In Why the
age of inequality has made us less happy, Helaine Olen makes an obvious observation: Money makes it easier
to achieve happiness. But that is not her primary point:
A fascinating study released last month offers us another angle to
consider in the money and happiness conundrum: It’s quite possible that the age
of inequality has come for our happiness.
She complains that people were happier in the
1970s when the income gap was smaller, but since then the gap has turned into a
chasm:
The necessities of life didn’t come down in price to make up for
the difference. Instead, they went up. Adjusted for inflation, the cost of
attending college — either public or private — more
than doubled. The same is true for buying
a home. The price of health
care soared so high that the typical employer-provided family plan now costs
more than $20,000, and comes with a four-figure deductible. And as two-earner
families became the norm, there was a new, backbreaking expense that needed to
be accounted for: child care, something that has risen in price such that in a
majority of states, it costs
more than attending public college.
If the “necessities of life” have become so much
more unaffordable since the 1970s (health care, education, housing), and people
have to work harder just to stay in place (the need for two incomes), this has
coincided with the government’s welfare state that was imposed for the very
purpose of making the necessities of life more affordable. Since the 1960s
War on Poverty, government programs have come to dominate health care
(Medicare, Medicaid, S-Chip, massive regulations on insurers) and education
(government student loan programs and grants), to name the two mentioned in the
article.
That’s the correlation--between the welfare
state (and associated business regulations) and declining affordability--that should
be examined. Instead, the author
super-imposes a diatribe against economic inequality, saying:
When [Jean] Twenge spoke to The Post earlier this month, she speculated that
inequality is a major reason [my emphasis].
Speculated? I’m not buying that life for the
average person has gotten worse since the 1970s. For many, it may have. The
issue is complex. But there is plenty of evidence that life has gotten better,
albeit accompanied by wrenching change due to innovation. But the obsession
with economic inequality has gotten to the point that it has become the
be-all-and-end-all scapegoat for every alleged problem. Just as the climate
catastrophists blaming
every newsworthy weather event on climate change, the inequality catastrophists blame every economic hardship on
economic inequality, even though no facts are ever presented to back it up. It’s
become a matter of faith--a religion. Oh, sure, the economic egalitarians will
trot out statistics galore. But statistics identify correlations, not
causality. Try to get an egalitarian to cite an inherent causal direct link
between one person’s earned success and another’s hardship, and you’ll
get--nothing. In fact, the outsized fortunes since the 1970s were achieved by
entrepreneurs building job-rich companies that provide mass market products to
billions of consumers-in other words, that improve the quality of regular
peoples lives. And the very size of the fortunes would not be possible if there
weren’t a vast and growing prosperous middle class out there to buy what the
new rich are producing.
The truth is, no one has ever presented a valid
case against economic inequality as a problem in and of itself. In fact, the
campaign against economic inequality is both destructive and immoral. So the inequality haters turn to the “last
refuge of damned lyers”; statistics.
Look, it’s no surprise, as the article says,
that more money correlates to greater happiness. As University of Texas at
Austin professor Tara Smith explains, Money Can Buy Happiness, for the person who thinks rationally about what will make her
happy. But why is that fact a reason for condemning economic inequality?
In the end, the author tips her hand. In
conclusion, Olen writes:
In a society that is all but obsessed
with the idea of happiness, I suspect it’s simply too painful to admit
that our chances of achieving it are greater when our literal fortunes are
greater, too. [my emphasis]
Obsession? What is life ultimately about, if not
to pursue and achieve some level of happiness?
If “our chances of achieving [happiness] are
greater when our literal fortunes are greater,” why not celebrate economic
achievement? Why not reduce taxes and tax rates, cut regulations, increase
access to god education through parental school choice, and slash disincentives
to productive work so more people can prosper? The United States of America was
founded on the principle of the inalienable rights of every individual to his
life and liberty, including the right
to earn and keep property in order to pursue her
own happiness.
Olen’s derogatory demeaning of happiness tells
us something. I have long believed that the war on economic inequality is
rooted not in justice but in envy, resentment, and a hatred of others’
achievement so virulent that it goes beyond greed to the simple desire to see
the achiever fail.* That is the sentiment that’s really at work here. This goes
beyond mere redistribution of wealth from “the rich” so that “the poor” can
afford the stuff that can increase their chance for happiness. If inequality in
and of itself is the problem, then the focus must be not on lifting the less
successful, but on destroying the more successful. The logic of the
anti-inequality premise necessarily means the goal would have to be collapsing
everyone down to the level of the least happy. That, I submit, is the real
meaning of Olen’s last sentence. That, I submit, is the naked face of hatred --
hatred of human flourishing. It is the real motive behind the anti-economic
inequality campaign.
Related Reading:
No comments:
Post a Comment