Poverty

I had lunch with a left-of-center colleague of mine the other day. Very smart attorney who also happens to be very misguided politically. Her biggest hang-up currently is the war in Iraq. I did concede to her that, despite my support of the war initially and my continuing belief that the long-term consequences of the action there will prove to be decidedly positive, I can understand why many people are so firmly against it. It is a debatable issue to me, one where the other side often has very convincing points, even to a conservative. Same goes for the death penalty and gay marriage.

Economics, unfortunately, is not debatable. And why liberals choose to ignore the most wonderful case studies in the failure of socialism, I'm not quite sure. My friend's response to the failure of western European socialism as a governing model was that such places had too much 'greed' to sustain the system. If you mean 'greedy with your effort and productivity' then yes, I suppose you could call 'greed' the weakness of western European socialism, where 35 hour workweeks and afternoon naps are the norm. And yes, greed for power and short-term tax revenue might be what led the geniuses in Lansing, Michigan to increase taxes and regulations on a state that is hemorrhaging jobs.

Liberals also shudder at the fact that capitalism has lifted more people across this earth out of poverty than all of the other forms of government put together. They cannot explain, through the prism of big government, the prosperity of America’s poor when matched against the rest of the world. It’s no comparison. This research from the Heritage Foundation is excellent reading material.

Sure there is poverty in America. But the relevant questions from there are:
How do we deal with it? What should the role of government be? Is there any evidence from the past as to what type of governmental role is best for reducing poverty? Larry Kudlow knows . It should be a little telling to liberals about their position on economics that conservatives don't even have to argue the tried and true points about personal responsibility, we're now able to argue on their turf by pointing out that capitalism is even beneficial to the least responsible among us, not to mention the truly poor and helpless, in the form of low, competitive prices, jobs, and the astronomical levels of charity like that found in the United States. We don't have to concede the idea that heavy-governmental control may be better for the poor and move on to other arguments... because it's not.

I think the thing that worries them most about the fact that capitalism and freedom do such a wonderful job of reducing poverty is that it happens by accident. It happens without some government official going to a committee and grandstanding about all of their wonderful intentions. And it’s intentions, not results, that are most important to a liberal, folks. So if an evil corporation comes to town and creates 6,000 jobs, liberals can’t get over the fact that they’re making a profit at the same time. It’s a non-starter for them.

Like I said, she’s a brilliant friend… and because she’s a friend, I’m going to buy her this present for her birthday .