is on the side of redistribution, Cameron on the side of wanting a bigger cake. Although I would like a right of centre government I may not support Cameron (because, as explained elsewhere on this blog, my vote will make no practical difference). But my sense of fairness means I cannot support Miliband.

Now all I want is the media to have a sensible discussion about the issues. Sadly, it isn't likely to happen!

The Inevitable Drift to the Left

We're coming up to a General Election. In any society, most people earn less than average pay, so when we ask all those who would like a pay rise to put up their hands, most people are inclined to do so. They will vote for redistribution of wealth. Some, who earn less than average income and who are ambitious, may keep their hands down, and some who are happy to live off what they earn may do likewise. Some will not bother to put their hand up at all. But human nature will see more hands go up than stay down. And who can blame people for voting for a pay rise? The world is a tough place and it’s dog eat dog, survival of the fittest and all that, isn’t it? Most of those who have money probably got it dishonestly anyway, especially the bankers, didn’t they?

I’m not moralising. What I’m doing is simply pointing out the inevitable drift to the left, over a period of decades or generations, of a reasonably freely functioning democracy. We’d all like a little more, please, and the one-man one-vote system gives us a way of achieving that, over time, without the need for protests or violence. Even the rich in liberal Western democracies have concluded that one-person one-vote is preferable to off-with-their-heads! Enlightened self-interest!

We are not all born equal. We are born female or male, tall or short, blue- or brown-eyed. Some of you are good at music, I’m not. Some are good at maths, I struggle. Some have good manual skills, I don’t. You get the idea. Fortunately for me there are people who excel in skills and abilities at which I am hopeless, so for a modest outlay I can listen to wonderful music, buy an amazing computer and get someone to fix my central heating. That’s how society works. Each of us contributes our abilities, skills and experience to enable us to live more rewarding and comfortable lives. Some of those abilities and skills are in shorter supply and greater demand than others and the best way yet found to value those skills is the free market where a willing buyer and seller come together and agree on a price. Prices are decided by what individuals are prepared to pay or accept. It’s a bottom-up model of society, not a top-down one. It’s voluntary, not mandated by those in power. This is how I saw it in 2013.

Specialists Triolet ©

The hunter wants a spear and the smith wants meat,

If everyone’s a specialist, everybody thrives.

It’s work and trade and buy and sell and nobody must cheat,

The hunter wants a spear and the smith wants meat.

Rising productivity means all have more to eat,

And more to eat means happiness and more fulfilling lives.

The hunter gets a spear and the smith gets meat

When everyone’s a specialist, everybody thrives.

Evidently the ‘put-up-your-hand for a fairer distribution of income’ and a ‘willing-buyer-and-seller’ models of social organisation are in conflict. As Ayn Rand explained in ‘Atlas Shrugged’, you can only coerce those whose skills are in short supply to work to order up to a point. In effect the failed idea of Central Planning (practiced by many regimes, including the now defunct Soviet / Russian and other Communist regimes, Fascism and Syndicalism) stands testimony to the weakness of income redistribution, and Western free-trade and capitalism (recently aped by China) show how application of capital to raise the productivity of labour, and thereby allow rising living standards, stands testimony to the power of a society in which people cooperate voluntarily.

Resources and Public Resources…

I recently had an animated conversation with the son of a friend – a young Brazilian with a public-sector job as an administrator in the local Emergency Services. In pretty sharp contrast to his father, who works in the private sector, he is a self-declared socialist. We had a pretty wide-ranging session, running, inevitably, out of time before we had exhausted the topics of interest. We didn’t even get round to religion!

Bob – that is what I’ll call him – talked about use of ‘public resources’ to promote social well-being in Brazil. And I’ve since heard the new President, Dilma Rouseff, refer to the fact that Brazil is a huge exporter of soya while part of its own population goes without enough to eat. These are emotive issues that all responsible people would like to resolve. Of course, the government could just buy up soya (or rice, or beans, or maize, or beef) and distribute it to the hungry. But Bob, and no doubt others, want to go further. Bob wants the government to provide education, healthcare and improved transport links to people who live in isolated rural communities. “How else can these people be helped?” he asked. I told him I wasn’t sure how to answer that question.

I asked Bob what was the difference between ‘public resources’ and plain old ‘resources’. My point was that all resources ultimately derive from the private sector (where wealth is created). What was strange is that he refused to answer. Clearly in his mind it is legitimate to spend ‘public resources’ but he was in denial about the origin of those resources. All ‘public resources’ are taken in taxes from the private sector – clearly Bob thinks it’s fine to confiscate some private money although he was fairly clear that it would be wrong to expropriate all private sector resources. Bob certainly wants to be a Socialist, but he wouldn’t dream of being a Communist!

As a humanist I would certainly like to eradicate poverty, but I’m not about to sanction the plans of Brazilian socialists. For one thing, everyone I speak to in Brazil accepts that the political system is corrupt from bottom to top. The problem is not as bad as in much of Africa, where political systems do not function, but it is a constant drain on the nation. The beneficiaries of the corruption are the politicians themselves (and their families), friends of politicians, businesses with government contracts, and the government apparatchiks in Brasilia. Boy, does money flow in Brasilia!

So, if we take R$100 from private resources into ‘public resources’ and then spend it to help the rural poor, it looks like only (say) R$60 or R$80 ends up doing any good. Hmm, not ideal – but then perhaps some help is better than none? The trouble with corruption is that it’s the hard-working, less-well off, who end up footing the bill. So, is there a viable alternative? I’m not sure.

What I do know is that my own (Brazilian) parents-in-law (and many other relatives of their generation) were once the rural poor. They were barely-literate agricultural workers but learned to sew and make clothes. This allowed them to move to a local town and, after many changes in search of a better life they eventually succeeded in allowing all of their children to get enough schooling. Four went on to higher education. Along the way my in-laws were sometimes without food and/or shelter, they suffered from ill-health and had sometimes to rely on money earned by their young children. I think that most of what they achieved was done without many ‘public resources’, and they were respectable, hard-working and honest people. I can’t help feeling that the difficult road they travelled is a better one than would have been achieved had they been the beneficiaries of socialist good intentions. It’s good that Bob wants to have a view on these things, but I find it ironic that he’s the beneficiary of a safe job and is paid out of ‘public resources’.