Liberal Myths

Townhall.com ^ | October 1, 2011 | John C. Goodman

[Kaslin]

Did you know that Paul Krugman is more compassionate than you are? Or so he says.

In fact, just about everybody who is left of center is more compassionate than everybody who is right of center, Krugman explained in a recent New York Times editorial.

“American politics is fundamentally about different moral visions,” he wrote. If you identify with Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” vision you are today part of the “free to die” crowd.

That last bit is a reference to Republican presidential candidates foolishly stumbling over a Wolf Blitzer question about what should be done with a man who willfully chooses to be uninsured and then discovers needs lifesaving medical care. No, in case you are wondering, none of them said “let him die.” But Krugman would like you to believe that is the position of the entire Republican Party.

[Democrats, by the way, would also have trouble with that question. In fact there is nothing in Obama Care that guarantees health care for someone who ignores the government mandate and remains uninsured.]

Krugman is not alone. Writing at Health Affairs the other day, Princeton University economist Uwe E. Reinhardt described the current budget impasse in Washington by declaring that this country has been in:

…a long ideological war fought over the distribution of economic privilege in this country, a war that has been raging unabated for over three decades now.

One side in this war believes that the current distribution of income and wealth in this country is fair, as it rewards generously those who contribute commensurately to the economy and properly gives short shrift for those who do not — e.g., unskilled workers…

The opposing faction believes that the current distribution of income and wealth no longer is the product of a genuine meritocracy, and even if it were, that health care, education and legal care are so-called social goods to which rich and poor should have access on roughly equal terms, regardless of their own ability to pay.

Although Reinhardt doesn’t engage in the kind of ad hominem personal character attacks that are Krugman’s stock in trade, the message is still the same: one side cares about the unfortunate and the other side doesn’t.

Before going further, there is something you should know. There is no evidence whatsoever – zero evidence – that liberals are more compassionate than conservatives. In fact all the evidence points in the other direction. More about that in a moment.

Since Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist, I would like to turn first to the science of economics, just as Adam Smith did more than 200 years ago. What Smith realized was that it’s not compassion, or any other feeling that is going to eliminate most deprivation and suffering around the world. It’s sound economic policies, produced by rational thought.

Several years ago, I was at a conference at the Vatican and I heard another Nobel laureate, University of Chicago economist Gary Becker, make a remarkable statement. Becker said, “I believe in capitalism. The reason: capitalism confers its greatest benefits on those at the bottom of the income ladder. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be a capitalist. And Milton Friedman thinks the same way.”

Non-economists are generally unaware of how much evidence there isin support of the Becker/Friedman position. If you look around the world, you will find that the bottom 10% of the income distribution gets about the same percent of national income in countries with the least economic freedom (2.5%) as they do in the countries with the most economic freedom (2.6%). Whether a country is capitalist or socialist doesn’t seem to matter. But there is a huge difference in the absolute level of income. In fact, the bottom 10% gets almost ten times more income ($8,474 per persons per year vs. $910) in capitalist countries than in non-capitalist countries.

Given that disparity, what is the most compassionate economic system? It is the system advocated by the University of Chicago economists and other classical liberals: a system that leaves people free to use their intelligence, their creativity and their innovative ability to pursue their own interests. In other words, it is a system in which people are “free to choose.”

That freedom and free enterprise are good for poor people is a fact of economic science. It has nothing in particular to do with compassion. But since the issue has been raised, who are the most compassionate people? It turns out, they are not liberals. In an exhaustive study of this issue American Enterprise institute president Arthur Brooks discovered that:

In 2000, households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more money to charity than households headed by a liberal ($1,600 to $1,227). This discrepancy is not simply an artifact of income differences; on the contrary, liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families, and conservative families gave more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich…

The differences go beyond money and time. Take blood donations, for example. In 2002, conservative Americans were more likely to donate blood each year, and did so more often, than liberals. If liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservative, the blood supply in the United States would jump by about 45 percent.

What about Krugman, personally? I don’t know him. But the next time he is on television, mute the sound and focus on the image on the screen. Is there anything about Paul Krugman that seems to be the least bit compassionate? Not to me.

[Big Giant Head]

Paul Krugman learned lots o’ them fancy words, and he can sure string ‘em together. He must own a nice suit to get on TeeVee so much.

[mothball]

Like my dad says, “I wish they made a TV where you could reach through and slap someone.”

[Right Wing Assault]

I would like to turn first to the science of economics

Economics is not a science.

[Vintage Freeper]

"If you look around the world, you will find that the bottom 10% of the income distribution gets about the same percent of national income in countries with the least economic freedom (2.5%) as they do in the countries with the most economic freedom (2.6%). Whether a country is capitalist or socialist doesn’t seem to matter.

"But there is a huge difference in the absolute level of income. In fact, the bottom 10% gets almost ten times more income ($8,474 per persons per year vs. $910) in capitalist countries than in non-capitalist countries."

Why the HUGE difference? How is this possible?

The answer is found in this article: Great Debate Rd 1

Production, not consumption is the key to economic well-being and improvement.

Who directs production when people are free and there is a free-market econonomy? Capitalists

Who directs the economy when people are not free? Government

Ronald Reagan said, "Government is not the solution; government is the problem."

[Pollster1]

As an overview of economics, this is as good as Thomas Sowell’s work, meaning excellent.

[Darkwolf377]

No, in case you are wondering, none of them said “let him die.”

So I'm guessing krugman believes there are indeed 'death panels.' I mean, they're not CALLED that, and yet they actually perform the duty of a death panel, so....

Krugman is a joke. If the right (including myself) weren't so entertained by what a friggin clown theguy is, he'd get a lot less attention. But we can't help it, because he is Exhibit A in the 'intellectual liberal elite who's actually stupid' category.

[SkyPilot]

Economics is not a science.

Amen!

The "trick" that economists adopted several decades ago was their slight of hand technique of using quasi-engineering terms to describe economics.

It all sounded so "technical" that they just fell in love with themselves.

"Critical Demand Influences", "Resource Depletion Convergence", "Capitol Finance Integration" and my favorite...."Quantitative Easing."

All BS.

Economics is not a science.

If the "not smart enough to pass real University Engineering major" dweebs who drone on and on about "Re-engineering the Holistic Approach Towards Continuous Process Improvement Across the Enterprise" were all fired tomorrow, no one would miss them - ever.

[exDemMom]

Of course liberals are not compassionate. Most of them seem to believe that killing babies is an acceptable form of birth control. It was the discrepancy between that belief and their claim to care so much about people that really led me to question why I thought I was liberal to begin with.

Giving people things they didn’t earn out of a misguided sense of compassion helps no one. It only takes away the incentive to try to improve one’s life.

[ealgeone]

So called compassionate libs believe in supposedly believe in protecting the “little guy” totally kill their argument to moral superiority due to their continued support of the LEGAL MURDER OF THE UNBORN CHILD. I refuse to call it abortion because that tends to mask what is really happening.

Via thought control libs believe certain kinds of crimes are more hateful than others thereby creating two seperate layers of justice in our country.

Every major lib proposal for the safety net will eventually bankrupt this country: SS, Medicare, Medicade.

Libs espouse a “do it if it feels good” approach to life. While that may sound good on the surface, this approach has given us our current society where almost anything goes. In this vein homosexuality used to be condemned by society. Now with 40 yrs of propoganda and reeducation, gays are no longer viewed as being deviant. As a result, pedophilia is right behind this with a similar propoganda movement.

It is liberalism that tells us there aren’t moral absolutes. Allowed to go to its logical conclusion you cannot have laws on the books that punishes crime.

Liberalism has told us that families aren’t important. Since the 1960s we’ve seen the near destruction of the African American family and white families aren’t too far behind. Liberalism seeks to elevate feminism to the point where men are replaced in their leadership role in society. We are now seeing the impact of having a generation of young boys without male leadership in the family. The impact of a dad is also so critical in the life of a young girl to teach her how men are to respect and treat women.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

[Smokin' Joe]

He must own a nice suit to get on TeeVee so much.

I bet he gets paid a lot more for that than the guy who scrubs the toilets in the studio, too. I wonder if he'd swap paychecks with them, him being a liberal and all that?

[ripley]

“...because he is Exhibit A in the ‘intellectual liberal elite who’s actually stupid’ category.”

They’re actually brilliant tacticians in carrying out their revolution.

They direct heavily “nuanced”, loaded questions at conservatives. They direct unambiguous, softball questions
at liberals.

When the conservatives dance around the traps that are inherent in the questions, they seem like stumbling morons.

When the liberals answer the softball questions, they seem like brilliant geniuses.

IMHO

[Right Wing Assault]

The latest non-scientist “science” buzz word is “optics.”

Now I’m wondering how they are going to figure out how to use “endothermic” and “adiabatic” and “eigenstate” and “chromodynamics” and “electrophoresis” all together in a statement on the unemployment rate.

[CPOSharky]

When has Krugman ever been right about anyhing?

[muir_redwoods]

I must have missed this distribution of income. When did it take place? I’ve had to work for every penny.

[RipSawyer]

Liberals like to picture the poor as living on the crumbs from the table of the rich which presents a question. Would you rather live on the crumbs from the table of a rich capitalist or the crumbs from the table of a poor socialist? It seems to me the obvious choice is the rich man’s crumbs.

As far as compassion I noticed long ago that those who speak of it often and profess to have it seem to display little or none of it. Compassion is similar to humility, those who claim to possess it usually don’t. Those who have it don’t seem to realize that they do.

[hinckley buzzard]

Economics is classified as a social science which puts it in the category of disciplines with the weakest methods and weakest empirical findings. To the extent that it is scientific at all it is akin to sociology and anthropology, which at best yield correlations accounting for small and not very useful percentages of variance.

Social sciences in general (and economics in particular) are highly contaminated with political considerations which have no empirical standing, and a tendency to conflate theory with fact.