Though it may not appear to be so, there is a common theme that underlies the entitlement mentality that many Americans feel and the notions of liberty that they possess. It is as close as sociology will ever come to a grand unified theory of behavior. It connects issues ranging from health care costs and socialized medicine, to copyright infringement and intellectual property in general. To understand why so many Americans feel the way they do about liberty, rights and economics one need only understand that underneath it all there is a great illusion that we are all entitled to the maximum consumption of anything which is legal that our hearts desire.
It is consumption and the reduction of all things to material consumption which has dulled and nearly destroyed American liberty. It is largely unquestioned whether or not an increasing quality of life as defined by the ability of people to buy more products and services with the same income is even possible. It's taken for granted that the inexorable advance of progress means that what is accessible to the elite today will be accessible to the middle class tomorrow, and sometime not long after that accessible to everyone. And by God if the markets don't deliver that promise at the scheduled time, then the government will just have to step in, won't it? That is why we are impatient with health care costs and driving them up in the name of controlling costs. The ignorant and impatient cannot countenance the thought that bankruptcy instead of death is actually fundamental progress. They cry out, "you have a duty to preserve our paychecks, so that we may consume more!"
Now it is true that health care costs are rising, but it's also true that there are things which can be done to mitigate those costs. There are tax-free savings and expense accounts for health care costs which only a minority of people utilize. They could simultaneously lower their taxes and have a large chunk of money that would have been sent to the government to their personal and familial health care costs. However, even if they were fully cogniscent of these benefits, it's unlikely that the vast majority would take advantage of them because that would reduce their take home pay and make it harder for them to buy more fun things. Consumption is a jealous god which won't tolerate any interference with its tithe.
When the economy took a down turn there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the middle class. More specifically in the "la-tee-da, how bourgeois are we?" class. Their inalienable right to organic foods bought at upscale grocery stores whose classier facades intimidated the working class was called into question. Someone even said that they might have to car pool to save money on gas as they commuted from far away into work in the cities. Can you believe that someone would dare suggest that they create ad hoc mass transit? I know, right? Government action was, of course, demanded in the name of reducing oil costs, driving out those dastardly oil speculators and to pave the way for alternative fuel cars (which would also receive a fat government subsidy to make their consumption affordable).
High gas prices cut deep into the consumption-provided sense of autonomous living that passes for bonafide liberty. They are more immediate than the possibility of high health care costs which many people could avoid altogether through long-term saving in tax free health savings accounts and living a healthy lifestyle. The higher the gas prices go, the more imperative it becomes that factors other than "I like it" drive the decisions behind buying a car and what to do with it. When gas tops out at five dollars per gallon, those beastly, intimidating and comfortable luxury SUVs start to look more like gilded cages than expressions of individuality and chariots to fun living. Just to be safe, let's impose price controls to intimidate OPEC into keeping oil prices down.
On the issue of housing it may certainly be true that some of the market manipulations of the last several years were done for the benefit of investment banks and mortgage lenders. It is also true that there was a strong ideological motivation the part of a number of politicians, and by extension, many of their constituents, to enable the consumption of real estate by those who others did not have the means to buy it safely. This debacle was created in no small part because representatives like Barney Frank could not imagine a free America in which whole swaths of the public were deemed "too risky" by sound mortgage lenders, and so they used the crowbar of state to pry open the mortgage door that had slammed shut in the face of millions of Americans who probably never had more than a vague thought about trying the door knob. And so, as risk piled on risk, and consumer and producer conspired to operate beyond their means, we found ourselves caught in a mire that was actually our ideological and spiritual shit. We also discovered that it stinks as badly as rumor would have it.
The most banal, and easiest to understand, of the entitlements is the one felt toward intellectual property. It has a respectable veneer and a relationship between the haves and have nots that at first blush would make Robin Hood larcenous to the nth degree. The common refrain is that it costs nothing to transmit in digital form, and that when someone copies the work of another without their permission, that doesn't deny them the enjoyment of their property. Those points are completely true, but then it is also true that it is far cheaper for a counterfeiter to build a knock off of any given product, and it is not a violation of someone's physical property rights to use their property with neither their knowledge nor damaging it. Traditionally, we protected the rights of creators for different, non-utilitarian reasons just like we protect physical property from all non-authorized use. After all, it does not deny someone enjoyment of their property if someone has a party by their backyard pool while they are gone, provided that no damage is done. Likewise if their car is discretely taken to the grocery store and back, and the gas tank refilled, where is the outrage?
Setting aside those basic flaws in the arguments for why no harm is done with systematically violating the intellectual property rights of others, the entitlement mentality is present in spades. It finds it an unbearable imposition to have to spend actual money for a movie that may or may not be any good, or for a video game that may still be buggy. Quality isn't even a consideration in many cases, as a lot of people find it absolutely absurd to suggest that they should have to buy it from the creator, rather than downloading it from someone else. Underneath it all, it's the same mentality that looks at the doctor and scoffs at the "absurd notion" that one should actually have to pay for his time. It's a cost that should be avoidable without avoiding the benefit from the cost. After all, $60 for a new game is a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere.
So really there are two main sides to the issue of consumption: enabling and avoidance. We pass laws which enable us to consume everything from health care services at someone else's expense, to laws which enable people to get mortgages when some lenders might prefer otherwise. It is the government's job to play bad cop to the market's good cop on these matters. Likewise, it is our social right to avoid having to spend our own money on things which we can by simple fact avoid buying like copyrighted goods. Enabling and avoidance apply equally to expenses like health care and gas where we don't want to strangle the goose that lays the golden egg, but rather scare it into restocking Fort Knox and our 401ks of its own volition.
The maximizing of consumption is not limited to just the acquisition of goods and services, but sadly carries over even into the way that we view each other. Subconsciously, it affects our social relations even down to sexuality where many seek to consume the greatest variety of experiences they safely can. The desire to consume more and more, while minimizing the cost to ourselves has even undermined our social relations. It has made us greedier and more selfish, and it should come as no surprise that neither of those things, in any form, have made us freer. There is, after all, not a whole lot that a selfish, greedy person won't do to maintain their wealth and position. That is why so many people are willing to sacrifice essential liberty for a sense of financial security today.
For many reasons, the consumer culture is self-defeating. Both the left and right routinely rail against it, but often without understanding why it is so immediately harmful to the material well-being of society. A culture which is concerned more with the ability to eat out at a restaurant than the freedom and autonomy to run a restaurant is a culture that will have less disposable income and fewer restaurants. Likewise, one that sequesters doctors to public service is one where cost-cutting measures will reduce the ratio between pay and stress which makes the medical profession attractive for so many intelligent, hard-working people. Finally, one that manipulates the entire financial market to enable more opportunities to buy real estate and investments at "minimal risk" is one that will never know stability, but will routinely suffer catastrophic valuation bubbles.
It is consumption and the reduction of all things to material consumption which has dulled and nearly destroyed American liberty. It is largely unquestioned whether or not an increasing quality of life as defined by the ability of people to buy more products and services with the same income is even possible. It's taken for granted that the inexorable advance of progress means that what is accessible to the elite today will be accessible to the middle class tomorrow, and sometime not long after that accessible to everyone. And by God if the markets don't deliver that promise at the scheduled time, then the government will just have to step in, won't it? That is why we are impatient with health care costs and driving them up in the name of controlling costs. The ignorant and impatient cannot countenance the thought that bankruptcy instead of death is actually fundamental progress. They cry out, "you have a duty to preserve our paychecks, so that we may consume more!"
Now it is true that health care costs are rising, but it's also true that there are things which can be done to mitigate those costs. There are tax-free savings and expense accounts for health care costs which only a minority of people utilize. They could simultaneously lower their taxes and have a large chunk of money that would have been sent to the government to their personal and familial health care costs. However, even if they were fully cogniscent of these benefits, it's unlikely that the vast majority would take advantage of them because that would reduce their take home pay and make it harder for them to buy more fun things. Consumption is a jealous god which won't tolerate any interference with its tithe.
When the economy took a down turn there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the middle class. More specifically in the "la-tee-da, how bourgeois are we?" class. Their inalienable right to organic foods bought at upscale grocery stores whose classier facades intimidated the working class was called into question. Someone even said that they might have to car pool to save money on gas as they commuted from far away into work in the cities. Can you believe that someone would dare suggest that they create ad hoc mass transit? I know, right? Government action was, of course, demanded in the name of reducing oil costs, driving out those dastardly oil speculators and to pave the way for alternative fuel cars (which would also receive a fat government subsidy to make their consumption affordable).
High gas prices cut deep into the consumption-provided sense of autonomous living that passes for bonafide liberty. They are more immediate than the possibility of high health care costs which many people could avoid altogether through long-term saving in tax free health savings accounts and living a healthy lifestyle. The higher the gas prices go, the more imperative it becomes that factors other than "I like it" drive the decisions behind buying a car and what to do with it. When gas tops out at five dollars per gallon, those beastly, intimidating and comfortable luxury SUVs start to look more like gilded cages than expressions of individuality and chariots to fun living. Just to be safe, let's impose price controls to intimidate OPEC into keeping oil prices down.
On the issue of housing it may certainly be true that some of the market manipulations of the last several years were done for the benefit of investment banks and mortgage lenders. It is also true that there was a strong ideological motivation the part of a number of politicians, and by extension, many of their constituents, to enable the consumption of real estate by those who others did not have the means to buy it safely. This debacle was created in no small part because representatives like Barney Frank could not imagine a free America in which whole swaths of the public were deemed "too risky" by sound mortgage lenders, and so they used the crowbar of state to pry open the mortgage door that had slammed shut in the face of millions of Americans who probably never had more than a vague thought about trying the door knob. And so, as risk piled on risk, and consumer and producer conspired to operate beyond their means, we found ourselves caught in a mire that was actually our ideological and spiritual shit. We also discovered that it stinks as badly as rumor would have it.
The most banal, and easiest to understand, of the entitlements is the one felt toward intellectual property. It has a respectable veneer and a relationship between the haves and have nots that at first blush would make Robin Hood larcenous to the nth degree. The common refrain is that it costs nothing to transmit in digital form, and that when someone copies the work of another without their permission, that doesn't deny them the enjoyment of their property. Those points are completely true, but then it is also true that it is far cheaper for a counterfeiter to build a knock off of any given product, and it is not a violation of someone's physical property rights to use their property with neither their knowledge nor damaging it. Traditionally, we protected the rights of creators for different, non-utilitarian reasons just like we protect physical property from all non-authorized use. After all, it does not deny someone enjoyment of their property if someone has a party by their backyard pool while they are gone, provided that no damage is done. Likewise if their car is discretely taken to the grocery store and back, and the gas tank refilled, where is the outrage?
Setting aside those basic flaws in the arguments for why no harm is done with systematically violating the intellectual property rights of others, the entitlement mentality is present in spades. It finds it an unbearable imposition to have to spend actual money for a movie that may or may not be any good, or for a video game that may still be buggy. Quality isn't even a consideration in many cases, as a lot of people find it absolutely absurd to suggest that they should have to buy it from the creator, rather than downloading it from someone else. Underneath it all, it's the same mentality that looks at the doctor and scoffs at the "absurd notion" that one should actually have to pay for his time. It's a cost that should be avoidable without avoiding the benefit from the cost. After all, $60 for a new game is a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere.
So really there are two main sides to the issue of consumption: enabling and avoidance. We pass laws which enable us to consume everything from health care services at someone else's expense, to laws which enable people to get mortgages when some lenders might prefer otherwise. It is the government's job to play bad cop to the market's good cop on these matters. Likewise, it is our social right to avoid having to spend our own money on things which we can by simple fact avoid buying like copyrighted goods. Enabling and avoidance apply equally to expenses like health care and gas where we don't want to strangle the goose that lays the golden egg, but rather scare it into restocking Fort Knox and our 401ks of its own volition.
The maximizing of consumption is not limited to just the acquisition of goods and services, but sadly carries over even into the way that we view each other. Subconsciously, it affects our social relations even down to sexuality where many seek to consume the greatest variety of experiences they safely can. The desire to consume more and more, while minimizing the cost to ourselves has even undermined our social relations. It has made us greedier and more selfish, and it should come as no surprise that neither of those things, in any form, have made us freer. There is, after all, not a whole lot that a selfish, greedy person won't do to maintain their wealth and position. That is why so many people are willing to sacrifice essential liberty for a sense of financial security today.
For many reasons, the consumer culture is self-defeating. Both the left and right routinely rail against it, but often without understanding why it is so immediately harmful to the material well-being of society. A culture which is concerned more with the ability to eat out at a restaurant than the freedom and autonomy to run a restaurant is a culture that will have less disposable income and fewer restaurants. Likewise, one that sequesters doctors to public service is one where cost-cutting measures will reduce the ratio between pay and stress which makes the medical profession attractive for so many intelligent, hard-working people. Finally, one that manipulates the entire financial market to enable more opportunities to buy real estate and investments at "minimal risk" is one that will never know stability, but will routinely suffer catastrophic valuation bubbles.
Interesting.
I wonder what the political class would think of the idea of making a different professional class into public servants: Lawyers. So no man would have his wealth put in jeapardy just to defend against claims, torts, liabilities, and criminal infractions. Only if found guilty and then only to the extent of punishment or compensation warranted.
Just as likely, but even better: pass a constitutional amendment which adds a council of men and women who dropped out of high school to the legislative process. Put them between Congress and the President. If they cannot understand a bill, it has to go back to Congress.
This reminds me of a quote from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress:
First off, Mike, this is a great post. A bit long, tho I've been known to spin some long ones in my time too :0
"The desire to consume more and more, while minimizing the cost to ourselves has even undermined our social relations. It has made us greedier and more selfish, and it should come as no surprise that neither of those things, in any form, have made us freer. There is, after all, not a whole lot that a selfish, greedy person won't do to maintain their wealth and position. That is why so many people are willing to sacrifice essential liberty for a sense of financial security today."
I think the key detractor to this culture of material consumption that we have today is that it violates two Biblical precepts: thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not get into debt.
The theft issue is obvious: our illusory prosperity is financed on the backs of the younger and unborn generations. We have taken what is theirs and appropriated it for our own uses. Similarly, as you've written, we expect someone else to pay for our consumption--that payment is often extracted by force, compounding the immorality--with the twin effects that (a) we now feel entitled to the fruits of someone else's labors, and (b) there is no incentive to control costs since someone else's money is being spent. The latter specifically applies to the whole health care issue. Get rid of the third party payer system and watch health care costs drop dramatically.
Regarding IP, I'm a bit torn on the whole thing. While I recognize the need for persons to be remunerated for their labors, IP has become a government-granted monopoly for the powerful against the weak. Moreover, IP is being used as a vehicle to control the flow of information by extra-governmental corporations.
The "thou shalt avoid debt" dictum is just plain smart living. Debt is what has permitted this illusory prosperity in the first place. And I've made no bones about the dubious morality of usury banking and the effects that said practice has on the fabric of society.
@ Feral: great quote. When it comes time for America 2.0, we should institute precisely such a negative legislative body.
IP law has been expanded beyond the point of reason, but then one could also point out that the same was one true of physical property rights. As cold-bloodedly unsympathetic as I am toward people who steal for pleasure, even I look askance on the way that the British, even in the 19th century were willing to execute someone for stealing something like a cow. Yet, outside of the left, no one looked at those laws as delegitimizing property rights as a concept. I'm not suggesting that you are deligitimizing IP rights, but simply pointing out that the corrupted nature of the current laws doesn't mean that we should get rid of the legal concept, which is something a lot of people advocate today.
I think a balanced approach for copyright would be to make laws which make copyrighted goods fall under all property rights laws, with the exception of the scarcity issue. I have no problem with legislating artificial scarcity on the grounds that it is both reasonable, and I believe the moral claim of the creator to control the distribution of his or her property outweighs the "infringed" rights of the masses who want cheap copies without paying for them.
If property rights are to mean something on a moral level, the arguments surrounding them cannot be utilitarian. That is why I am so puzzled by Vox's staunch support for piracy. The whole scarcity factor is itself a utilitarian justification for property rights. In order for society to truly respect them, property rights must be regarded as equal in kind, if not degree, with the right to life and other rights that everyone agrees are innate and non-negotiable.