Beyond the Mark

In the culture of affluence to which we have become accustomed, we hear great indignation expressed against the idle poor and the bleeding-hearts who would take hard-earned, deserved wealth from the industrious rich and redistribute it to those who, with even a modicum of effort, could achieve the American dream if they would just get off their duffs!

BUT in the déjà vu of rich and poor throughout history, we seem strangely blind to the fact that redistribution has ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS been MORE upward than downward—a redistribution toward concentrated wealth that has far more to do with creating the gulf between rich and poor than idleness or industrious effort ever did.

Take the example of Ahab & Jezebel acquiring the vineyard of Naboth (Old Testament, 1 Kings 21); the “one, little ewe lamb” parable that condemned a king (Old Testament, 2 Samuel 12); the historical and current plunderings of great and small Empires; the monopolies of British mercantilism, et al.; the feudal estates of feudal lords; the cotton, sugar, tobacco, etc. plantations; the industrial factories and sweatshops; the government favors and subsidies to big-business; the secret insider tradings; the simultaneous stock puffing-and-dumping schemes; the credit-card fee-and-interest stings; the financial-adviser frauds; the Enron/Worldcom types; etc., etc., etc. The list is endless.

Whose collective labor, reduced to its lowest possible compensation through enshrined market-forces, has helped enrich the powerful? Free-marketeers are passionate that “industrious,” rich individuals should not be deprived of the fruits of their labor, yet turn a blind eye to that very deprivation by power-lords of the fair fruits of other’s labors. They deny their blindness by alleging that fair is whatever the market will bear while taking great pains on a global basis to ensure that it will bear the minimum or maximum possible—whatever favors the concentration of wealth.

Power is an aphrodisiac for many and even scant investigation uncovers an endless déjà vu of wealth accretion through avarice and exploitation of the less powerful. Redistribution UPWARDS; ever, ever upwards!

The abuse of power was a great concern of the founding fathers who strove to bind the powerful by the chains of the Constitution. But commerce continually claims that it has no need of constraint. Natural market-forces have natural constraints, they intone. But money loves power and power money, so we have come to our present state of affairs, where collectives of money and power have taken up a form of “civilized” plundering through lobbyists and other contrived means, all the while crying to high heaven that “socialism” is the monster of frightful mien. It reminds one of those masterful diversions where a cry of fire to the west of town covers for a bank heist to the east.

If the pundits and commentators on American values would study more history and less “enriched” rhetoric, they might begin to focus on the mark. As it is, the poor^[1] take the heat, while the powerful take the money and run—under cover of diversion; or if questioned, under claim of meritocracy and/or entitlement.

Christ, Himself, marked the poor for our compassion and the rich for chastisement and warning. Somehow, in our sophistication, we seem to have it reversed. And then we wonder why revolutions happen! They happen when justice can no longer stand as idle witness to the hubris, egotism, and injustice of oppressive power-lords. But, alas, in the déjà vu of power swings, nothing much seems to change except the names of the new elites as they take turn justifying the gulf between rich and poor. Even in communistic/socialistic schemes, the gulf prevails, in the midst of privilege and passionate denial.

How about we begin to explore the source and tributary waters for all that concentrated wealth? And discover the blessings of irrigation upon parched lands?
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[1] whether laboring or incapacitated or idle by choice or circumstance

“Lucky” You? Lucky Them?

Recently, a Thanksgiving-dinner conversation turned to the multiple sins of multinational corporations. Our well-to-do host sprang forcefully to the defense of corporations, discounting their sins, because they create jobs—MILLIONS of jobs, filled by lucky employees! The discussion aborted and we turned to more banal matters.

But the image of “Lucky,” from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot,^[1] began to percolate. Pozzo, Lucky’s master, sought to explain Lucky’s servility:

Pozzo: … Why he doesn’t make himself comfortable? Let’s try and get this clear. Has he not the right to? Certainly he has. It follows that he doesn’t want to. There’s reasoning for you. And why doesn’t he want to? … He wants to impress me, —so I’ll keep him. … Perhaps I haven’t got it quite right. He wants to mollify me, so that I’ll give up the idea of parting with him. No, that’s not exactly it either. … He wants to cod me, but he won’t. … He imagines that when I see how well he carries I’ll be tempted to keep him on in that capacity. … He imagines that when I see him indefatigable I’ll regret my decision [to get rid of him]. Such is his miserable scheme. As though I were short of slaves!

Vladimer—one of those waiting for Godot—eventually observes:

After having sucked all the good out of him you chuck him away like a … like a banana skin. Really …

Now, this Déjà Vu post is not meant to present the other extreme—that all corporations are evil. Or that all employees are “Luckys.” It is rather to wonder whether the aggregation of power and wealth in a profit-driven, competitive culture binds employers, whether corporations or not, into Pozzo-prone perspectives vis-à-vis their “lucky” employees.

But just how lucky are many of these employees? From a Pozzo-perspective, they are lucky to have paychecks. Lucky to have necessities and amenities sustained by those paychecks. Lucky to be able to devote their gifts, talents, energies, and time to the employers' great causes, agendas, ideas, and dreams. Lucky to have daily purpose and place to go. Plain lucky to have a job.

Maybe so. But on the other hand, how much do those Luckys surrender by becoming employees, specialized to the needs of their Pozzo?

Pozzo: … He even used to think very prettily once. … He even used to dance the farandole, the fling, the brawl, the jig, the fandango, and even the hornpipe. He capered. For joy. Now that’s the best he can do. Do you know what he calls it? … The Net. He thinks he’s entangled in a net.

Or from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:

In the progress of the division of labour [specialization], the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, ^[2] that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, … The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, …. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred.^[3] His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilised society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it [through mandatory educational requirements] (Bk.5, Ch. 1, Pt III, pp. 839-840).

Perhaps it is time for a revolution of thought and practice vis-à-vis employers and employees; between competition and cooperation. Maybe it is time to review what lucky really means. How necessity and fear can tie a “Lucky” to abuse, injustice, stagnation, and exhaustion. How competitive and profit-driven obsessions can bind a Pozzo to perpetuation of the same. Maybe it is time to rethink what the pursuit of happiness really means. And perhaps to consider whether Pozzo is also “the burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see” (Isaiah 13).
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[1] Waiting for Godot was written in 1948/49 and first performed in 1953.
[2] Includes the oft-scripted service industry of our day, where employees, even high-level ones, are given scripts to handle situations as if every situation can be indexed into a tidy number of satisfactory solutions to which no additional creative thought need be given.
[3] And s/he goes home too exhausted for much of anything but beer and the blather of too much TV (the Roman equivalent of “bread and circuses”?).

ORGONITES & TARTUFFEITES: Oh, what a tangled, political web we have woven!!!

[Source: Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière (1622-1673); Project Gutenberg EBook #2027; first written and performed in 1664. Oh,déjà vu!]

CLEANTE [brother-in-law of Orgon]
That is the usual strain of all your kind;
They must have every one as blind as they.
They call you atheist [or anti-American] if you have [differing views];
And if you don't adore their vain grimaces,
You've neither faith nor care for sacred [democratic] things.
…
What! Will you find no difference between
Hypocrisy and genuine [governance]?
And will you treat them both alike, and pay
The self-same honour both to masks and faces
Set artifice beside sincerity,
Confuse the semblance with reality,
Esteem a phantom like a living person,
And counterfeit as good as honest coin?
Men [& women], for the most part, are strange creatures, truly!
You never find them keep the golden mean;
The limits of good sense, too narrow for them,
Must always be passed by, in each direction;
They often spoil the noblest things, because
They go too far, and push them to extremes.
…
Just so I think there's naught more odious
Than whited sepulchres of outward unction,
Those barefaced charlatans, those hireling zealots,
Whose sacrilegious, treacherous pretence
Deceives at will, and with impunity
Makes mockery of all that men hold sacred;
Men [& women] who, enslaved to selfish interests,
Make trade and merchandise of [freedom],
And try to purchase influence and office
With false eye-rollings and affected raptures;
Those men [& women], I say, who with uncommon zeal
Seek their own fortunes on the road to heaven[ly prosperity];
Who, skilled in prayer [and profiteering], have always much to ask,
And live at court to preach retirement;
Who reconcile religion with their vices,
Are quick to anger, vengeful, faithless, tricky,
And, to destroy a man [or woman], will have the boldness
To call their private [or public] grudge the cause of heaven;^[1]
All the more dangerous, since in their anger
They use against us weapons men revere,
And since they make the world applaud their passion,
And seek to stab us with a sacred sword.
There are too many of this canting kind.
Still, the sincere are easy to distinguish;
And many splendid patterns may be found,
In our own time, before our very eyes.
(Molière’s Tartuffe, Act I, Scene vi)
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[1] Or manifest destiny, or true democracy, or patriotism

The Romance of Ayn Rand

(OR: Ayn Rand Romanticized)

Mark Sanford, the recently beleaguered Republican governor of South Carolina, presented his pitch for the current relevance of Ayn Rand in Newsweek, November 2, 2009. He wrote, “What strikes me as still relevant is [The Fountainhead’s] central insight—that it isn’t ‘collective action’ that makes this nation prosperous and secure; it’s the initiative and creativity of the individual” (p. 54).

Hmmm! It makes one wonder which American patriot defeated the British Empire in pursuit of a more prosperous and secure future? What individual hammered out the U.S. Constitution in the solitude of his study? How railroad barons found means to lay thousands of miles of track without government/tax payer concessions, land grants, and subsidies? How Goldman Sachs (or any number of other juristic persons) would cope without shareholder collective investment and apathy? How capitalists—not to mention aspiring home-owners—would survive without access to the collective pool of credit capital or the collective sharing of risk through insurance? Or what role corporations (those ubiquitous collections of individuals—managers, consultants, shareholders, and employees) have in prosperity and security?

It seems rather naïve at best for both Rand and Sanford to romanticize the rugged, obsessive individualism of Howard Roark (The Fountainhead) and of John Galt (Atlas Shrugged). Yes, the individual Roark may dream and design, but without “others” submitting their wills and energy to his creative, inflexible realizations, he would have had no buildings at all, let alone the one he chose to dynamite when his architectural vision was compromised.

Mr. Sanford seems to view it as mainly ironic that Ayn Rand’s philosophy is based on the individual’s absolute freedom while in practice she “exercised a dictatorial control over her followers … denounc[ing] anyone who expressed opinions even slightly diverging from her own” (p. 55). This seems way beyond ironic or even flawed. It seems to manifest a colossal disconnect that strips her of every relevance, unless it is the relevance of exposing deep hypocrisy and the human propensity to lust for power and control even when touting the virtues of freedom. Rand’s intolerance of diversity and lack of self-awareness seems strongly prescient of current Republican disconnects about their own complicity in the present state of dire affairs and their own Roarkness/Galtness. Too often passionate freedom-advocates seem to practice it in the Rand-sense. “You are free to agree with my vision and if you do not, I will seek the destruction of your vision.”

So why, in Mr. Sanford’s view, is “this a very good time for a Rand resurgence” (p. 55)? Do we need more justifications for the “Virtue of Selfishness”^[1] or of idealized self-interest or of individualized tyranny? Do we need more Ayn Rands (or Roarks or Galts) claiming a genius that qualifies them to be “supreme arbiter[s] in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth” (p. 55)? Do we need more romantic notions that aggressive individualists and free-marketeers know best; that the genius of industry giants is untainted by baseness; that order, fairness, and equity are the natural selections of strictly free-markets? Do we need less government regulation of the markets, especially financial ones? (Or do we really need more appropriate regulation?) Do we need to champion the primacy of the individual or to balance individualism with the social contracts of living in collectives of families, communities, nations, and global stewardships?

Sanford seems to prefer the deluded romance of Rand’s rugged individualism to the delusions of paternalistic government. If they are both delusions of primacy—one of individualism, the other of collectivism—perhaps we are just arguing over two caustic extremes which can only be neutralized to the safety of both individual and society when managed in reasoned, ethical, and judicious balance.

And now a word to die-hard individualists: Of course, many rugged, creative individualists have contributed to making the world a better place, but perhaps not even a handful have done so without the support of collectives of some sort or other. There would be no kings or queens without subjects (and their collective taxes). No George Washington without compatriots. No enduring capitalists (or managed corporations) without laborers. No thriving playwrights without actors and audiences. The list is endless. Endless too, is the unromantic remembrance of individualists and their supporters who have amassed power and then horrendous histories of death, destruction, slavery, and injustice. There would have been no Alexander the Great without his armies. No early cotton kings without slave ships, captains, crews, and traders. No Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, or Saddams without compliant (though often terrorized) comrades and citizens. Obsessive, inflexible visions, whether individualistic or collective in nature, always bend toward tyranny. [See the DéjàVu Times blog post, Sep. 29, 2009, “Are We There Yet (at the T-point)?”]

A rose-tinted, monocular view of the Rands, Roarks, and Galts of this world and their idealistic, naive, inflexible descendants reveals less than half the picture. (Once again we come close to encountering the 3-monkey stance of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” concerning the rugged individualist.) At least Gov. Sanford acknowledges the need for limited government, though he stops well-short of confessing the collective sins of the Republicans in that regard, while he laments those of the Democrats. Still his call to remember the primacy of the individual through a Rand resurgence seems firmly planted in the romantic fictions of idealized heroes and of espoused, but unlived philosophies. Of course, government and society needs the "annoyance" and perhaps frequent rebellion of informed (not propogandized) citizens challenging the status quo, but we seem ever ready to merely substitute one form of tyranny for another, especially in the name of freedom.

Perhaps the governor’s call to remembrance would have been more enlightening to focus on Rand’s scorned “second-handers”:

“the opportunistic Peter Keating, who appropriated Roark’s architectural talent for his own purposes, and Ellsworth Toohey, the journalist who doesn’t know what to write until he knows what people want to hear—” (p. 54).

If there is any real-world relevance and déjà vu to Rand’s fictions, Keating and Toohey seem the unvarnished, unromantic progenitors of many present-day elected officials, aspiring politicians, corporate managers, and every-day common folk (like this blogger). The heroism of those who seem to stand alone against injustice, corruption, and error appeals to our better natures because our worse natures tend to think in collectives of ideology and status quo; to speak in endless, scripted talking-points; to single-file in tight corporate- or party-line; to sing the tunes written by lobbyists and CFOs; and to fall in domino-fashion to the intrigues of self-indulgence.

Sanford laments this sad mindset of the world’s Keatings and Tooheys, but does not seem to have party- or self-awareness

1) that much of Rand's romanticism lies in comparing the best aspects of individualism to the worst aspects of collectivism;
2) that the Roarks and Galts of this world are men of such extreme individualism they basically refuse to live except as a law unto themselves, and thus, in similitude of Ayn Rand, as dictators of private fiefdoms they construct around them—without recognition of the contradictions and without diminishing the high-sounding rhetoric of free mind, will, and expression for every soul; and
3) that unrestrained individualism is also the fertile ground of its own tyranny.

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[1] Title of a collection of essays and papers written by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden, published in 1964; subtitled: A New Concept of Egoism.

By Smaller Means: The demise of giants, elites, and superpowers

Professor J. Rufus Fears^[1] in his lecture series, The Wisdom of History, alleges that Lesson/Law One of history is, “We do not learn from history.” This short phrase sums up the tragedy within many past and current events and the woeful reflections of this Déjà Vu blog.

Why is it that so many “giants,” elites, and superpowers consider themselves the exception to the déjà vu of “By Smaller Means”?

Consider this small sampling of “smaller means”:

1. Gideon and his 300 rout the hosts of the Midianites, Amalekites, and children of the east (circa 2nd century BC; see Old Testament Judges 6-8).
2. David slays Goliath (circa 1000 BC; see Old Testament 1 Samuel 17).
3. The allied city-states of Greece conquer the mighty Persian navy of Xerxes at Salamis (480 BC).
4. The fatal sickness^[2] of battle-hardened Alexander the Great at age 32 (323 BC).
5. The victory of the outclassed Thierry against the superior warrior Pinabel as described in the French epic poem, Song of Roland (circa 1100s AD).
6. The victory of a vastly outnumbered English army over the French one at the Battle of Agincourt (1415 AD).
7. The victory of French forces over superior numbers of British forces in the Battle of Carillon (aka: 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga) during the French and Indian War.
8. The fragmented 13 colonies of the barely-united states defeating, against impossible odds, the vastly superior forces and navy of the British Empire (1775-1783 AD).
9. IEDs used in almost every theater of war since 1943 (from Germany to Vietnam to Ireland and beyond) by insurgents, guerillas, rebels, etc, against superior armies and armaments.
10. Revelations of infidelities of Gary Hart (1987), Bill Clinton (1998+), James McGreevey (2004), Eliot Spitzer (2008), John Edwards (2008), Mark Sanford (2009), John Ensign (2009), David Letterman (2009), etc., etc,. etc.

Yes, giants, elites, and superpowers can prevail for a time, but when obsessions, hubris, expansionism, imperialism, etc. become dominant, “smaller means” often bring downfall, whether sooner or later. These various “smaller means” are like bits and helms to which the giants, elites, and superpowers seem blissfully ignorant (even when self-imposed), until their whole lives or agendas are turned in directions they had no intention of going.

Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. 4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. (New Testament James 3:3-4)

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[1] University of Oklahoma
[2] some allege poisoning

Crimes against the People

(And we are all guilty—some more than others—in some way or other)

▪ Unregulated laissez-faire markets*
▪ Excessive government regulation of markets*
▪ Tax structures that are both onerous and full of loop-holes
▪ Massive concessions to big-business while pretending the market-place is free, fair, and level
▪ Financial IVs for too-big-to-fail corps (too seldom spelled corpse)
▪ Revolving doors between big-business and government service
▪ Reorientation of local governments from service to profit (by taking on the business model)
▪ Equating collectives (corporations) with individuals and then favoring the collective
▪ Pretending HyPEs (Highly-Paid Employees such as CEOs, CAOs, CFOs, etc.) are capitalists and entrepreneurs.
▪ Allowing HyPEs to fleece shareholders
▪ Discrediting the import of government and the public good
▪ Selling public assets to private parties for their profit
▪ Serving special-interest collectives rather than electors
▪ Redefining individualism to mean self-interest instead of self-expression & -development
▪ Contributing to the profits of unethical business through consumer purchasing
▪ Fear mongering for power
▪ Secrecy
▪ And so forth
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*Yes, crimes come from both the right and the left.

Are We There Yet (at the T-point)?

We seem to forget that Tyranny can come from both the right* and the left:*

• from the right via anarchists, or perhaps even more dangerously, via non-governmental persons/organizations/corporations, whose wealth/power/influence is so great that they make and play by their own rules, including circumventing the rule of law and lawful consequence; and
• from the left via dictators/totalitarians and other control-mongers who are generally out-of-control in pursuit of ideological agendas.

From all appearances we seem to have these two extremes—excessive individualism to the right and excessive collectivism to the left—bearing down against democracy from opposite directions heading for the tyranny-point. Neither extreme seems inclined to re-evaluate and take the “centrist-way” of balance, reason, constitutional guide, or democratic representation. Are we at or near the T-point? You decide.

At the right:

• Massive government failure to appropriately regulate that which is within its mandate (under both Republicans & Democrats, it mattereth not!).
• Massive corporate/collective lobbying and influence peddling that sideline democratic values and citizen participation.
• Massive corporate/collective lobbying and influence peddling in pursuit of favored-status, subsidies, and mergers/acquisitions that increase power by lessening competition and consequence.
• Massive corporate/collective disinformation and propaganda campaigns to manipulate election results.
• Privately-owned collectives that consistently defraud taxpayers via government contracts by massive overcharging for goods and services without meaningful penalty, and too often, with continuing contracts even when criminal conduct is revealed.
• Framing objectives of the public good as incompatible with democracy, individualism, and free-markets.
• Etc.

At the left:

• Massive government involvement beyond its mandate (under both Republicans & Democrats, it mattereth not!).
• Torque-ing of constitutional checks and balances and subverting the rule of law.
• Planned, centralized, or command economies that stifle individual initiative and private enterprise.
• Expanding the culture of secrecy, including secret prisons and trials.
• Torturing of suspects.
• Spying on citizens.
• Denying habeas corpus.
• Intimidation or attempts thereat of dissenters and journalists.
• National Security Letters and gag orders.
• Etc.

Tyranny, whether originating in the public or private sector, destroys democracy; so whether our allegiance favors individualism or collectivism, the weight of each increasing excess will bend inexorably downward toward tyranny.
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* Not to be confused with conservative/liberal, Republican/Democratic designations as the sins of tyranny always presents its beleaguered citizens with a mixed bag of left and right excesses, despite the rhetoric. In recent years, in addition to their natural preferences, conservatives have co-opted many leftist excesses and liberals have fallen victim to the anarchy of private power and influence.

PANGLOSSARY

(In remembrance of the 250th anniversary of Pangloss’s birth)

Pangloss was Voltaire’s fictional philosopher of optimism in his satirical work, Candide (written in 1759 AD). According to Pangloss, “… all that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right” (p. 21); and “… all is for the best in the moral and physical world, …” (p. 114).

Well, unsurprisingly, considering his previous feats of survival, Pangloss^[1] has found his way into the twenty-first century (“Oh déjà vu!”) because panglossophers are everywhere—professors of unremitting optimism; advocates of spontaneous order; devotees of blind, mechanistic optimizing systems; preachers of “attract everything you desire;” and so forth. Here is a small sampling from the modern-day panglossary of excessive optimism.^[2]

Big is better: self-evidently optimal in all cases (aka, the proof is in the disparity). In addition, economies-of-scale are uniquely suited to tilt level playing fields to a quasi-vertical, favorable slope which speeds up assembly-line production; asset acquisition from smaller, less robust capitalists; and capitulation by antagonists. Bigger also means transnational, (with a judicious eye on emerging trans-world options); and since anything trans is more optimal than non-trans, (except for the edible fats market^[3]), government is optimal that refuses to regulate growth and bigness in all its forms. Further, bigness insulates from annoying complaints, from unstable flexibility, from big bullies, from confusing the right hand with the left^[4], and from a myriad other inconsequentials.

Borrowing & Spending: since housing and land prices always go up (except when they briefly go down) mortgages are optimistically good investments. And since the best thing to do, to stimulate the economy and to manufacture growth, is to spend, it is best to buy as much as you can leverage. If you save, you are just loaning your money (via your banker who skims interest) to someone else to finance their consumption, so the best of all possible options is to spend it yourself, or, in the even more optimal alternative, to borrow from a foolish saver and consume while the consuming is good.

Entropy: although buildings, monuments, pyramids, archives, books, art, software, computers, vehicles, human bodies, etc. (ad infinitum) are all subject to the law of entropy^[5], laissez-faire markets and human folly are different, both being undirected by an invisible hand of naturally occurring allocations, growth, and repetition. The entropy part may not be optimal for the status quo, but it is surely optimal for new markets in constituent elements. As for human folly, that too is for the best because optimistically, humans learn by experience, and reportedly more from mistakes than from successes.

Laissez-faire markets (aka, Panglossonomics): a perfectly free market-place is blind to bias, prone to systemic order, and invisibly self-driven to optimal allocations of the market’s best interest. Self-interest and self-regulation result in optimal global coordination of rich (though scarce) global resources managed by HyPEs [highly paid employees] on behalf of an aggregate of dispersed, disparate, generally disinterested investor/owners. If things don’t appear to be optimal, the various markets will correct themselves in due course if left sufficiently to themselves, or—in the second-best alternative—if given sufficient stimuli by an aggregate of dispersed, disparate, generally compliant (though complaining) taxpayers. In this best of all possible economic systems, the free, competitive markets will always work out what is best.

Lawses (pronounced losses) of Attraction: if you haven’t got what you want, you haven’t obeyed the Law of Attraction. Displace all suggestions/thoughts to the contrary. And remember, if prophets, apostles, saints, and sages died [often martyred, mind you!] without receiving the “good stuff,” it was because they either didn’t discover the Law or, if they did, just didn’t get with the program. Thus, keep your optimistic eye on the ball and it will come.

Merit: if you have it, you deserve it. If you don’t have it, you don’t deserve having it. It’s all as it should be. You are in the best of all possible worlds, whether with or without health insurance, with or without a job, with or without shelter, etc., etc., etc. And pay special attention to the moral hazard of helping those who don’t merit—for it has been soundly proven statistically that those who are insured^[6] against misfortune or irresponsibility have more of it. It’s better for the poor and unfortunate not to be insured for their own optimal moral good, growth, and safety. (Note, however—for those who can afford insurance, don’t leave home without it.)

Philanthropy: the superlative art and science of minimizing wages and costs of production or service in order to optimize charitable givings that can be used to build libraries, museums, galleries, schools, parks, art centres, sports arenas, etc., etc., or to establish endowments, scholarships, etc., etc., for 1) perpetuating and honoring the family or corporate name; and 2) for the public good (of those whose salaries are sufficient to use or merit the above).

A note to the Candides and Cunegondes of this world: A little experience should go a fair way to tempering Panglossian optimism.

[1] And the philosophy of incessant, romanticized optimism, espoused by Leibnitz, that Voltaire found so distasteful.
[2] Again a note to those with high-horses saddled with optimism. Optimism has its place, but too often it sets up expectations that WILL NOT be met because life is NOT a bed of roses; it IS the entire bush—thorns and all.
[3] Note: the efficiency of both trans-and non-trans fats and oils has been demonstrated to advantage during lobby-sponsored luncheons, proving the panglossian point that everything has an optimal purpose and use.
[4] In voluntary compliance with a variation of "But when thou doest alms [or secret deals, etc.], let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:" (New Testament Matthew 6:3)
[5] Law of Entropy: Tendency of matter to disintegrate into its smallest constituent elements over time without the intervention of externally imposed order or maintenance.[6] Especially via government-run programs of last resort when the omniscient market finds no profit in it or too much risk.
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*Ref: The Project Gutenberg EBook of Candide, by Voltaire [EBook #19942]

Moral Hazard — to the Right and to the Left

?— Who has the greater moral hazard: the poor begging alms or the rich denying them?
?— If social security, health care, public education, and other government insurance programs that share the risks and costs of life are moral hazards, what of private insurance programs that externalize and share the risks and costs of ownership and/or business?
?— If capitalism cannot exist without the lubricant of insurance (collectivized risk-sharing), is capitalism, as presently constituted, a moral hazard?
?— If competition is so advantageous, why do so many small- and big-businesses succumb to the predatorship of bigger-business? And why does competition have a propensity to devour its neighbor?
?— If supply and demand is so co-efficient, why are there dumpsters full of edible food behind every supermarket in North America? Why are there continual massive "remainders" of books, magazines, newspapers, etc.? Why are there so few family-rated movies? Why did the “global money pool” run out of places to safely invest its money? What did its managers then choose to do? How many “insured” high-risk investors were paid out with tax-backed stimulus?
?— What is the saving difference between state collectivism (i.e., communism and socialism) and private transnational collectivism?
?— Why are there more lobbyists per elected official than grains in a minute-glass?
?— Is it progressive to create tax bracket inequities in order to redress other inequities?
?— Who has the greater moral hazard: Those who promise to do, and don’t or those who just don’t?
?— Is it OK to deceive citizens for the “good” of war?
?— Is torture by democratic countries more justified than torture by despots?
?— Is Jack Bauer (of Fox TV’s 24) a national hero?
?— Do safe ends justify tortured means?
?— Why don’t we have more “Mr. Smiths going to Washington?” [Ask: 1) Frank Capra; 2) the PACs]