Wealthcare

New Republic

Jonathan Chait, The New Republic | Full Story | The current era of Democratic governance has provoked a florid response on the right, ranging from the prosaic (routine denunciations of big spending and debt) to the overheated (fears of socialism) to the lunatic (the belief that Democrats plan to put the elderly to death). Amid this cacophony of rage and dread, there has emerged one anxiety that is an actual idea, and not a mere slogan or factual misapprehension. The idea is that the United States is divided into two classes—the hard-working productive elite, and the indolent masses leeching off their labor by means of confiscatory taxes and transfer programs.

In these disparate comments we can see the outlines of a coherent view of society. It expresses its opposition to redistribution not in practical terms—that taking from the rich harms the economy—but in moral absolutes, that taking from the rich is wrong. It likewise glorifies selfishness as a virtue. It denies any basis, other than raw force, for using government to reduce economic inequality. It holds people completely responsible for their own success or failure, and thus concludes that when government helps the disadvantaged, it consequently punishes virtue and rewards sloth. And it indulges the hopeful prospect that the rich will revolt against their ill treatment by going on strike, simultaneously punishing the inferiors who have exploited them while teaching them the folly of their ways.

There is another way to describe this conservative idea. It is the ideology of Ayn Rand. >>

Published 09.09.14 00:00:00 -0500 GMT | Posted by Andrew Garib on 09.09.19 | |