Thursday, November 22, 2012

Ask "Why", and The Fallacy of "Equality"

Now and then it's useful to ask "why?", especially when dealing with Left-o-Tards.

Belvedere expounds:

...Science is not the ultimate explainer of Life. It is but one of the tools that help us reach a greater understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Science can now explain what happens chemically in your brain when you fall in love, but it will never answer why you did.

Also: The Left doesn’t want you to ask ‘Why?

Why? Well, if you do ask ‘Why?’, you start to think for yourself, because asking ‘Why?’ means you have a desire to seek an answer which involves invoking Reason, and to arrive at answer requires that you ask questions, which means you have to think for yourself, you have to invoke Free Will.

The Left doesn’t want you to think, but, rather, to accept their world view, their Ideology, unquestioningly.

OK, so what does that have to do with "equality"?  Russell Kirk spends a little time with the first real Conservative economist--a fellow named Mallock.

When it is scientifically considered, [...] the doctrine of equality will be exposed as a fallacy; for equality is the death of progress.  Throughout history, progress of every sort, cultural and economic, has been produced by the desire of men for inequality.  Without the possibility of inequality, a people continue[s] on the dreary level of bare subsistence...[f]or inequality produces the wealth of civilized communities; it provides the motive which induces men of superior abilities to exert themselves for the general benefit.

[The fundamental error of Socialists] is the labor theory of wealth, as expounded by Marx, who got its rudiment from Ricardo.  Labor....is NOT the cause of most of our wealth; unaided, labor produces merely a bare subsistence.  ..."Labor in itself is no more the cause of wealth than Shakespeare's pen is the cause of his writing Hamlet.  The cause is in the motives, of which labor is the outward index."  The principal motivator is inequality; and the principal producer of wealth is not Labor, but ability....

Ability, the chief productive faculty, is a natural monopoly:  it cannot be redistributed by legislation, though it may be crushed.....

So the next time some demi-socialist prattles on about "equality", ask him/her/it WHY "equality" is a benefit to the economy.  You won't get a coherent response, of course, but it will be fun to listen to the bumbling, bobbling, weaving, and ducking.

3 comments:

  1. The Left doesn’t want you to ask ‘Why?’

    Hogwash!

    equality is the death of progress

    The "fallacy" here is the supposition that any policy-maker in America today advocates equality of outcome since none do.

    In truth, our president and those who support him advocate equality of opportunity. This is the primary goal of redistribution of power in the market, everyone playing by the same rules which "provides the motive which induces [all people] of superior abilities to exert themselves for the general benefit."

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  2. Oh.

    So 'eating the rich' is not an outcome-driven policy?

    I suspect that the wrong turkey is being consumed in your home, Jim.

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  3. eating the rich

    Who's policy is that?

    As to the turkey being eaten in my home, it is a Butterball and I just put it in the oven.

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