The Other McCain

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Moral Vacuum Strangely Empty Of Moral Understanding

Posted on | October 1, 2010 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Ned Resnikoff at Salon trolls beautifully: “The non-existent moral case for tax cuts”

Sure, the right will rend their garments over the Laffer curve and supply-side economics, but there’s a much simpler argument hiding behind the line graphs.

It goes like this: We earned this money. We deserve it. It is therefore immoral to take it from us.

Boiled down to two words, this is called ‘private property’.

The standard liberal response is to quibble over who deserves what. Does a single mother who works three jobs just to make the rent and keep her kids clothed deserve more or less material wealth than the overworked corporate lawyer who’s barely seen his downtown Manhattan studio in the past week? What about the linebacker who is paid millions of dollars to be in peak physical condition all the time and perform under immense emotional and physical pressure? Does he deserve all of his income more than the recently laid off factory worker deserves his unemployment benefits?

In other words, the liberal is comfortable poking into all private property, even without indication of lawbreaking. The liberal with the vestage of morality may prefer to exercise this sort of control by means of the state (protecting his own privacy en passant, no doubt) but the threat to private property is iminent in any case.

The problem with questions like this is that they put far more moral weight on the word “deserve” than its shaky frame can support. This becomes clear once you ask why a billionaire does or does not deserve a tax cut. He does deserve it because he’s a diligent, hard worker. He doesn’t deserve it because his money came to him in large part thanks to a combination of luck and privilege.

Do you perceive the tie between “is” and “deserve” there, Ned? One would think that liberality would be about non-judgmental approaches. The billionaire can slaughter his unborn children and engage in unnatural sex, but there are no moral lines crossed until the bank account becomes too large?

So the question of “deserves” comes down to whether the money came to the billionaire by way of arbitrary factors or as a result of his own efforts and character. And implicit in the argument is the understanding that the difference between these two categories is somehow intelligible, even quantifiable.

No, it really comes down to whether you have a legal system, and can prove in court that the legal system has been abused, i.e. the wealth was acquired illegally. Other than that, Ned, you’re Making Stuff Up.

But that’s silly. As the political philosopher John Rawls famously pointed out, factors that we associate with character — such as intelligence and a diligent work ethic — are no less morally arbitrary than factors like inherited wealth or membership in a privileged identity group. If Jane deserves more money than her co-worker Bob because she is naturally smarter and harder working than him, what did she do to deserve her greater intelligence? What about the solid work ethic her parents instilled in her? Did she, at the exact moment of her birth, already deserve better parents than Bob?

The only thing this debate about who deserves what really tells us is that very few people are willing to admit just how insubstantial and malleable our innate character really is. When you control for environmental, genetic, social, historical, and biological factors, what differentiates my own distinguishing features from Charles Manson’s — or, for that matter, Obama’s, Palin’s, Lincoln’s or yours — is either imperceptible or completely nonexistent. And if that’s the case, I don’t see how you can argue that either of us deserve more or less than any of those people.

So, Equality of Opportunity, too, is meaningless. All that matters is Equality of Condition?

What this suggests to me is that the only way you can coherently argue that a person inherently deserves a certain level of privilege or material comfort is to also argue that all persons deserve it, by virtue of their personhood. We already have language to describe these things that all persons innately deserve: we call them rights.

I will speak to you a great truth, Ned: nobody owes you jack.

Beyond rights is where the language of “deserving” falls apart as a morally relevant factor. There are, of course, other morally relevant factors: ownership comes to mind, but nearly everyone, when pressed, will admit that ownership doesn’t carry a great deal of moral weight. (Example: If I need to steal your expensive racing kayak to row out to sea and rescue a drowning child, are you really going to argue that I was behaving badly?) Mostly it falls back to a question of economics: how to balance the state’s ability to provide needed services for all citizens, including its most needy, while preserving a capitalist system which rewards achievement, and therefore (one would hope) innovation, productivity and excellence.

Ned, let me help you with a question: What is your unit of analysis? You’re head seems lodged in a certain sunless location next to Rousseau. You have 23 chromosomes. Half your information came from daddy, half from momma. Zip, zero, zilch, none of that information came from The State. The “state’s ability to provide needed services for all citizens” is convenient hooey for you and your ilk, Ned. Individuals tolerate the construct known as The State to varying degrees, and through various means.
The moral case for tax cuts is that honest people don’t spend money they lack.
Ned, your failure to even raise this as an argument speaks volumes.

No Sheeples Here offers a palate cleansing selection of Gipper and W to help the reader recover:

Category: Progressivism

Comments

13 Responses to “Moral Vacuum Strangely Empty Of Moral Understanding”

  1. Adriane
    October 1st, 2010 @ 4:20 pm

    Why does Ned Resnikoff deserve a salaried position and publishing privileges at Salon when the rest of us don’t have them?

  2. Live Free Or Die
    October 1st, 2010 @ 4:44 pm

    Nature abhores a vacuum. The Left is unnatural,
    their cranial vacuity unable to comprehend the natural desire to retain the fruit of one’s labor.

  3. Joe
    October 1st, 2010 @ 5:11 pm

    This is not a right wing parody of the left…this is an actual pro Global Warming campaign!

    I thought it was just a really well done parody. Unbelievable.

  4. ak4mc
    October 1st, 2010 @ 5:13 pm

    …far more moral weight on the word “deserve” than its shaky frame can support.

    This is a boojum — because it makes his entire point softly and suddenly vanish away.

  5. Estragon
    October 2nd, 2010 @ 12:19 am

    The problem is really not the argument over who “deserves” what, but the fact that the left assumes for themselves the sole authority to decide the argument, and further the power to redistribute wealth in accordance with their decisions.

    It’s called “totalitarianism.”

  6. DaveP.
    October 2nd, 2010 @ 3:35 am

    I’m sure that Ned Resnikoff will be willing to put his money where his mouth is and reduce his own standard of living to poverty-levels so he can send the remainder of his salary to the IRS.

    When that happens, he can tell me what to do with MY money.

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