Calling George Orwell
An op-ed in today’s New York Times encapsulates much of what can be so obnoxious about some academics. Here’s what Rochester economist Steven E. Landsburg has to say about what those in our society who win from globalization owe to the losers:
All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners. What we lose through lower wages is more than offset by what we gain through lower prices. In other words, the winners can more than afford to compensate the losers. Does that mean they ought to? Does it create a moral mandate for the taxpayer-subsidized retraining programs proposed by Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney?
Um, no. Even if you’ve just lost your job, there’s something fundamentally churlish about blaming the very phenomenon that’s elevated you above the subsistence level since the day you were born.
I’m sure this will comfort the person now out of a job with a set of skills that no longer enable her to support herself. And by the way, thanks for the “Um, no”, professor.
You don’t have to be a Fabian socialist to recognize that members of a common society hold some moral obligations in common. At least Landsburg and everyone who is reading this blog better hope so.
To take only the most obvious example, how much money do you think the “winners from globalization” would make in the absence of US armed forces? All of the material delights that we enjoy ultimately require men to stand watch looking through Starlight Scopes on assault rifles, and die if necessary, to protect the commercial, law-bound society that provides these benefits. Would you do that for a group of people who happen to live within some lines on a map, but who essentially view you as a sucker for doing it?
Of course when some armed, determined adversaries decide to come to Professor Landsburg’s house to take it from him, I’m sure he can organize a delightful little faculty colloquium and talk them into stopping.
The American upper class, like the hasidum of Israel, could not exist without the continued sacrifice of their nation’s military men and women drawn primarily from the lower economic strata. For the financial elite, working-class Americans represent nothing more than a resource to be mined for profit.
— BobbyV · Jan 17, 06:29 PM · #
Anyone who uses Um, no is engaging in douchebaggery of the highest order. We are going fail as a nation, because increasing numbers of wealthy Americans don’t see theer well-being and success as tied to the success and well-being of America.
— oclarki · Jan 17, 07:07 PM · #
The professor’s point is not that members of a society do not owe anything to each other in the evennt of economic hardship, it is that we don’t owe them anything in particular because they may have lost a job to international trade as opposed to domestic trade, or changing technology.
— wph · Jan 17, 10:42 PM · #
“All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners.”- Landsburg
I know of at least one economist who doesn’t agree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts#Outsourcing_Jobs
Paul Craig Roberts is an economist and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as the “Father of Reaganomics”. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College.
(…)
— icr · Jan 18, 12:31 AM · #
But that’s exactly what the middle and upper class think. We (the upper and middle class) are selfish creatures concerned primarily with our own personal wellbeing. So we ask ourselves, who in his or her right mind would risk their life and sanity when they could instead live a comfortable, war-free existence?
And our answer is this: someone who didn’t have any better options, a patriot, or both. A person who joins the military does so because they are a poor sucker. They do it because they believe that the military will care for them financially (which isn’t always true), and or because they are patriotic (being a sucker).
Some people respond by pointing out the profound respect that American society has for the armed forces. However, that respect primarily takes the form of rhetoric and to a lesser extent money (and the money isn’t even that much, considering that someone in the armed forces could make a lot more money serving with military contractors). We willingly offer lip service to military men and women, but never our actual service which is precisely what our military needs.
Some argue (correctly I think) that if the United States refrained from imperialist adventures that does not protect but compromises our security, then the military wouldn’t have such a great need for able-bodied men and women.
But that dodges the question. It is irrelevant to the middle and upper class whether a particular military operation actually ensures our security or not. They don’t care who serves in the military as long as its not them, and they believe (probably correctly) that there will always be enough poor suckers to fight the wars we, the American people, decide to fight. As a result, the rhetoric that valorizes our servicemen is pervasive and overwhelming because it costs us nothing.
— Joseph · Jan 19, 06:03 PM · #