[Tim Lee]
My former boss David Boaz has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal on our presidential candidates' contempt for ordinary Americans:
Hypocrisy is not the biggest issue. The real issue is that Messrs. Obama and McCain are telling us Americans that our normal lives are not good enough, that pursuing our own happiness is "self-indulgence," that building a business is "chasing after our money culture," that working to provide a better life for our families is a "narrow concern."They're wrong. Every human life counts. Your life counts. You have a right to live it as you choose, to follow your bliss. You have a right to seek satisfaction in accomplishment. And if you chase after the almighty dollar, you just might find that you are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do things that improve the lives of others.
But my absolute favorite commentary on Obama's speech comes from Jim Manzi:
What’s funny about his sacrifice is that when Obama took this job, $14,000 was about the average salary for somebody getting out of college. Of course, Obama wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill college graduate; he was an Ivy-Leaguer, who graduated from Columbia with a BA in political science. A corporate career would almost certainly have been more lucrative – for a while. Last year, his family income was about $4,200,000. I don’t have the data, but I bet that compares reasonably favorably with the average household income of 1983 Columbia political science and 1991 Harvard Law School graduates. Nonetheless, Obama did sacrifice some of his expected credential-based wage premium for a number of years.I’m pretty far from being a John McCain booster, but does Obama not get that he’s running against a guy who spent the directly analogous years of his life in a fetid jungle prison being hung upside down and beaten with sticks until his bones broke?
And I said yes. Cry me a river, pal.
After several (eye-opening, if frustrating) years of working for NGOs in Latin American and non-profits here at home, I can say these simple truths:
Bill Gates did more to improve the prosperity and standards of living for more people in the world as CEO of Microsoft than he can possibly do now with his charities. Wal-Mart improves the living standards of poor people more than welfare. Capitalist prosperity is the best weapon that we have against natural disasters, third-world diseases, and social breakdown.
There is a very important place in the world for non-profits and the kinds of jobs Obama and McCain tout as "selfless." But it's stupid to pretend that they contribute to general prosperity. They're more of a band-aid for certain problems; the market and the profit motive are what provides the sustenance for the entire organism.
When I ask my students what kinds of jobs they want to go into, 90% of them, of course, say non-profits (this being an enlightened, progressive university). I then ask them: "if everybody goes into non-profits, who is going to make the profits that we can then donate to the non-profits so they can exist in the first place?"
Then the economics majors (who usually keep their mouths shut to avoid the holier-than-thou stink eye from the girls who major in "Social Development") tend to laugh out loud.
When the econ majors laugh, is it more of a maniacal cackle, or a deep-throated, sinister rumble?
True story, my freshman year I was part of something called University Scholars for top students and our first week at school we had an introductory banquet. The organizers thought it would be fun to have everyone sit at a table with students in the same general major for each table to come up with their own rouser chant.
The CLA students began by chanting “we’ll become enlightened, we’ll become enlightened.
The biology majors (my table) chanted “we’ll have jobs, we’ll have jobs.”
Then finally the business majors chanted “working for us, working for us.”
I switched majors in the Spring.
Seriously though, I don’t buy Boaz’s argument that Obama and McCain are both “collectivists” unless “collectivist” is supposed to be shorthand for “anyone who disagrees with David Boaz.”
McCain’s big beef seems to be that he thinks that sometimes the rich and powerful use the government to get favors for themselves at the expense of other people (e.g. earmarks, delaying the approval of generic drugs) or get away with engaging in some unethical business practices. Even so, it hasn’t stopped him from generally being a pretty strong advocate of pro-economic liberty stances such as his support for free trade, opposition to corporate welfare subsidies like ethanol, his free-market health care reform proposal which has the Cato institute excited, low taxes, support for entitlement reform, opposition to earmarks and pork, etc.
Obama on the other hand seems to generally be opposed to the free market in general as evidenced by his opposition to free trade, his support for creating even more entitlements, his support for even higher taxes (regardless of whether they bring in more revenue or do more economic harm than good), his support for earmarks and corporate welfare programs like farm subsidies, and his health care reform proposal that would impose even more mandates on private insurance to make it even less affordable then it is now.
Truth be told, I don’t have David Boaz’s crystal ball or whatever it is that he thinks gives him some special insight into the souls of people running for office. So I guess I’m stuck judging them on the actual position on the issues they take and what they’ve supported in past because ultimately it’s the policies that they support that will make the difference.
Right on, Thorley. I've always though Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa were wimps.
They both seem to have the same attitude that aristocrats the world over have. From the Earls and Dukes of England, to the Grafs and Fursts of Germany, to the warrior casts of India and Japan, that you should have vast amounts of money goes without saying, but you should never talk about it, and you should never be seen trying to make it.
Mother Teresa: while she may have thought she was doing God's work, by discouraging the use of brith control in an overcrowded third world country, she was in fact creating untold misery and death.
Nothing like reducing Obama and McCain down to a level of simplicity and socialism they probably don't intend.
Most telling, it was a commencement speech, where grads are always encouraged towards public service. You probably will never have anyone, anywhere, tell a graduating class to rush out and make a lot of bucks. Never, by anyone, on whatever political spectrum.
Which makes that Cato connected piece the usual dismissive stuff that is more political and manipulative than inspired or reflective of what either candidate is really about.
"Most telling, it was a commencement speech, where grads are always encouraged towards public service. You probably will never have anyone, anywhere, tell a graduating class to rush out and make a lot of bucks. Never, by anyone, on whatever political spectrum."
Well, except P.J. O'Rourke. :)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-orourke4-2008may04,0,6539887.story
"So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand. So, let me offer some relief:
1. Go out and make a bunch of money!
Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.
There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich."
That's your favorite response??? Unbelievable. I am so tired of the divisive pablum of the kind shoveled out in both quotes. Neither McCain nor Obama see individual initiative and striving for success as inherently selfish and evil. Neither is a collectivist or a socialist. And BTW, Obama did not compare his experience in public service to McCain's captivity, nor did he ever "cry" any "rivers," as far as I know. These are just absurd straw men. Both men simply warn that self-interest must be unleavened with a view to social responsibility. Only someone who lives with blinders screwed on so tight they can barely see the nose in front of their face can interpret this as "contempt for ordinary Americans."
WRT to Peter's comment, Bill Gates wants to do something about malaria in Africa (among other things.) How long do you think he should wait for the market to accomplish this goal?
Bill Gates is doing great stuff about malaria, and he shouldn't wait for the market. I have a lot of respect for his foundation. But in the long run, by making personal computing efficient enough, small enough, and affordable enough that they are ubiquitous around the world, he contributed to the ongoing modernization of the globe.
Why does this matter? There is a reason that charities have to go into undeveloped areas to assist with malaria, rather than into Florida or Italy ("malaria" is Italian for "bad air"): prosperity and development are the only long-term solutions to those kinds of problems. And as China, India, and Vietnam have discovered since around 1990, development = the free market.
And Bill Gates didn't revolutionize personal computing as part of a UN-funded charity program, but to make a profit.
BTW - malaria is only becoming a problem again because non-profit people in the anti-profit world made it illegal for people to adequately deal with their mosquito problems. But that's another issue. To (roughly) quote Tom Sowell: "The problems of today were often the 'solutions' of yesterday."
Oh, goodness. Manzi in particular is being crudely reductionist. If the top students from Ivy League schools went directly into national average wage jobs upon graduation, well, the national average wage would drop by quite a lot. Further, $4.2m is not an average salary for the tip top law graduates 15 years out, either. But that isn't the point, is it? His point is that Obama made easy choices, but he wants current graduates to make hard ones. But then Manzi elevates McCain's trauma as if it were a choice, which says what to graduates? Don't make easy choices, but start walking the dark streets late at night alone? Lunacy.
The bigger points that both candidates have been making are actually very salient ones. They have been arguing for merely a sense of citizenship and responsibility, which is a conservative slant. The other option, and I doubt Boaz or Manzi would prefer it, is McCain and Obama promising to make us mindful, via big, intrusive government to enforce anything from morality to economic parity. I'll take an occasional lecture on personal responsiblity over that any day.
That $4.2 million is mainly from book sales, if I'm not mistaken. It's not as though he's a CEO. If his only regular paycheck is for his job in the Senate, then you'd probably want to compare that amount (about $165,000 a year) to the average of Harvard Law graduates. Somehow I don't think it would compare very favorably.
Despite the calls for collective action, there's nothing inherently "collectivist" in Obama's and McCain's speechifying. The libertarian credo is not that people shouldn't act collectively or sacrifice personal wealth for the public good; it's that they shouldn't be forced to do so.
Like al, I find Manzi's argument to be pretty obtuse. Boaz is more serious, but even his argument, if taken seriously, is just as apposite to freely-offered private charity as it is to public service. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that Boaz's argument presents a greater threat to personal liberty than Obama's or McCain's do. When Boaz claims "the real issue is that Messrs. Obama and McCain are telling us Americans that our normal lives are not good enough," he's on dangerous rhetorical ground; absent shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, no good libertarian should ever consider the "real issue" to be merely a matter of what people say.
That $4.2 million is mainly from book sales, if I'm not mistaken. It's not as though he's a CEO.
Exactly. So the $4.2 million doesn't derive from running a company that provides a living for dozens (or hundreds) of others. It's just $4.2 straight-up for Obama. That fact should count in his favor...because?
If his only regular paycheck is for his job in the Senate, then you'd probably want to compare that amount.
But why? That makes no more sense that considering only Tiger Woods' tournament winnings and ignoring the much greater sums he earns from endorsements and other sources.
BTW - malaria is only becoming a problem again because non-profit people in the anti-profit world made it illegal for people to adequately deal with their mosquito problems.
If this is a reference to DDT, DDT/pesticides alone would not have been enough to wipe out malaria. The invention of air conditioning played a huge role. If I've misinterpreted you, I apologize.
I love it when Thorley Winston makes up shit and pretends it's a "true story."
He probably told that story to Penthouse Forum too.
No one believes you, Thora.
So the $4.2 million doesn't derive from running a company that provides a living for dozens (or hundreds) of others. It's just $4.2 straight-up for Obama. That fact should count in his favor...because?
Because he doesn't constantly write best-selling books?
If you tried to estimate my wealth level based only upon my tax return for the year I sold my old house, you would have a wildly inaccurate estimate of how much money I actually have. Think of one-time revenues from side projects like writing a book as something like capital gains, where the initial capital investment is largely sweat equity.
Because he doesn't constantly write best-selling books?
His book was a best-seller because of who he is -- not because he was a nobody who happened to write a great book. He has every opportunity to continue to cash in on his fame and position in similar ways (assuming he doesn't become president -- if that happens, the real cash-in won't come in until after he leaves office -- as in the case of Bill Clinton). Similar ways would include more books and articles, paid speaking engagements, service on corporate boards, figurehead jobs with Washington or NY law or lobbying firms, etc. The idea that the kind of income he's had recently couldn't be replicated is silly.
But, it's not like McCain chose to be a POW, he got shot down and was caught. I don't see how being a prisoner of war trains someone to make fiscal/social/foreign policy.
I really, really don't understand a libertarian objection to Obama's book royalties. Did he force anyone to buy his book? Presumably those who bought it thought it was worth more to them than the purchase price. Its sales helped employ lots of clerks, truckers, loggers and pulp workers.
It is false that malaria is caused by non-profit groups. It is sort of true that Africa's problems are vastly exacerbated by the effects of socialist ideology, although the truth is that said ideology has almost always been a very thin patina on tribal conflicts.
From the first comment:
"Bill Gates did more to improve the prosperity and standards of living for more people in the world as CEO of Microsoft than he can possibly do now with his charities."
Who wrote this, should not write of the computer industry. (Hint: in the industry, Microsoft has a reputation for intellectual property theft, not innovation.)
"Wal-Mart improves the living standards of poor people more than welfare."
Who wrote this, should now write of Wal-Mart. (Hint: Wal-Mart holds classes to teach employees how to game the welfare system, so that they can make out on their subnormal wages and nonexistent benefits.)
"Capitalist prosperity is the best weapon that we have against natural disasters, third-world diseases, and social breakdown."
Who wrote this, has already written two so ignorant statements that I won't bother with this one... or any other comments. (Hint: read "Disaster Capitalism" or "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, for starters.)
1. How is working to build a happy, financially secure family not "collectivist"?
2. John McCain was 30 when he was shot down. He spent his 20s, according to his own autobiography, partying it up in Pensacola with a stripper called Mamie, the Flame of Florida; in Florence with a buddy and a couple of cute gals they met in a bar; and so forth. Oh, also crashing several aircraft during training flights. In the analogous years of his life, Barack Obama was attending Harvard Law School.
Second, John McCain was not held "in a fetid jungle prison being hung upside down and beaten with sticks until his bones broke". He was held in the Plantation, the most privileged POW camp, in Hanoi. It certainly was no picnic, but food rations for US POWs were triple those accorded to North Vietnamese officers, because Americans were much larger than Vietnamese and the Vietnamese were afraid that prisoners would die and they would thus lose valuable bargaining chips. Severe beatings of McCain were largely confined to one period in the summer of 1969 when camp officers were trying to "break" McCain to get him to write a confession. McCain's persistent disabilities are the result of injuries suffered during ejection and inadequate medical care -- not surprising in a third-world country.
Third, Barack Obama voluntarily decided to go into community organizing on the south side of Chicago. John McCain did not voluntarily decide to get shot down and held as a POW. He voluntarily decided to fly attack missions over North Vietnam. This was the path to promotion and glory for a naval aviator.
Also, 3. Presidential candidates really do not need to encourage students to get high-paying jobs that generate lots of income. There is very little danger that people will stop trying to create successful businesses or earn the top salary they can in the market. However, the market does not solve everything, and some people need to take on jobs that create positive externalities not adequately reflected in their wages. For that, you do need presidential candidates and other senior public figures to encourage people to go into them.
It's true that John McCain didn't volunteer to be shot down and captured, but he stayed voluntarily. He could have gotten out early because of his family connections but knew how badly this would hurt the morale of the rest of the prisoners. I heard his former cell-mate being interviewed about their experiences, and the fellow prisoner said that McCain's injuries were so severe that he would have been a top candidate for early release based purely on humanitarian considerations.
In other words, McCain had a perfectly legitimate excuse for accepting the early release, yet he acted as a leader and considered the others, at great cost to himself.
Ann: that is absolutely true. It wasn't strictly his own idea not to accept early release; that was a policy established by the camp's senior resident officer, Col. Ted Guy, who ordered everyone to accept release only in the order they had been captured. But there were other cases of POWs who were released early for medical reasons, and McCain would have been a candidate for such a release based on his continuing ill health as of mid-1969. So you're right, and McCain comported himself with honor.
Point is, Barack Obama is offering advice to college graduates about what to do after college. I don't imagine John McCain's advice to college grads is "Resist to the utmost! Never give in!" Or whatever. It's going to be: "We have a duty to give of ourselves for the betterment of our communities, our society and our country, whether in the military or some other form of service" -- pretty much the same thing Obama is saying.