Fiscal Conservatism
Tediak
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2910Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2910Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">I just don't get it.</div> I like to think of myself as a true liberal, in the sense that I try to comprehend the merits of all sides of an issue. One such side that has baffled me as long as I can remember is that of fiscal conservatives. I get general conservativism, I understand traditionalism, I can grok the motivations and find logic and meaning in the arguments of social conservatives. Yet, I am at a loss to explain fiscal conservatism in a positive light. The more corners I turn in my mind, the more I find myself facing a simple explanation: greed, or perhaps just a lack of basic human empathy, motivated moreso by the ease of exploiting those who have no defense than a clear and debateable ideology . But the image in my mind seems incomplete. Is it perhaps a greater philosophy that I'm missing, some utilitarian means to and end? I can't say that I understand it, but I observe that the policies of fiscal conservatives seem to grow ever more popular, finding niches in the left under the tent of neo-liberalism, and in the right in the minds of America's current beloved administration.
What I'm asking is this: I want a rationale, I want someone to try to justify this all for me, and for any others interested in the way that we as a civilization harvest and distribute our limited resources.
What I'm asking is this: I want a rationale, I want someone to try to justify this all for me, and for any others interested in the way that we as a civilization harvest and distribute our limited resources.
Comments
So, were you talking about how society distributes resources and such?
I am by no means an expert, but I believe the idea of fiscal conservatism is based on a view of liberty--you have the right to do anything you want as long as it does not infringe on any reasonable 'contracts' with others. Basically, noone, even the government, has any right to take the money that you justly obtained through your hard work, ideas, or just plain luck. If someone wants to donate to charity, then he should do so out of his free will. If he is forced to, his freedom is violated. A fiscal conservative might ask, "What gives someone else the right to take another's justly obtained property through force?" It is, in a sense, akin to stealing.
Also, it is more economically efficient (unless someone wants to argue that?).
Anyways, if you want a better source on this I'd read Mill's "On Liberty", or maybe even Rand's Atlas Shrugged (just to get a sense of where these people are coming from).
Hope this helps,
-joe
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Now to take this a little further, in Australia we have to vote in all elections. If we don't there's a large fine and possible jail terms. But we don't see this as an infringement upon our liberty; far from it. By doing this we ensure that the government is elected by the country as a whole. However, if you go to the US, voting is the choice of the voter, and forcing people to vote would be an infringment of their personal liberty. See the differances? What one country might consider a violation, another considers liberty.
Also, what about taxes or levies? We have a medicare levy here, a small tax addition that pays for our free public health system. Now say I don't want to pay that, because I have private health care. Doesn't matter, I still have to pay it, and if I don't I go to jail. Is that an infringment of my liberty? Or is it part of my duty as a citizen to assist the community and country as a whole?
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Well, as long as we live in a society, uncontrolled egotism must not be permitted. That means that every individual is obliged to donate to society and to help those people who are in need of help. Otherwise, we would have the 'survival of the fittest' and fall back into animal behaviour.
So for me, this justification of 'fiscal conservatism' still makes no sense, as it is extremely egotistic, inhumane and immoral...
From an a-moral point of view , this point seems valid... however , how do you know someone "justly" obtains money or even deserve it ? The fact is that certain groups of people (leading corporations) can force others (the employees) to work for unfair wages (exploitation...)
If the economic power imbalances the ressource distribution , then the political power has to even it back. For theses ends , the economic power uses the force of the richer's capital , and the political power uses the force of the people's number. Doesn't sound unfair...
/steps up to the plate
Ill start by defining a few terms so this doesn't become too esoteric.
Much of government economic policy is centered around the concept of "externalities." An externality is an additional cost or benefit associated with an transaction that effects people outside of the parties in the transaction. When there are significant externalities, pure capitalism no longer functions in an economically efficient manner.
An example: Flu shots. When you buy a flu shot you are protected from getting the flu. But in addition, everyone you know is less likely to get the flu because you are less likely to get it and pass it to them. This is a positive externality.
Another example: Gasoline. When you buy gas, you are buying easy transportation. But as a side effect, Everyone in the surrounding area will be just a little more likely to get asthma, lung disease, etc. This is a negative externality.
Capitalism guarantees that in pure competition transactions will be economically efficient, i.e. the costs of the items will exactly reflect their "value". When there are externalities however, this no longer works properly. When you go to buy gasoline the external costs aren't reflected in the price, because they dont effect the buyer or the seller. (the buyer and seller are effected some by pollution, but the aggregate effect of the pollution on everyone else is much much greater.) As a result the artificially low price will result in more gasoline being bought than is socially optimal.
For flu shots the opposite is true. The additional benefits arent reflected in the transaction so the price ends up being artificially high, and results in fewer flu shots being bought than is socially optimal.
The purpose of much of government policy in the economic world is to correct for these externalities by taxes or subsidies. This is why the American government subsidizes flu shots and the British government taxes gasoline. The government intervention helps bring the prices closer to the socially optimal prices so that an economically efficient amount is purchased.
The other primary mode of government spending is similar in its aims. There are some services that are of need to society but the nature of them dictates that private enterprise would be insufficient to provide them. Examples of this are roads, police forces, fire departments, the military, etc.
The government regularly takes economic actions that are deemed socially necessary. Arguing that these actions are immoral is academic at best, and erroneous in my opinion. Government intervention in the free market is essential to the proper functioning of our economy.
Specifically with the case of welfare, the argument for it is that it comes with significant positive externalities. The welfare system reduces crime rates both in the short and long term. It provides a non criminal opportunities for impoverished people, and helps alleviate the cycle of poverty that would otherwise ensure that children in these conditions won't escape them.
Welfare can also be viewed as a continuation of the progressive tax system. Think of it as an additional tax bracket at the bottom that pays negative taxes. Progressive taxes provide a stabilizing effect on the economy and welfare is just the logical extrapolation of the concept.
You benefit from the side effects of a welfare system that private enterprise would be insufficient to provide. That's why the government taxes you for it.
Conservatives don't hate welfare. They just feel that more of/all should come from other places. Such as local goverment, church/charities and family.
I think saftey nets are needed in society but alot of them could go threw reforms such as unemployment.
As I've gained more life experience I simply don't believe this anymore. There are so many other factors that determine where money ends up that they overwhelm the individual efforts of a person. I know people who are brilliant, honest, and work very hard, who barely make any money because they refuse to compromise with powerful a$$holes. I know a$$holes who were making 50, 60, 70 thousand at age twenty, and yet curiously are mediocre at math, pathetic at grammar, short on creativity, and basically, do nothing more than show up to work on time. And I know one guy who is almost 27 and has barely worked a day in his life, never made or contributed anything, and yet sits comfortably in his apartment with all the modern amenities, and state of the art computer equipment.
In my own life, I had a union job once where as long as I showed up, the money flowed in, even though it was debatable what I was really contributing. Conversely, when I started my own business, I was working harder and smarter than I ever had in my life, but was so poor I couldn't even afford to eat. Buying meat and vegetables starts to look like an unaffordable luxury, and you end up eating 50 cent things of Ramen.
Just because a person shows up to work and gets paid, doesn't mean his output was worth what he got in return, or worth anything, for that matter. And just because a persons gets paid little or nothing doesn't mean that their services weren't tremendously valuable. There is no magic fairy ensuring everything is fair.
In fact, the only fairies that are visible at all are people in positions of power. The government, large corporations, the rich. They have the ability to affect supply and demand by affecting scarcity. Microsoft goes out of its way to squash competition as much as it can, and constantly skirts the line of government intervention. (The government doesn't step in until the situation is highly visible and undeniable, and even then the process gets tied up in courts for years, while someone else gets in line fill the void.)
There is no question that in legal terms, a person is legally entitled to control the money they receive in exchange for services. But as a sentient being, it is necessary to question what the effect of their actions is on the big picture before you use words like "earn" or "deserve." Anybody can suffer through getting up in the morning, sitting through eight hours of crap, and driving home. But that doesn't mean by itself they helped anybody. Does a telemarketer "deserve" his ten bucks an hour, considering the amount of people he annoyed and the fear he placed in people to answer their phones? Compare that to a teacher who spends the day teaching 30 human beings to read and think, and yet makes the same amount of money.
It is also difficult for people who have never been poor to understand just why it is so difficult to rise out of that. Assuming you can get them in the bottom door to McDonald's, they can't really learn much else while they're flipping fries for eight hours a day. And since they're barely making enough money to stay alive, it's kind of hard to earn that bachelor's degree in the evenings. Maybe they can get some financial aid with a FAFSA, but if they got screwed over by their parents and can't read well, what good does it do?
I've really gotten disgusted with some of the guys I went to school with, who went the road of being stock brokers. I was camping with them a year or so ago and they're snorting at the idea of giving money to anybody, because, after all, they already pay taxes, and boy, they work so hard driving their BMWs into an office to answer phones and place orders to buy or sell. Meanwhile, my more interesting friends are working on things like educating the next crop of humans, or designing cities better, or studying art to brighten people's lives, and these people make NOTHING. Is it because what they do isn't valuable? No. It's because large companies have banded together to create and profit from resource shortages, making most people so in need that they have to come to these companies on their knees, and they feel like they don't have time to worry about the more intellectually complicated things.
If you doubt what I'm saying, as a mental exercise just try to see if you be a burden on no one and spend nothing except food. You can't. All of the land is owned. You can't build a shack out in the forest, they'll shut you down. You HAVE to work in the "workplace" to get money to exchange for food, which means you have to play by its rules. And guess what? All the major tools needed to do business are tightly controlled by a few entities towards the top. Real estate, insurance, advertising... You have to be pretty sophisticated and well educated, as well as have some liquid cash, to deal with this system effectively.
So when I look at people at starving on the street, whose parents left them to rot, and let them go to an underfunded, crime-riddled school, after which they dropped out to work at McDonald's to feed their brother, I reach up and press my nose back down a few degrees. I was taught to read, and fed enough so I could do my homework, and allowed to educate myself into my twenties. I have no right to be a self-righteous snot about it and neither do any of the other people who didn't teach themselves the alphabet at age 40.
Anyone still defending Adam Smith's ideology ?