Whiplash Watching the Right
Lisa Schiffren writes:
The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else (including most of the chattering class, and all politicians). They are not robber barons, or trust-fund babies, or plutocrats, or even celebrities. They are mostly the meritocrats who worked hard in high school and got into the better colleges and grad schools, where they studied while others partied. They pushed through grueling hours and unpleasant “up or out” policies in their twenties and thirties at top law firms, banks, hospitals, and businesses to earn salaries in the solid six figures (or low seven) today — in their peak earning years. Their work ethic is prodigious, and, as Tigerhawk points out, in their spare time they sit on the boards of most of the complex charities and arts institutions that provide aid and pay for culture in America. No group of people contribute more to their community. And now the president, who followed a path sort of like that, and who claims that his wife’s former six-figure income was a result of precisely such qualifications and efforts, is demonizing them. More problematically, he is penalizing their success and giving them very clear incentives to ratchet back on productivity.
Okay, I agree to a point. I know a lot of big firm lawyers, doctors, consultants, engineers and entrepreneurs. They’re driven, intelligent folks who work exceptionally hard (though no harder than many Mexican immigrants who work 12 hour days at construction sites or folks I know who turned their whole lives over to their Teach for America kids.) The fact that these people aren’t robber barrens, certain parts of Wall Street excepted, and that their exceptional intelligence and productivity is a boon to us all, does bear keeping in mind, and I’m glad Jim Manzi and others are warning that the entrepreneurs among them are going to respond rationally to incentives.
Indeed, I wish that those Democrats who vilify the rich would stop, and that Barack Obama would abandon the fiction that a healthy polity can fund massive new expenditures by asking a vanishingly small percentage of the population to foot the entire bill.
But do you know why we are in a position where this sort of massive expansion of government is possible? It is partly because America’s professional class — its lawyers, engineers, and doctors, those meritocrats who “got into the better colleges and grad schools” — voted in large numbers for the Democratic candidate. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that affluent professional meritocrats, who often live in urban centers and prize competence, spent the 2008 campaign being told by the GOP ticket that big city professionals live in fake America, that a diploma from an elite college is reason for suspicion, that the wine these folks drink marks them as less authentic than the beer of their compatriots, etc.
The GOP cannot wage a culture war against elites when it is convenient to rally the base, and later make a credible claim to be the champion of those same elites when it comes time to talk about marginal tax rates. What does the average, apolitical law firm partner or neurosurgeon or mechanical engineer think when he flips on the television and sees Joe the Plumber being held up as the face of the Republican Party? Do they think, “This is a party that is going to reward meritocrats like me,” or do they think, “I’ve got a choice between a party that’s going to insult my intelligence, and another that’s going to take a slightly higher percentage of my annual earnings.”
As I already wrote, there is wisdom to be gleaned from Atlas Shrugged, and I’ve the same feelings as Will Wilkinson about the notion of people “dropping out”:
Maybe vocally “going Galt” as a protest move is a useful way to put a dramatic face on optimal tax theory, but of course that’s not what folks who talk about it have in mind. They have morality in mind. And taxation is a moral issue, a matter of justice, and I’m glad Americans resist the idea that their government is entitled to consume ever larger portions of their incomes. So I certainly don’t mind if bunch of people declare they are “going Galt” if it reinforces healthy, deep-seated American norms about the injustice of excessive taxation.
I don’t mind either. But it is very weird to watch the whole right blogosphere go gaga for Ayn Rand, a Christian hating, sexually libertine, elitist extremist, so soon after holding up as its champions a symbolic everyman like Joe the Plumber, and an evangelical VP candidate. Speaking of Sarah Palin, I wonder what Ayn Rand would’ve though of the windfall profits tax she imposed on Alaska oil companies? My bet is that Ellis Wyatt would’ve strangled her rather than let her into Galt’s Gulch.
great post, nice to see someone saying what a lot of us are thinking. a quick check on salary websites suggests that the median salary of MDs is well under $250,000. and engineers & lawyers don’t make as much money as MDs. the fact is most knowledge professionals don’t make that much in income. additionally, MDs, attorneys, etc., would make a lot less money if it wasn’t for licensing & certification controlled by professional boards who control the supply of labor. what are the marginal returns on more doctors and attorneys? now, as for small business people, and entrepreneurs, that’s a different category. and i do worry, because innovators (as opposed to professionals who play important service roles) are the ultimate pumps which drive productivity growth. that being said, it isn’t like the past 10 years of debt-fueled growth really allocated raw and innovative drive in a manner which produced intellectual capital which will yield returns in the future….
— razib · Mar 7, 09:48 AM · #
Lawyers and doctors work hard, no doubt about it. But one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever known was Jose, who worked with me at a Pizza Hut when I was in my teens. He worked one shift at Pizza Hut, and then a second eight hour shift at Tyson Chicken. And he told me that when he first came here from Mexico, he worked 16-hour shifts at Tyson Chicken so that he could have extra money to send back home. I’ve never heard of a lawyer or doctor whose work even remotely resembles the unpleasantness of working 16 hours in a chicken plant.
— Stuart Buck · Mar 7, 03:07 PM · #
“affluent professional meritocrats…spent the 2008 campaign being told by the GOP ticket that big city professionals live in fake America”
They also spent 2000-2008 (particularly near the end of that period) hearing that you would have to quite literally be stupid to vote for George Bush. If you accept the notion that Presidential elections are often a referendum on the person in office, even when that person is not on the ballot, there was absolutely no way meritocrats could bring themselves to vote for McCain, seeing him as proxy for Bush.
The description of these folks as smart, driven, etc. is no doubt accurate. Further, I would argue much of their idea of self is wrapped up in the fact that they think of themselves as smart and this idea has been reinforced with regularity throughout their lives by others telling them just that.
If being smart is central to your sense of self a vote for Obama was the only way to affirm this notion given the constant message that you can’t be smart and vote for Bush.
— Jeremy R. Shown · Mar 7, 04:54 PM · #
I admit that I haven’t taken a complete survey of the right blogosphere lately, but I feel enough comfortable certainty to state that this is incredibly hyperbolic. At best, maybe you mean that people like Lisa Schiffren are expressing some Randian ideas, but that does mean they are buying (or selling) Randianism whole cloth. I am not sure why you imagine that Rand’s libertinism would give the right pause before expressing economic ideas that might be seen as Randian, given that they have nothing to do with each other.
Also, I think part of Schiffren’s point was that the meritocratic elite didn’t see the soaking they are about to get coming when they voted for the current president. As Jeremy above writes, there thinking was probably more cultural than economic. This, by the way, goes a long way towards resolving the dissonance you see between cursing elites one week and lauding them the next. The right has hardly a problem with economic elites; it’s cultural elites they distrust. Though I agree that there is still a dissonance that has it’s political problems, given that the two overlap significantly (the left, on the other hand, likes cultural elites and distrusts economic elites, so there is kind of a balance).
— Blar · Mar 7, 07:00 PM · #
Also, any rudimentary proofreading errors made above I attribute to coming off a cold. Normally I am much more the obsessive perfectionist, so it grates.
— Blar · Mar 7, 07:03 PM · #
“If being smart is central to your sense of self a vote for Obama was the only way to affirm this notion given the constant message that you can’t be smart and vote for Bush.”
And where did that come from? It came from George himself. Few presidents have prided themselves, as George did, on stonewalling contrary opinions because his simple rules for life were all the country needed. Few presidents have been as willing to silently preside over demonization of political opponents as traitors, because how could you be against the patriotic good-heartedness of The Decider? I think we can safely say that no president was as happy as George to withdraw from the public interchange of ideas and the public airing of debate.
The idea that intelligent people turned away from the Republican party because their information providers had a message slant… that’s just sticking your head in the sand. The 2008 Republican campaign was 100% about blowing a raspberry to self-reflection and critical thinking. You didn’t have to be stupid to vote for George (or McCain), but you did have to not care about your President actually understanding the document he is sworn to defend.
— Grunthos · Mar 7, 07:22 PM · #
What it seems like we are really talking about is the fairness and/or utility of the pogressive tax structure. That’s real moral and philosphical question when taken seriously. You can rationalize a progressive tax system on a untilitarian basis: it helps keep a permenent aristocracy of wealth from forming. It recycles wealth, keeps it moving through society instead of accumulating in reaestate and stocks and bonds. It is also something of sop in consolation for advantage the wealthy in our political system, although obviously not much of one.
On moral grounds you can talk about equivilent sacrifice or pain. Taking 20% of $40k hurts a family a lot more than taking %30 of $250K. In the first case it might mean you send your kid to public college instead of private. In the second it means you can’t what… buy as big a yacht? There is nothing vital or important you can’t do with $175,000 a year. So if everyone should contribute and equal share to the maintenence of society, what “equal” actually means is something that has to be decided.
On the other hand I am very attracted to the idea that all adults should succed or fail according to their own efforts. That provides incentive to work hard and be creative which is good for society on the whole. Plus it just feels right. It’s nice and simple.
But then you still have the problems above: the permenent aristocracy of wealth, the starving of the economy of money, and the disproportionate power the wealthy have in our (or any) political system. And extrapolating from that, if these conditions are allowed to reign, they act as a disincentive for hard work and creativity if the wealthy are in control of everything and have in a sense pulled up all the ladders. There are plenty of countries like that around the world.
Plus you still have to do something with the losers. Letting them starve on the street at the very least is unpleasant to see. It makes your victory less enjoyable, so you might have to spend a little to, at minimum, have them processed into soylent green. So the simple, emotionally satisfying soloution turns out to be simple becasue it simply ignores a bunch of problems inherent in the organizatin of any society.
So in the end, unless you can come up with an answer to these problems (or if these problems wouldn’t really result from a non-progressive tax sytem, which is probably where the meat of the debate lies), I’m ok with a progressive system that balances the needs for incentivizing individuals with the need for social mobility and restraining the power of the wealthy.
— cw · Mar 7, 08:37 PM · #
Sorry for the stupid errors. I know I should proof-read better.
— cw · Mar 7, 08:42 PM · #
Blar,
I plead guilty to hyperbole, and throw myself on the mercy of the court. Aided by your critique, let me restate the point that I should have made — there’s been a divide on the right for awhile between so-called elites and so-called champions of the grassroots, and it is weird to see the latter embracing Atlas Shrugged, a novel that is elitist if the word has any meaning. So too it is weird to see bloggers normally very critical of the anti-religious and of non-traditional sexual morality embracing a novel that contains large portions of both, not just incidentally, but as a core philosophical premise.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Mar 7, 10:23 PM · #
So on one side we have liberaltarians, and on the other losertarians?
— Tony Comstock · Mar 7, 10:29 PM · #
“So too it is weird to see bloggers normally very critical of the anti-religious and of non-traditional sexual morality embracing a novel that contains large portions of both, not just incidentally, but as a core philosophical premise.”
well, several republicans in congress are reading the novel. how are they dealing with the radical messages?
— razib · Mar 7, 11:05 PM · #
This is one of the better posts from a conservative from the past couple months: kudos in general to The American Scene, who, along with Frum, are about the only conservatives to seem to be living in reality.
— Steve C · Mar 8, 05:02 AM · #
The message of Atlas Shrugged is that each individual is an end in himself, and not the means to someone else’s ends. Whether he is John Galt or Joe the Plumber, his life belongs to him, and therefore the product of his labor belongs to him as well. That is a message that cuts across class and educational lines. That it contradicts the ethics of Christianity is less of a problem for Joe the Plumber, since his work does not require intellectual consistency. But I’m expecting any day now for someone at NRO to remind their conservative brethren that Ayn Rand was a heretic, and was excommunicated from the right by W.F. Buckley himself, lo these many years.
— Ardsgaine · Mar 8, 05:46 AM · #
<i>The message of Atlas Shrugged is that each individual is an end in himself, and not the means to someone else’s ends</i>
Exactly – it is a deeply UNconservative message, as conservativism is traditionally understood. Rand was anti-tradition, anti-family, anti-civic duty.
— vanya · Mar 12, 03:33 PM · #