Rich vs. Poor

Victor Davis Hanson, in his inimitable style, addresses the cognitive dissonance engendered by the fact that the pair vying for the White House who claim to better represent the poor and disenfranchised in this country are themselves multi-millionaires.

It is going to be hard to convince the American people that two East Coast, liberal lawyers, one Senator married to a billionaire, the other worth $75 million, are men of the people. No wonder they and their supporters have introduced some very strange arguments.

It's a question that I've been wanting to address for some time, but Hanson does it so much better than I could ever dream of doing that I'm going to settle for riding on his coattails. Later in the article, he writes:

It is not that there is not inequality and unfairness in compensation in America; I could never quite figure out why small farmers made less than car salesmen or plastic surgeons. But Americans are sort of wedded to the idea that we all make choices, and there are other things in our lives, both good and bad, that determine what we do and how we are rewarded, rather than just an inflexibly in compensation beyond our control.

I'm guessing he meant to write "inflexibility in compensation" above but the meaning is still clear. We generally believe in the ability to choose the path we follow and, if we don't like where it's going, we can change direction and go somewhere else. I've done that more than once myself during my life and there are several things I wish I had done differently, or not done at all. Nevertheless, the choices were mine and I have to take responsibility for the outcome of those decisions.

I thought this was a particularly good paragraph:

Now we are left with the much harder questions of an affluent society wrestling with guaranteeing an equality of result rather than ensuring an equality of opportunity. Perhaps that is why where I live bankrupt farmers and failed chemical salesmen are more likely to vote Bush/Cheney than are my tenured colleagues in Volvos and the local legal community who vacation in Europe. Go figure.

The desire to have equality of result is a prominent characteristic of leftist thought. We're all the same, after all, so we must all succeed to the same level. Everyone must have the same income, and everyone must pay the same price for everything. Take this to the extreme and you have Communism. Take this to the ridiculous extreme and you have the society ofHarrison Bergeron.