A silly little graphic popped up on my Facebook feed today. It presented a two-dimensional political chart, with authoritarian at the top, libertarian at the bottom, economic-left on the left and economic-right on the right. It then devolved this political spectrum into two issues: weed and poor people. The attached article, the author’s in-depth explanation of why he or she (the author posts under a pseudonym and has no picture or identifying information) “left the tribe,” is excellent, and worth reading.
Today’s point is, however, about an argument posited by the chart itself (jarringly dissonant from the content of the article) and the inanity of the two presumptions the aforementioned chart espoused: that “liking” weed brings you in the libertarian direction and “liking” the poor brings you in an economic-left direction.
First, the weed, part, so it can get out of the way. You don’t have to “like” weed to think it should be legal. I think cigarettes should be legal, but I despise them. I think weed should be legal, but I’ve never used it (or cigarettes, or anything that’s smoked), never will use it, and don’t like being around it. So, no, I don’t like weed, but I’m a libertarian and I think it should be legal. I wouldn’t even mention the weed part, but the notion of “liking” something as a political litmus test is false/misleading, as I’ll show with regard to the poor, so breaking down the “weed” part is a good jumping-off point.
Now that that’s out of the way, lets talk about “liking” poor people, and the false conflation of liking the poor with being on the economic Left. The ‘common knowledge’ that the Left cares more about the poor than the Right is based on the idea that the Left believes in redistribution of wealth, large and overlapping government safety nets, and a regulatory state heavily skewed in favor of lower income workers at the expense of (yes, they think it’s zero sum) employers and business creators, while the Right does not. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Good intentions, “society” takes care of its weakest, a modern iron rice bowl, a chicken in every pot. Unfortunately, this philosophy hasn’t and doesn’t work out as intended. As an old nursery rhyme says, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride” What does work? Capitalism. As the great Milton Friedman observed:
So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
Capitalism, free markets, and a small, unobtrusive government are what make the poor less-poor, not the taking (at gunpoint) from some to give to others, with a bit off the top for the effort. Big government, redistribution, social welfare programs, and socialism/communism itself don’t help the poor so much as harming the productive and disincentivizing work. Don’t believe me? Look at Venezuela. Look at Cuba. Look at the Soviet Union, Red China, North Korea, and every other communist/socialist state? What about Europe? What about Denmark? Their standards of living are lower, their economic growth is slower, and they’ve been working to get rid of their socialism even as America’s Left tries to drag the rest of the country in a socialist direction. Indeed, some of these “socialist” European nations that are used to excuse the irrational insistence that socialism can work are less socialist than America is when it comes to business. They are market economies overlaid with massive welfare states. And that’s the “successful” ones. Europe’s example crumbles even faster if you look at the South. Greece, Italy, Spain… all in big trouble. Meanwhile, the VAST majority of improvements in living standards and the human condition, throughout history – for EVERYONE, not just the rich, have been produced by capitalism, free trade, and individuals voluntarily interacting with each other for mutual benefit.
So, no, the economic Left does not like the poor. Unless, that is, they like that the poor can be suckered into voting for them. Or, that the Left likes the poor so much that it wants to make many, many more of them. That’s the inevitable outcome of the economic policies of today’s Left, and the sooner we kick them to the curb, the better the poor will be.
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