From time to time, I have the wish to discuss, reference, or clarify something that feels too general to write as e.g. an excursion in another page, but where I lack the time, or the topic the importance, to create a separate page. In such cases, I might opt to give a brief treatment on this page.
Note that any of the below entries might eventually be moved elsewhere, e.g. in order to give a fuller treatment on a separate page—once I do have the time.
Also note that my intention to give a brief treatment often fails. Once I get started, texts often turn out longer than planned, and chances are that at least some of the texts present at any given time would be long enough to warrant separate pages even in the now. (And are disproportionately likely to be among those later moved.)
As discussed repeatedly in the past, I consider the traditional Left–Right scale simplistic, misleading, and harmful. (Note e.g. a text with suggestions for more sensible political scales ([1]).)
The alleged “Right”, in particular, is too heterogeneous to be grouped under a label that implies something homogeneous. (The Left, too, is problematic in this regard, but not to anywhere near the same degree.) Correspondingly, I tend to juxtapose the Left with the non-Left and to put words like “Right” (“far Right”, “Rightwing”, etc.) in scare quotes. (But note that the uses in this paragraph arise from speaking of words, not the need for scare quotes.)
Likewise, I tend to avoid the word “Center” and its variations, in part through my experiences in Germany (cf. side-note): (a) What is considered the political center varies too much from country to country and time to time. (b) It gives traditionally “Rightwing” parties incentives to hide under the label “Center”, to reduce the damage from the Leftist pushing of “everyone Rightwing is evil”, “The Nazis were Rightwing; ergo, the Rightwing is Nazi”, etc. (c) It indirectly supports an anti-“Right” worldview, where there is the acceptable Left (viewed as good by the Left and tolerated by the Center), the acceptable Center (seen as good by the Center and tolerated by the Left), and the unacceptable “Right” (uniformly rejected by both the Left and the Center). A better view is simply to see the highly problematic Left for what it is and to, again, contrast it with the non-Left. (While noting, again, that the non-Left is very heterogeneous, implying that the individual parties, politicians, ideologies, whatnot, must ultimately be judged on their individual merits. Some of them are problematic in their own right, some are not—but the Left is almost always worse.)
The stigma associated with the word “Right” varies considerably from country to country. In Germany, e.g., it is exceptionally strong, and few in the CDU would publicly call themselves “Rightwing”, for fear of immediately being grouped with Nazis and the like. (The more unfortunate, as the Nazis have much more in common with German Left. Cf. [1].) In the U.K., e.g., the Tories are publicly considered “Rightwing” and no-one seems to take this amiss.
In the last few days, coincidentally coinciding with my reading of “War on Warriors” (WoW) by Pete Hegseth, we have seen Leftist and/or anti-Israel violence and riots in DC and sabotage of French rail services, with a presumed aim at indirectly sabotaging the beginning of the Olympics.
Based on typical behavior of various groups, the odds are overwhelming that the French issue goes back to Leftists, Islamists, and/or anti-Israel groups, but there is still no official clarity and I leave that sub-topic with a warning about where the world is headed and where we will ultimately end up if the methods of such groups are tolerated, be they used by the “usual suspects” or by some newcomer. (As always, “evil is as evil does”.)
The combination of WoW and the recent situation in DC, however, is very interesting, and the more so in the light of the typical Leftist hypocrisy and, especially, the exaggerations of the events, and the per-/prosecution of the mostly peaceful protesters, of J6. Note e.g. how the current violence, triggered by a visit by Netanyahu, breaches any reasonable border of legitimate protests and demonstrations, how much hate is present, and how many of the demonstrators signal explicit support for Hamas—a known terrorist group guilty of mass murder and with an actual genocidal agenda. (Note the very critical difference between e.g. being pro-Palestinian and being pro-Hamas or, even, just anti-Israel. Cf. portions of a text the Left and Hamas.)
While the main topic of WoW is the degeneration of the U.S. armed forces, driven by factors like “diversity”, indoctrination into Leftist hate, an increasing hostility against non-Leftists, etc., portions extend to the overall U.S. society, including an insiders perspective of defending the White House against “BLM rioters and Antifa anarchists” (coincidentally, I have repeatedly used phrases like “BLM rioters and Antifa terrorists”; my version is likely closer to the mark). Certainly, these were more problematic, more irrational, more hate-driven, whatnot, than J6. It also mentions how Hegseth was mysteriously booted immediately prior to the later inauguration—honi soit qui mal y pense.
Off-topic, a discussion of “jus in bello” towards the end of the book, applied both to wars and to politics, parallels many of my own observations, in that there very often is a party that sticks to the rules, tries to play fairly, whatnot—and an opponent who does not. Various incidents in the recent Israel–Hamas war are good examples, beginning with the October 7th massacre. It is also a constantly recurring theme in the non-Left’s attempts to keep the Left at bay, where the Left uses any and all means to achieve its ends. Note e.g. in the current U.S. abuse of the justice system to harm political opponents, judicial activism (if severely hindered by the current SCOTUS composition), political violence, hate propaganda, indoctrination in schools, and whatnot.
(While formal rules similar to e.g. the Geneva Convention are not necessarily present in any given context, there is still basic human decency and fair play. To boot, there are often informal rules, expectations, “gentlemen’s agreements”, whatnot—not to mention the principle of mutual non-destruction that “if you stick to boxing and don’t try to kick me in the crotch, then I will stick to boxing and not try to kick you in the crotch”. Of course, when a kick in the crotch still takes place and no retaliation follows, there will be more and more kicks.)
Biden has now dropped out and is (almost certainly) replaced by Harris in the race.
A few comments:
Biden remains POTUS, which is both disputable and somewhat disturbing.
The candidacy for re-election is, strictly speaking, a separate matter, as someone might reason that “I am clear-headed enough for now, but might not be so in four years” or “I am clear-headed enough, but contesting the election would be futile”.
However, non-Democrats have raised concerns about Biden’s brain power and ability for years, often, even, during the 2020 (!) campaigns. With recent evidence, “clear-headed enough” is extremely unlikely to apply, and likely ceased to apply years ago.
To boot, in my understanding, Biden has never, even when he was a young-ish senator, long ago, been considered among the best and brightest.
From the point of view of the Democrat party, there might be an interesting dilemma involved. Giving Harris a few months as POTUS might increase her electoral chances and her “brand value” simply through being POTUS—but if she is the POTUS, she can screw up in a manner that she cannot as VP, which could, then, tank her campaign entirely. From a voter’s point of view, if the Democrat party does not trust her as POTUS for these few months, even in comparison with Biden, how can she be trusted with the full four years?
These raisers of concerns have still not received credit from the Democrats for seeing the truth—and are not likely to receive it in the future either.
A particular absurdity is that a number of Democrats, including Harris, now take the opportunity to speak of Biden as an all-time great, while he, by any reasonable standard, was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Certainly, the worst this side of LBJ, maybe even further back, and this while only being in office for (currently) around three-and-a-half years.
Among his failures, we have a tanked economy, inflation, energy issues, a considerable further division of the country, following Leftist hate propaganda, a deterioration of the armed forced in a volatile time, the Afghanistan fiasco, increasing violations of civil rights and per-/prosecution based on political opinion, etc. This not to mention the COVID fiasco and the disastrous mishandling.
To boot, there is reason to suspect that Biden’s weakness and flawed approaches have had international consequences, e.g. in that the very promising situation in and around Israel that Trump left behind has gone to its worst state in decades, and that the Russian invasion of the Ukraine would, at least, have been less likely under Trump.
To boot, there have been political steps that were condemned by Biden and/or the Democrats when Trump suggested them, notably trade tariffs, that now are suggested by Biden and/or the Democrats.
(This not counting the very many points where anyone Conservative, Libertarian, Classical Liberal, whatnot, has considerable reason to complain, but where the Left, even far Left, might be enthusiastic.)
Of course, Biden has not just been a horrible POTUS, but he has predictably been a horrible POTUS. That he would do massive damage was predicted by many, including me, even before his 2020 election.
I have at some point written about how absurdly close elections tend to be. (TODO import from Wordpress and link.)
The current opinion polls are a further example. Despite his disastrous record and despite his obvious lack of fitness for office, Biden has trailed Trump by just a few percentage points in polls. Even had he had a clear head, a sane, informed, and intelligent population might have seen Trump leading by 80–20, while the current Biden should have been lucky to get away with 90–10.
Harris has a similarly poor record, if in a position of less influence, has been accused of mobbing her staff, is unpopular with the Democrats (or was so, until the last few days), and really has nothing going for her that a rational person would consider a “Unique Selling Point” or something worthy of mention in the current context. (No, “colored woman” is very far from reaching that bar.) Nevertheless, she, too, only trails Trump by a few percentage points.
Apart from the general issues discussed in the past, this is, in and by it self, a strong sign of how horribly divided the U.S. has become and how Left dominated e.g. media are. In a sane world, neither would ever have been relevant for the office of POTUS.
A potential upside is that Trump might over-perform relative polls. (Note, in particular, the 2016 election.) However, there is no guarantee for this, and even if he does, the margin of victory will be far smaller than it, in some sense, should be.
The overall transition is democratically dubious, and makes Harris (as candidate) a figure on par with Ford (as POTUS). Note that Harris was picked as “running mate” without any great support in the 2020 preliminaries, where she had one of the worst performances, that the 2024 preliminaries picked Biden as candidate, and that she has now inherited Biden’s ticket based on being the VP and without voter input.
Should she, the god-of-your-choice forbid, win in November, a partial justification would, of course, follow. Even then, however, she would have won based on Leftist anti-Trump propaganda and a Leftist anyone-but-Trump agenda—with a dozen other Democrats having the same chances, had they been picked in her place. She would not be the choice of the people—just the choice of the Democrat establishment.
The U.S. is now close to the anti-democratic situation in Germany, where the politicians do their darnedest to minimize the influence of those pesky voters, e.g. by forming coalition governments between nominal arch-enemies. Unlike Germany, in all fairness, the current scenario is unlikely to be repeated in the same manner the next time around.
(Moved to a separate page.)
The below serves to discuss the topic indicated—not to take sides in the war.
Generally, this text is better seen as “general problems illustrated by” than as “unique problems specifically with”. (Even the support of a “battleground country” without active own participation in a war is not unusual, although the current scale is.)
Apart from the example arguably contained in any invasion of a foreign country, consider some of the problems involved:
The original invasion likely put the interests of the Russian government and/or Putin personally above those of the Russian people, which did not have a say in the matter. Ditto the continuation of the conflict, to the point that some speculate that a potential loss of face by Putin is a hindrance to peace.
However, the damage done to Russia and its people is considerably smaller than to the Ukraine (cf. the next item) and the participation in the actual fighting appears to be on a more voluntary basis.
Below, I repeatedly mention the ethical need of/benefit from a referendum. This most certainly applies to starting a war, too, but it would hardly ever be practical for reasons like extensive forewarning being extended to the presumed opponent. Moreover, the question could be viewed as moot, as a referendum might give some “internal” justification, but cannot reasonably create an ethical justification towards the opponent, a justification in current “international law”, or similar, should one not already be present—and such a presence has historically been very rare.
The government of the Ukraine puts its own continued existence and control over the country above the welfare of the people, which, by any reasonable standard, has taken greater damage and suffered more than could have been expected under a Russian dominion. (This, especially, as at least the original goals of Putin did not seem to include a full conquering, but had considerably more limited territorial and political goals.)
The means to achieve this include unethical (if, historically, very common) methods like conscription, forcing men to fight a war that they do not necessarily agree with and to take risks that do not match their own risk–gain preferences. (As practically verified by how many go into hiding or try other means to avoid conscription.)
While I do not suggest that any invaded country should roll over and surrender, great care must be taken to not do more harm than good to the people and to remain within ethical bounds. Forced participation in a war, what the conscriptions amount to, is a gross violation of basic rights of self-determination and “life, liberty, pursuit of happiness”, and should rightfully be condemned by international law. A central observation around government is that the government exists for the people—not the people for the government.
This, especially, with an eye at the likely length of a conflict, what options are available, the results of continual cost–benefit analyses, etc. (Also note a text on evidence-based politics.)
At a minimum, the continued defense, potential sacrifices in return for peace, and/or the level of sacrifices by the people should have been put to a referendum beyond some point. (Exactly what point is a tricky question, but the currently two-and-a-half years of war is certainly beyond that point.)
More generally, war tends to come with an increase of governmental power and a decrease in human rights, rule of law, etc. (Often by application of outright martial law, as is the case in the Ukraine.) While the pragmatic side of that is obvious, the ethical justification is absent, more harm than good might often result, and it might even be argued that the rule of law (etc.) is particularly important during wars and other extreme circumstances and should, then, be enforced more strongly than in times of peace.
Many foreign governments put their own good over that the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It might or might not be that prolonging the war is good for these governments and/or countries, through holding back any aggression of Putin elsewhere, but, if so, the benefits gained are gained at the backs of the Ukrainians. The one country sends military equipment; the other is turned into a battlefield.
While the risk of further aggression should not be trivialized (note the lead up to WWII), this risk is speculative, the Ukraine and the events prior to the invasion are a special case, and there are not that many other areas where Putin could expand (should he actually want to) without either attacking a more-or-less Russia-friendly nation or coming into direct conflict with NATO.
A particular risk is that governments engage in international power play and intrigues for reasons, e.g. power as an end in it self, that do not actually benefit the people.
The same foreign governments have, vs. their own peoples, proceeded in a negative and undemocratic manner. Even aid in the form of money and, say, tanks (and as opposed to, say, soldiers) is costly and must somehow be paid. Who pays? The people. This regardless of whether the individual members of the people actually agree with the war, actually see the benefits as outweighing the costs, etc. Indeed, these are the types of actions that governments love to take even the majority of the people are against them (I make no claim as to the majority opinion concerning the Ukraine).
A further consideration is that the replacement pipeline can be long and that extensive aid to the Ukraine can weaken the defensive capabilities of the giving country, which, in turn, comes with risks. Or what if a drain of Western resources eventually makes a future defense of Taiwan against a Chinese take-over too hard (should such a defense be wanted)?
At a minimum, for non-trivial aid, some type of referendum would have been highly recommendable. Better yet, aid, beyond some point, should have been left to voluntary donations of money, maybe in combination with some arrangement to buy military equipment from the local military for donation.
A particular problem when the government forces a certain switch, say, from one means of heating a house to another, is that a number of unnecessary problems can occur, e.g. that the technology used is suboptimal. (With similar remarks potentially being relevant to switches that do not or not primarily relate to technology and certainly when the switch of technology affects businesses instead of citizens.) Consider issues like:
The new technology is often not as mature as older and competing technologies, implying that a forced switch forces the use of something worse and/or something more expensive than might be available in due time. (Sub-problems include that the politicians might be over-optimistic about the potential of a technology, that accumulated improvements over a longer period have yet to take place, that the actual exposure to practical use and varying conditions might be lacking, that some grave problem might exist but yet be undiscovered, that economies of scale might be absent, that the market might be dominated by some few early producers with too little competition, and similar.)
If everyone switches now, everyone will begin with (at best!) this year’s technology, which will then only very slowly be replaced with newer versions as the years progress. The next few years after the switch might then see a virtual standstill, with the future upgrades only very slowly gaining speed, and quite possibly leading to a net loss relative a more gradual switch. Specifically heating technology is usually intended for very long-term use and, say, a car or a refrigerator that breaks after just a few years is a failure.
The “now” is to be understand somewhat relatively. It is rarely a matter of a switch literally from the one day to the next, but even a span of years can lead to similar problems (ditto elsewhere)—and politicians invariably seem to set more optimistic than realistic time limits, and/or set time limits that brings the additional costs down on the heads of others, e.g. the citizens.
What the “net loss” refers to will vary from case to case, but should be seen relative whatever the government wants to achieve. For heating, it might be a reduction of greenhouse gases.
An additional complication is that even a generous seeming timespan can be much smaller effectively than nominally. Say, for example, that I have to replace old product A due to an irreparable malfunction, that I have the choice between the current version of A and new product B, that the typical service life of A is 10 years, and that everyone must, by governmental decree, have switched to B within x years. If x < 10, I would now lose 10 - x years of use, should I choose A. Unless x is very close to 10, this might make A too expensive on a per year basis and force me to pick B now—even though I nominally have another x years. If x = 5, e.g., I can amortize product price, installation costs, and whatnot, over 10 - 5 = 5 years, which would double the yearly rate relative an amortization over the full 10 years.
(The overall costs might include e.g. yearly service fees, but if these are approximately the same for all alternatives, they have no effect on the above issue.)
In the overlap between the above items, the makers of the technology see reduced incentives to improve the technology in a timely manner.
A switch over too short a time risks installation/delivery/whatnot bottlenecks that can lead to delays, shoddy work, and increased costs.
The risk of price-gouging is considerable, if everyone has to buy in the now, with only a limited choice of sellers and no option of rejecting a purchase until prices are lowered.
(While accusations of price-gouging are usually nothing more than Leftist rhetoric, the term has legitimacy here. Also note how the Leftist rhetoric is intended to paint the markets in a bad light, while we, here, have a situation caused by the government.)
The temporary increase in demand risks a temporary misallocation of resources and rising costs elsewhere, because a certain field temporarily absorbs more workers, raw materials, and whatnots than it naturally would.
In a next step, there is a risk of a crash and problems caused by reallocation of workers and whatnot, once the artificially increased demands subsides after the switch has been completed.
With a more free-market approach, the transition might be slower, but it would also come with a lower overall cost, a better overall result, a more mixed technological level that was upgraded more continually, etc.
Off-topic, other considerations are often relevant, e.g. the self-determination of the citizen and whether he installs a certain technology because he believes in it, because it fits him, whatnot—or because the government forces him to do so.
A particular issue is those who are low on money in the now but still have to perform the switch. (With risks like the need to take out a loan or to sell an suddenly unaffordable house.) If they could await better personal times, had (for the young) a longer time to build buffers, could draw on the presumed-to-be-lower future prices, they might be much better off.
The recent/2024 election in France saw a great success for the “far Right” National Rally, which seems to have resulted in a considerable Leftwards shift in power. The reason? The rest of the political France appears to have decided that any other outcome is better than giving the National Rally even a sliver of power—up to and including handing power to Leftists or, even Far Leftists, that are likely to do more damage than the National Rally could and would. (If at all: considering the very real problems of France, notably with regard to immigration and Islamist extremism, I suspect that National Rally would have a positive net effect in power.)
Worse, this happens at a time when, globally and in light of the last few years, it has never been so important to keep the Left out of power since the fall of the Soviet Union.
This parallels developments in several other countries, where the will of the people has been entirely set aside, and a great opportunity to keep the Left out of power has been wasted, for spurious reasons, including the fear of “guilt by association” with a demonized “far Right”, attempts to prevent any loss of power for the established parties relative newcomers, and attempts to kill any reduction in the size and power of government. Note e.g. how the increased support for AfD (in Germany) brought on a similarly paradoxical increase of power for the Left—the more unfortunate, as large swaths of AfD voters are driven mostly by dissatisfaction with the old parties, and how they neglect the interests and opinions of the voters. (In particular, but not limited to, the failure of the nominally Conservative CDU to actually do Conservative politics under Merkel and her repeated political alliance with the Social-Democrat SPD—even when many voted for CDU exactly to prevent SPD from gaining power.)
Also note e.g. the Swedish SD and how Trump had such problems through his attempts to keep government in check: Half the Republican establishment rejects him for not being sufficiently “Big Government”. (And various civil servants, government agencies, and whatnots have a very strong interest in blocking him for self-serving reasons.)
As is, three of the four most important “Western” countries (the U.S., France, and Germany) could and should each have a non-Leftist government at the moment—instead, they have (or shortly will have) a Leftist one. In the case of the U.S., it is one of the Leftmost administrations in U.S. history and, maybe, the outright worst POTUS.
The fourth? The U.K. just saw a Labour landslide. Here, the main reason was that the Tories failed to be Tories during some fourteen years in power, which brought on a massive dissatisfaction. In other countries such dissatisfaction about nominally X parties not doing X politics has brought up new parties (e.g. the AfD), which are rejected by the “establishment”, which brings power to the Left (e.g. the SPD). The U.K. has seen a similar tendency in the Reform party, but the first-past-the-post system makes votes on too small parties wasted, and the dissatisfied then mostly went to Labour. The effect is the same: the Left in power.
On the upside, having any single party, politician, or whatnot, in power for fourteen years straight might not be a good idea, and a corresponding shakeup could be beneficial. However, the timing, with the Left elsewhere currently so powerful, is very unfortunate—as is the fact that the replacement was Leftist. Reform would almost certainly have been a better replacement than Labour.
An additional complication is the mistreatment of Liz Truss: Whether a Truss kept in power would have won the 2024 election is impossible to tell, but she (a) did try to do the right thing, (b) was crushed by establishment forces, if only partially from within the U.K. In this, we have a further parallel with the above (maybe, Trump in particular) and a great missed opportunity.
I have not had enough time to follow French politics and the various events around Macron to speak in detail about his performance. However, with that reservation, I do have the impression that he could not make up his made about what type of politics to implement, that he fell well short of voter expectations, and that a “fed up with Macron” sentiment was important to the recent election. (Again, in a parallel to e.g. “fed up with CDU” and “fed up with the Tories”.)
In light of the below Russia Today entry, a few further words on linking:
While some restrictions on linking might be acceptable or even necessary (e.g. to remove incentives to create and distribute child porn), they usually do more harm than good. In the case of RT and other targets of politically motivated censorship, the restrictions are also anti-democratic and Rechtsstaat-hostile. (Note that this applies even should the targeted content be e.g. disinformation—the key is the political motivation for the censorship, not the nature of the censored contents. If political censorship is allowed, it is only a matter of time, often of a short time, before censorship extends too far and hits contents that should not, by any reasonable standard, be censored.)
Particular problems arise when someone links to a page and the contents of the page later changes, as the effort to keep up with any possible change is unconscionably large and as, even when such effort is made, there is necessarily some delay during which the new contents cannot have been tested, verified, whatnot. A further going responsibility, if at all, than a check for what contents were present at the time of linking is not normally conscionable.
Three major complications with content verification after the original linking:
Firstly, the owner of a page/site can change over time and something once perfectly respectable can turn into something radically different over time. For instance, I once linked to a page that contained very legitimate content (to my vague recollection, a discussion of some customer service issue or similar), which, several years later, turned into a porn site.
Secondly, even the owner does not always have full control of the contents, be it because of hackers, advertising networks, commenters, or some other complication yet.
Thirdly, laws and regulations vary from country to country and time to time.
Another great complication is the absurd, yet disturbingly common, attitude that a link represents approval or endorsement. This while both neutral and negative opinions are possible. For instance, if I find something that I disapprove of on the Internet, I sometimes quote and comment on parts of the text—and I naturally link to the original source so that readers can, e.g., read the quotes in their larger textual context. Such an attitude can be horribly damaging when it is additionally adopted as a (ridiculous) legal fiction.
Tim Berners-Lee, the “inventor of the Web”, has an interesting text on “Links and Law”e. Two pertinent quotes (that do have my approval):
Normal hypertext links do not of themselves imply that the document linked to is part of, is endorsed by, or endorses, or has related ownership or distribution terms as the document linked from.
The intention in the design of the web was that normal links should simply be references, with no implied meaning.
It is true that the intentions of someone like Berners-Lee relative a creation like the Web cannot automatically form the limits of interpretation, but an interpretation that exceeds such limits (in particular by the law and/or the government) should be applied only with great care. If not, it is very easy to land in absurd situations, including for reasons like politicians lacking the technical or conceptual understanding for a reasonable interpretation and that others might have relied on a standard interpretation in good faith, only to find themselves in trouble after a later, legally enforced and incompatible change, to interpretations.
Similar problems elsewhere are, unfortunately, not unheard of. Note e.g. some language laws pushed by far-Left extremist that aim to outlaw some long-established-as-correct use of language in favor of some newspeak nonsense, as with laws against “misgendering” that would force the citizens to use patently incorrect pronouns and to violate standard grammar rules in force since time immemorial.
Also note some German laws that forbid the use of associated-with-the-Nazis phrases that could quite possibly be innocently used by someone who was not aware of the Nazi association. (And this while corresponding associated-with-the-Communists phrases are, in an absurd asymmetry, not illegal.) Cf. e.g. parts of an an older text, including an excursion on “Alles für Deutschland”.
RT seems to be more known as a TV sender than an online paper, but I have not bothered with TV contents and speak only about the written portions. I have also not investigated any non-English contents.
Normally, I would link, but:
The official link is often blocked by ISPs and would, then, be of little help to the reader.
Said official link is easy to guess.
A reasonable Internet search can find both this link and instructions for circumvention of any block. (Which might grow outdated and would also be pointless to state here.)
In today’s German climate, linking could bring an unnecessary risk for me.
I see no particular reason to recommend RT beyond the benefits of learning different perspectives and takes on various issues and there are more worthwhile sites that do that.
(For examples of and links to such sites I refer to some past and current entries on my blogroll at my, currently unmaintained, Wordpress blog.)
I do state with emphasis, however, that censorship is not a legitimate step in situations like these, not warranted in the specific case of RT, and unethical through how it hinders those citizens who want, as they should!, to form their own opinions, as opposed to just adopting the opinions of the government or the Left. The true victim of censorship is not the ones prevented from speaking but those prevented from listening.
Occasionally, I do some reading of RT—a Russian news source widely condemned as a spreader of disinformation and whatnot. A few remarks on the contents:
The Western Left seems to see RT as a broadly Rightwing source. Looking at its actual contents, it seems considerably more Left- than Rightwing, e.g. through a constant harping about the evils of colonialism, a pushing of “the first world is mean to the third world” angles, and a view of Israel as the great evil-doer in the Israel-related conflicts. Generally, many angles would be pleasing to the Western Leftist pseudo-academia or the writers of, say, the NYT.
Signs of PC writing (or what I might have labelled “PC writing” in a Western source) are common, as with the affected use of “Türkiye” over “Turkey”, while still referring to Germany as “Germany” instead of “Deutschland”, Sweden as “Sweden” instead of “Sverige”, etc. Likewise, “Yay Africa!” and “Yay [some specific African]!” angles are more common than seems proportionate.
A considerable difference is, unsurprisingly, a pro-Russia and (partially) anti-U.S. take, while e.g. the typical U.S. newspaper has an anti-Russia and (partially) pro-U.S. take. This is combined with natural takes on related issues, e.g. the war in the Ukraine, BRICS and NATO, who is seen as a potential threat to the world and whatnot. (Even in this, however, there is some parallels with Leftist Western media, and what is seen as wrong with the U.S. often overlaps with what the Democrats said was wrong with George Bush or the complaints of “imperialism” that were long a staple of Leftist anti-U.S. rhetoric.)
It might or might not be that RT engages in more partiality or mis-/disinformation than Western media, but it is not by much and the issue seems to be more one of natural partiality: RT is considered evil by Western media because it supports the “other side”, while other Western media are considered good because they support “our side”.
On issues not related to certain topic families (e.g. the war in the Ukraine and Russia vs. the U.S.), the differences in reporting are usually unremarkable.
An interesting question is to what degree various RT positions are bona fide and to what degree they are taken for the purpose of opposing a corresponding U.S. position, the purpose of polarizing, or similar. I lack the insider knowledge to answer this question.
After a 2024-06-27 TV debate between Biden and Trump, even many Democrats, Democrat-favoring news sources, and the like, are publicly admitting doubts as to Biden’s mental fitness or outright calling for him to abandon his bid for re-election.
Many on the Republican side have recognized that Biden had severe problems for years, pointing to his many odd behaviors and slip-ups in public. For this, they have been condemned, e.g. for allegedly spreading “fake news”, by a Democrat establishment set on denying any possibility of a problem.
The latter is just one of many examples of how speaking a truth that clashes with the Leftist agenda, worldview, narratives, whatnot, leads to unfair condemnation (note e.g. the COVID-countermeasure era)—and this regardless of how obvious, how supported by scientific evidence, how logically plausible, whatnot, something is. The first, that the Left belatedly admits, even to some approximation, that the truth-speakers were correct, has far fewer examples—the Left tends to stick to its guns.
(With Biden, it might be a matter of the evidence being too overwhelming or the stakes too high, that Biden is now a liability with the voters and must be removed in order to keep the Democrats in power; however, it is also notable that few have acknowledged the past problems of Biden, and many seem to pretend that his state is something entirely new, as opposed to a worse version of what we have seen for years. Moreover, many Democrats still stick to their guns on Biden—especially, understandably, among those who stand to gain from specifically Biden, not just a Democrat, winning the election.)
Both the popular (to some degree) and the Leftist (to a very high degree) view of market forces, free markets, the relationship between business and labor, etc. is often highly distorted.
A good potential example of this is the industrial revolution, the often poor working conditions, and the extensive poverty in the cities. (However, I have seen very conflicting claims on how various conditions compared to the “before” and caution against the error of comparing with today’s conditions instead of that “before”.) This is often seen or presented as something caused by industrialization, methods of industrialists, diminishing of older types of manufacturing, whatnot. While there is some truth to this, and while various factors can have interdependencies, the core issue is more likely to have been one of supply of and demand for workers. The cities often saw a very large inflow of workers from the countryside. If industry did not grow fast enough, this resulted in an over-supply of workers, put a strong downwards pressure on wages, gave industrialists little reason to improve working conditions, increased the rate of (whole or partial) unemployment beyond what it would have been with fewer workers, etc.
Here it would be interesting to have some type of statistics on the motivations for the inflow, which I do not. Obviously, a search for a better future is likely to have been the main motivator. In a next step, however, the questions arise why the workers believed that they would be better off in the cities and to what degree they were correct. Here we might (among others!) find groups like the skilled and ambitious, who correctly perceived greater chances, the naive, who incorrectly expected an easy life, and those put in a bad place by competition from the cities, who might have seen no other option. (The last is an example of the aforementioned interdependencies, e.g. in that lower production costs in the “modern” industry made the cottage industry uncompetitive, which brought on unemployment on the country side, which gave incentives to move to the cities.)
Something similar applies to the cost-of-living side of the equation for the workers. For instance, more workers meant a greater competition for living space, as the supply did not grow anywhere near as fast, which lead to higher rents, less floor space per capita, and lowered incentives for landlords to keep standards up. Food, clothing, and similar might have seen a greater supply increase in the short term than living space, but is unlikely to have been flexible enough, and the same principle would have struck again. (Note that production was more local at the time than today, that transportation costs were higher, and that “perishable goods” were much more limited in how far they could be transported before perishing.) Other areas yet might have been similarly affected or otherwise suffered from lack of supply/capacity/whatnot, e.g. access to water of reasonable quality, as a consequence of the inflow of workers.
An interesting variation of the below distortion of motives is how motives can arise or change in light of the behavior of the other party—and how a failure to consider that behavior can lead to the wrong conclusions.
For instance, if a party, movement, large societal group, whatnot, takes an aggressive and hostile approach towards others, this is likely to create resistance and, quite possibly, counter-aggression or counter-hostility. Ditto if said party (whatnot) strives to rob Peter to pay Paul—negative reactions from Peter are hardly unexpected. Ditto if said party (whatnot) pushes an agenda of polarization, demonization, or similar—those on the receiving end can hardly be blamed for pushing back. Etc.
Such aggression is, of course, a common problem with the Left and when the victims of the aggression react, this can have further negative effects, including that a “I hate him; ergo, he hates me” becomes self-fulfilling because the original Leftist hate causes a counter-hate (which is then taken as confirmation of the original claim in a misguided manner), that the reaction to the aggression is disingenuously seen as aggression, that a fight for preservation of rights (or, e.g., certain labor-market outcomes) which takes place in self-defense is misreported as a mutually wished for battle or a natural consequence of e.g. class membership, etc.
A very common issue is that evil behaviors from a minority within some group causes negative feelings, which are then unfairly generalized to the group as a whole—or, in reverse, that the negative feelings fairly remain directed at the evil-doers, but that the evil-doers unfairly claim that the negative feelings would be directed at the group as a whole.
This is not limited to “internal” politics, but can include e.g. conflicts between two states or a state and some form of separatist group, often with a vicious circle resulting. The situation in and around Israel is a good example, especially with an eye at current events, beginning with the Hamas-driven terrorist attacks in October 2023, but going back with an at least semi-continuity to the early Arab attacks after the founding of Israel 76 years ago.
Claims like “hate begets hate” have, indeed, reached a proverbial status.
A recurring problem with the Leftist propagandists (to a lesser degree, more generally) is that the motives of their opponents are distorted or outright replaced. This, in particular, when the propagandists attempt to push a worldview of “us vs. them”, “the oppressed vs. the oppressors”, or similar.
The 2023 uproar after the SCOTUS decision in “Dobbs” is particularly telling: Here the actual motives of the court centered on reversing the judicial overreach and spurious constitutional interpretation of “Roe”, in which the court had not only implicitly arrogated lawgiving powers to it self, under circumvention of democratic processes, but had also enforced the unfortunate trend of power moving from the states to the federation. This while the popular “pro-choice” movement was centered on protecting what the members viewed as innocent human life from murder. (I make no statement about whether they are correct, but do note that the key question is when in life we acquire what type of human rights.)
In the aftermath, however, claims were repeatedly heard that the decision had the purpose of reducing women’s rights (with variations; with Feminists, not limited to “Dobbs”, claims of “oppressing women” tend to be common). Likewise, and equally long before the decision, the members of the “pro-choice” movement were accused of having the purpose of reducing women’s rights. Such a reduction might or might not be a side-effect of restrictions of abortion, but, if so, are side-effects—nothing more, nothing less.
Other claims did point to a reduction as a side-effect—the abuses under discussion are not universal. Interestingly, however, some version of “Women’s rights!!!”, usually in an emotional and non-reasoning manner seemed to be main line of argumentation used by the pro-abortionists, while arguments around legal points, pragmatical consequences, and similar, were rarer. Even the dissent to “Dobbs” seems to mention some variation of “Women’s rights!!!” in every second sentence. (Moreover, in light of the aforementioned key question, this focus on abortion as a claimed right misses the point.)
A paradoxical other accusation, which is likely a member of the same extended family as today’s topic, is that the court would have engaged in judicial activism with “Dobbs”. In reality, the court was (a) undoing what was very likely judicial activism by the “Roe” court, seen as such by many qualified observers even at the time, (b) reducing its own power in favor of the legislature (qua member of the judicial branch) and the states (qua member of the federal government), and (c) did so based on legal reasoning guided by a “What is the law?” attitude (as opposed to a “What do I want the law to be?” attitude). This is the opposite of judicial activism.
The “old Left” is not better: among my own first political memories (1980s’ Sweden) is rhetoric by the Social-Democrat and Communist parties that, e.g., some non-Leftist suggestion would have the purpose of “making the rich richer”, “exploiting the worker”, or similar. (With many later encounters, both in the respective “now” and in historical sources, and in many other countries.) That the typical motives are very different (even that they could be different) is not acknowledged by such propagandists. Consider e.g. the wish for a stronger economy (from which almost everyone benefits) or the genuine conviction that certain types of government interventions are unethical, unjust, and unfair—and accordingly should be stopped. (Disproportionate taxes on high earners might be the paramount example.) Notably, there is immense empirical evidence that Leftist economic policies lead to less growth and a weaker economy than more Libertarian policies—and this is easily understandable with an eye at incentives, market forces, and similar, to those who have actually bothered to read up and think.
I would go as far as saying that the average Libertarian and the average Conservative is more idealistic and less egoistic than the average Leftist (or, maybe, specifically some sub-groups, e.g. Social-Democrats).
A particular interesting example can be found in Ludwig Erhard’s “Wohlstand für alle”: The name of the book (approximately, “Wealth for all”) is programmatic and the book (in parts) elaborates on his “soziale Marktwirtschaft” (“social market economy”), where, with some oversimplification, the raison d’être of the market economy is to make the broad masses better off. His end is borderline Leftist—but his means to that end is the market economy. (My own main motivations center on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)
The book is also contextually interesting through providing (a) examples of how the German Social-Democrats attacked and derided his (then minister of finance) suggested policies, (b) statistics that show the eventual success of these policies—the Wirtschaftswunder.
Another notable example in somewhat recent times (maybe, the last two decades in Sweden and Germany) is equating any attempts to reduce migration with racism, xenophobia, or similar. While such motivations are not as rare as their counterparts in the above examples, they are not the main issue at hand. Consider perfectly legitimate, even idealistic, wishes for policy changes like the government being more picky about how many may immigrate from where in order to not overtax social systems, to avoid higher crime rates, and to allow orderly assimilation. An example of a more specific, and not obvious to everyone, issue is the effect of immigration on an existing or looming housing crisis: too much immigration can make the supply of new buildings (often already lacking through over-regulation, low incentives to build, and similar) unable to keep up with demand, and the low elasticity of housing costs now makes these costs rise disproportionately.
As to the reasons, the most significant (especially, on the top) might simply be deliberate dishonesty in order to score political points with the easily manipulated. However, my personal suspicion is that projection often contributes (especially, among the “grass roots”). If, e.g., a worker is pushed into an ideology of class conflict, where “the rich” are seen as the enemy or, even, as an object of hate, it would be unsurprising if he projects similar feelings onto them. We might then have ideas like “I want to take him for everything that he is worth; ergo, he wants to take me for everything that I am worth”.
The same risk does exist in the other direction, and non-Leftists should take care not to repeat the Leftist error—the Left has no dearth of idealists and good intentions, the main problem being what road these idealists almost invariably pave. However, the situation is not symmetrical, as the Left also has a long history of genuinely evil intentions in a manner that e.g. Libertarians and Conservatives do not (note, especially, various Communist dictatorships) and does have a history of deliberate polarization and deliberate pushing of “us vs. them” (etc.) thinking. Looking at Marxism and its off-shots, such thinking borders on a sine qua non.
I do not see elitism as something inherently wrong. On the contrary, if done right, I would see it as advantageous.
The problem with modern society (in general), politicians (in particular), and, maybe, Leftist politicians (in double particular) is a highly flawed take on elitism.
Looking specifically at politics, it might be true that most of the population is sufficiently intellectually weak that it would need some level of “nannying” and it might be true that the country would be better off being governed by an elite.
There are at least two central and fatal flaws in today’s politics, however:
Firstly, the assumption that because some would need nannying, everyone must be nannied. (Alternatively, that everyone needs nannying in the first place.) The consequences include that even many who are both more intelligent, better educated, have a deeper understanding of x, y, z, whatnot, than the politicians are nannied against their will and in conflict with their best interest.
A particular danger, a potential disaster, is when the nannying extends to formation of opinion—that no-one is allowed to form his own opinion but must rely on what the political pseudo-elite tells him to believe. (Potentially, including how he must vote; certainly, in many cases, how he must not vote.)
Secondly, the political elite is not an intellectual, cognitive, whatnot, elite. Many or most of them might well be above average, but few are actual stars and many are disasters. Very few, even among those at the highest reaches, have a solid understanding of core topics, including history and economics; very few have a proven competence from outside politics; very few show signs of genius level intellects; and very many are where they are for the wrong reasons, e.g. a proven loyalty to a party or the ability to manipulate the masses.
Any attempt at a sane and sound elitism must correct these two flaws, to (a) discriminate between those that do or do not need nannying (or some other type of control) and/or to vary the degree more continuously according to need, and (b) put an actual elite in charge. (Even so, I am far from certain that political elitism actually would work.)
Various remarks:
Some phrasing in this text would have been more apposite in Swedish, where “förmyndarstat” (approximately “legal-guardian state”) is the term used for “nanny state”. The natural connotations are partially different and “förmyndarstat” is a better counterpart to expressions like “political elitism”.
(In both cases, of course, there is more to the issue than mere nannying or förmyndar-ing, but I wish to keep this text short.)
Use of “it might be true” is very important in both cases. Note that ethics speak for self-determination, that pragmatical net-reasons might favor self-determination (e.g. through differing preferences or to keep markets functioning), that even an actually competent elite might fail through being self-serving, and similar.
Of course, even if the respective “might” is true, there would be limits to the impositions allowed. Notably, previous historical attempts at nanny states and plan economies have done more harm than good—often far more and the more so the higher the degree of nannying/planning.
Looking more in detail, a number of other flaws are present in the current political elitism, including that even a good political decision can be mis-implemented through incompetent civil servants and that politicians rarely have the best of the people in mind (but of themselves, some sub-group of the people, those whose votes are up for purchase, the lobby-organizations willing to provide perqs, whatnot). Indeed, the low-level civil servants that are often put in a position to nanny the citizens are usually exactly those who need nannying—certainly, so to a higher degree than many or most citizens; and very, very certainly so compared to the likes of myself.
A paradox is that the current political elitism is founded in nominal egalitarianism. Here the elected politicians are, all too often, elitists, see themselves as the elite, and only give lip service (no matter how ardently) to egalitarianism. At the same time egalitarianism is a strong contributor to these fatal flaws:
Firstly, egalitarianism is likely a partial motivation (whether as a true reason or as an excuse) for the lack of differentiation—if some need to be nannied, we all need to be nannied, or it would not be egalitarian.
Secondly, egalitarianism is a strong contributor to the electoral success of the political pseudo-elite of today, what helps its members to power, despite their lack of suitability, as (almost) everyone has a vote—no matter how easily manipulated, politically ignorant, whatnot he or, more often, she is.
An important point is the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, or, here, variations on the same theme:
The politicians’ take on egalitarianism usually seems to be analogous to equality of outcome, which leads to absurdities. (But, of course, excepting the politicians themselves.) An egalitarianism analogous to equality of opportunity is a potentially very different matter, is more sensible, can avoid universal nannying, etc. (But might need a different word in order to avoid confusion.)
Flawed elitism is by no means limited to politics, however. For instance, mere fame is often seen as enough to warrant membership in a wider societal elite. For instance, even outside the likes of the Kardashians, success, including status as “elite” within some group, in some field, or similar, is too often based in the subjective approval, or even personal liking, of others, rather than objective competence, accomplishment, whatnot.
A sometime general issue is that someone causes the very problem that he warns of or complains about. A good illustration is the comic strip “Ben” on 2012-02-11:
One brother hangs from a tree branch. Another brother comes running, insisting that the first brother get down, lest the branch breaks. As the first brother refuses, the second tries to forcefully remove him by pulling him down—which breaks the branch. Comment by the second brother: “See what’d I tell you?” This in complete obliviousness that he, himself, had caused the breaking and that the branch likely would have been perfectly fine without his intervention.
Such issues appear to be particularly common with governments, politicians, and whatnots: they intervene and do not only do more harm than good—but often outright cause the problems that they claim to wish to solve. This in particular where “markets” are concerned: Where the markets would have been fine on their own, the politicians postulate that the markets cannot cope without the help of the government, an intervention follows, market forces are disturbed and the markets brought out of balance, problems follow—and then comes the politicians’ “See what’d I tell you?” as they behold the branch that they broke.
Another common source of problems is the politicians’ apparent inability to understand incentives, e.g. how more generous social aid can increase the proportion of the people that prefers to rely on social aid over own work. An immense increase of those on aid is then seen as proof of a problem that only more social aid can solve, without considering that very many of those on aid do not actually need the aid—they merely take advantage of it. (Here, there might have been a real-but-smaller underlying problem, while the resulting larger often owes more to the intervention than to a true need.)
Overlapping, as can be seen with many “welfare” states, the costs of running various social-security systems can be so large that the citizens are forced to rely on the systems for want of own money—but a want that is caused by having to pay for the systems. What, e.g., if the typical German was not forced to pay, on top of taxes, half a fortune to mandatory pension, health-insurance, and unemployment-insurance schemes? What if he could invest these sums to finance his old age, periods of sickness, periods of unemployment, whatnot? (If need be, in combination with more sensible insurance schemes than the current, moving from a “You have the sniffles? The insurance pays your medicine!” thinking to a “You need heart surgery? The insurance pays for your surgery!” thinking.) To make matters worse, such schemes also lead to failing markets, poor allocation of resources, increasing costs, etc.
Generally, there is an unfortunate feedback mechanism in that interventions that cause a problem are increased ever further in the belief, or claimed belief, that more of what caused the problem will solve the problem. We then have interventions against markets causing market failures, which causes calls for even more interventions, which leads to worse failures, etc. Likewise, we might have too generous social aid causing an increase in the “needy”, which causes calls for even more social aid, which gives even stronger incentives to rely on aid over work, etc. Likewise, we might have citizens struggling with e.g. health costs because they pay so much in insurance fees (cf. above), which leads to even more “generous” insurance schemes, which reduces own means even further, etc.
However, other problems with politicians can be similar in part without necessarily being examples. For instance, experiences over many decades show that throwing money at schools does little to solve problems in/with the schools, which matches the futility aspect above—but the causative aspect is missing or weak. That politicians persist in the money throwing is, then, not sufficient to make it an example. Instead of a cause, we see a problem in another area, namely that the money throwing can distract from attempts to find solutions that do not involve money throwing.
To make matters more complicated, however, it might well be that more money for schools causes problems elsewhere, as the money must come from somewhere.
An interesting example, outside of politics, that repeatedly annoyed me during my years in Cologne:
Somewhere in the city there are messages on the ground to “Look up!” (but in German, of course).
But why was I looking down in the first place? Because I had seen some writing on the ground and my eyes and curiosity had been drawn to the writing. In other words, had there not been a message to “Look up!”, I would not have been looking down...
A few days after publication, I encountered another comic strip (Off The Mark, 2008-04-16) that shows an almost comically close parallel to my real-world experience:
A congested road is shown next to an electronic billboard, which warns that “EXPECT DELAYS DUE TO DRIVERS READING DISTRACTING MESSAGE”. In effect, there is a warning message warning about the delays caused by the very same warning message.
(Here, I would speculate that there is a real-world background for the comic, too, in that there are many messages that bring little or no value, but do cause distractions and other problems. This might be an interesting topic for a later text, but they would normally, and unlike in the comic strip, lack the circularity that is central to the current topic.)
As a counterpart to the above, we also have an issue with governments and/or the politicians/parties/ideologies/whatnot in control taking credit for the accomplishments of others, positive results caused by others, and similar. (I will just speak of “government[s]” in the continuation, even at the risk of some inexactness.) Likewise, governments often try to take credit for something that might go back to the government but was inferior to how things would have turned out without the government. Such attempts, unfortunately, are successful with sufficiently many voters to make a difference in many elections.
A particularly outrageous example is how some try to explain the German “Wirtschaftswunder” with “Marshall Plan!!!”, thereby turning one of the strongest demonstrations of the benefits of free markets, etc., into a paradoxical argument for more government intervention. (With the interesting twist that here one government, the German, was doing something right, while another, the U.S., took credit. Note that I do not rule out a positive net-effect on Germany of the Marshall Plan, but, if present, it was a much smaller factor than both “Erhard-nomics” and the natural rebound in the wake of the war—and the net-effect on the U.S. is another matter entirely.)
An interesting analogy is how Santa often is given credit, by naive children, for presents actually bought by the parents of the children.
A massive problem is the way that fiction (U.S. TV, in particular) portrays various issues, and in a manner that feeds into the prejudices that keep the Left alive. Examples range from the greatly exaggerated and Feminism-furthering frequency of abusive husbands (while wives, contrary to statistics, are hardly ever portrayed as abusive) to extreme portrayals of various “Rightwing” groups as complete lunatics. A good recent example, and the trigger for this sub-heading, is the third season of “The Righteous Gemstones”, which portrays preppers in a highly misleading manner, as violent, ignorant, “far Right” thugs, set on poisoning liberal cities and making bombs with fertilizer. Firstly, this has nothing to do with prepping. Secondly, by a considerable distance, political violence is a Leftist phenomenon! It cannot be said often enough: political violence is a Leftist phenomenon! In just the U.S., we have the likes of Antifa terrorists and BLM rioters engaging in large scale violence in recent years, well beyond anything “Rightwing”; and e.g. the “Black Panthers” and the “Weather Underground” in the past. (And what “Rightwing” violence does take place is often blown out of proportion in news reporting, and/or goes back to entrapment, as with the police-driven “kidnapping” plot against Gretchen Whitmer, and/or stems from groups that are decried as “Rightwing” solely based on e.g. immigration issues or nationalism, which misses the point entirely.) Germany? Rote Armee Fraktion, the “autonomous” Left, Antifa, etc. Again, nothing “Rightwing” comes close in scope. Recently, we have a very wide-spread problem with various forms of destruction, e.g. of art, for the alleged purpose of saving the environment—again, by Leftist groups. Who uses violence against those who do not fall in with the Leftist unions? The Leftist unions. Who pushes for violent revolutions? Communists. Who uses any and all type of violence to keep the population in check, once in power? Predominantly, Leftist groups. Certainly, the Pinochet, Franco, and whatnot regimes put together, and even if they are classified as “Rightwing” in a meaningful sense, are dwarfed by some individual Leftist regimes. Etc.
A particularly perfidious example occurred in “Boardwalk Empire” (likely: I did not watch beyond the first episode and might have my series confused): Some politician had engaged in electoral cheating—and was given a pat on the back and a “Good Republican!”. This despite the very long history that the Democrats, not the Republicans, have of electoral cheating, including the Tammany-Hall era and various illicit collaborations with trade unions for the purpose of swaying elections. (And this entirely independent of what might or might have happened in e.g. 2020: “Boardwalk Empire” played during the prohibition.)
At some point in the last year/2023, I saw a blurb for some series or other that played in the 1970s, had a female lead, and pushed the idea that it was extra special hard to be a career woman in the 1970s—because men in the 1970s wanted women to fail. (With similar ideas occurring repeatedly in other contexts. Note the immense difference between e.g. “because women were not taken seriously”, which likely often held, and this claim that men outright and positively wanted women to fail.)
Also see several earlier texts, e.g. on the “Santa Clarita Diet” (TODO import from Wordpress and link); and note an often highly distorted portrayal of Christians in the aforementioned “The Righteous Gemstones” throughout the series.
Political, societal, and personal problems often arise from a failure to consider and accommodate human nature (especially, but by no means exclusively, on the Left/among Leftists). This, in particular, in two forms:
A failure to take into account how humans will naturally tend to behave in various situations, under various rules, and similar. Two important special cases are (a) not considering the effects of varying incentives on behavior, (b) assuming that humans will behave as they “should”. (Where the “should” can be e.g. the personal preference of an ideologue, politician, social reformer, or educator. Such preferences do not tend to be universal.) Ideas like that humans are naturally good, that they will voluntarily work hard for the “common good” in a Communist society, and that they would never, ever cheat to get social benefits that they do not deserve belong in this category.
Attempts to ignore, deny, overcome by brute force, or similar, human nature. Consider the “tabula rasa” fallacy, the view of humans as something entirely apart from “lower” animals, the view that the shells of clothes, apartments, books, habits, whatnot, that we put on fundamentally determine who we are, etc.
Overcoming nature, within reasonable limits, might well be a worthy goal, but we must approach that matter in a reasonable manner, the most important point being the recognition of what we are beneath the shells and by nature. (As the hackneyed claim goes: The first step to overcoming a problem is to admit that we have a problem.) Once we understand and acknowledge the limitations, natural drives, and whatnots that nature places upon us, then we can work at overcoming them in a healthy and productive manner. (As an interesting special case, reading books on animals can, in some cases, improve our understanding of humans. Note e.g. “Gorillas in the Mist”.)
Consider, by analogy, two short monozygotic twins who want to be successful basketball players. The one acknowledges his height (respectively, lack thereof), tries to find out what he can and can not do well in light of his height, finds the areas where being short might be an advantage (dribbling?) and then plays to his strengths, adapts his style of play and playing choices to take a height difference into account (e.g. by passing where someone else would have taken a shot or by making more 3- than 2-point attempts), etc. The other trains and plays as if he matched the average height of the NBA. Which of the two will have the better chances?
An import special case is forgetting that we might gain or lose happiness depending on whether we stick to or deviate from what is, in some sense, natural. For a partial pun, consider something as trivial as getting more exposure to nature over living 24/7/365 in world of concrete. Many examples include a difference between what does makes us happy and what “should” (often, again, in the opinion of some ideologue or whatnot) make us happy. (With variations centered on other things than happiness, e.g. what makes us laugh, what we like to read, what causes sexual excitement.)
(This topic can be expanded very greatly. I hope to do so at some point, but it will not be in the near future.)
It is often the case that the government involves it self in some matter where it does more harm than good. (And/or that politicians call for such involvement and/or that naive members of the public do so.)
Often, this is taken to the point that we have the proverbial situation of a fox guarding the hen-house.
Consider many market situations, where it is assumed that the markets cannot handle this-or-that, that those in charge of various free enterprises cannot make correct decisions in this-or-that area, or similar. Now, maybe this is true or partially true in some cases. But what makes the government better suited in terms of e.g. decision-making ability? (See side-note for other factors.) Governments have a horrible past record, are plagued by partisan concerns and ideological biases, draw on the work of civil servants (an unusually low competence group in modern times), and, if in doubt, fish from the same or a smaller pool of talent that/than free enterprises do. The politicians, themselves, are also often no where near where they should be for their respective jobs.
Politicians and leaders of industry, or whatnot, often pursue different goals, which is not the topic above. However, in as far as the goals of the politicians are somewhat legitimate (e.g. to increase the economic well-being of the masses), chances are that free enterprise would do a better job. For less legitimate goals, this might change—but why should success at something illegitimate matter? (Consider e.g. replacing equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.)
Some special cases might be justifiable for other reasons, e.g. to ensure that a certain railway is built. Here too, however, governments tend to do poor jobs, if in doubt because they use tax-payer’s money to pay some company to do the job with screwed up incentives. Consider risks like a government paying too little attention to costs, as it is someone else’s money at stake, contracts being awarded based on personal contacts and to indirectly favor the individual politicians, no serious controlling taking place, failures being mis-declared as successes to save the politicians’ faces, instead of being thoroughly investigated, whatnot. The companies so hired, of course, have few incentives beyond accepting payments and can often benefit from delays and cost increases, as this eventually means more money. (While this is not flattering for the businesses either, they are merely accepting a dupes money—the dupe who throws money at them is the real problem.) In a next step, such government failure can easily be painted as the failure of some business—and see how evil Capitalism is and how we need more government!
The issue of civil servants, and those in a similar position, is potentially historically interesting, in that a career as a civil servant was, in some place and at some times, something of prestige and accomplishment. Today, such careers face competition from many large enterprises and other potential sources of careers, including as elected politicians. (Note how the position of prime minister, or whatever the local equivalent, was effectively that of a civil servant in many past times, while it is, today, almost invariably an elected office. Ditto many other important positions.) To boot, the sheer number of civil servants has exploded over time, forcing a lower average competence level. Compared with some points in the past, the civil service might require ten times as many members and draw from a pool of real competence that is a tenth of what it used to be, due to competition from other career paths.
Then we have the issue of negative selling points for a career as a civil servant: A very illustrative example is the Swedish “statens kaka är liten men säker”—“the state’s cake is small but secure” (to some approximation; “kaka”, in particular, could have different translations). The idea is simple: If you join us, you will not be paid much, but you will have great job security! Now, what type of employee is this likely to entice and what type will be more willing to take his chances with the higher salaries and lesser job security in the world of free enterprise? Germany does not have the same cliché, but the same type of thinking is there—a lower remuneration is accepted in return for job security. (Other factors of a similarly negative character can play in, e.g. in that a position as a civil servant is often sought by the lazy.)
Similarly, the government often decides to meddle in the business of private individuals. Sometimes, this might be for the best; more often, it is for the worse. In particular, there is a massive problem with a one-size-fits-all and/or the-government-knows-best-for-everyone thinking. In reality, different individuals have very different priorities, life situations, and whatnot—and they move at very different levels of competence. It might then, e.g., be that the government presumes to make a decision that (a) might make sense for the average construction worker, (b) might be correct in assuming that the government knows better than that average construction worker. Even if the respective “might” is true, however, there is no guarantee for even a construction worker outside the average—and it might be horrifyingly wrong for someone like me. Certainly, I am not just smarter and better educated than the average construction worker—I am smarter and better educated than the vast majority of all politicians, including the likes of Olaf Scholz (German Chancellor at the time of writing) and Joe Biden (POTUS at the time of writing).
In a next step, however, real problems can begin: because the citizens are considered incapable of making good decisions for themselves, many decisions are moved to civil servants, who (a) form an unusually untalented subset of the overall population, but (b), somehow, magically, by dint of being civil servants, are considered capable of making decisions that a mere citizen is not. (Worse, many civil servants, especially in the social-services area, appear to be strong adherents of Marxism or some variation or off-shot of Marxism, which influences their work and their decisions for the worse.)
In many cases, the move to force the citizen to certain actions, e.g. participation in some mandatory scheme, is often (in addition or on its own) a thinly veiled attempt at unethical redistribution and vote buying. For instance, someone who earns well might have no need for unemployment insurance, because he (a) is unlikely to be laid off, (b) is likely to soon find a good other job, if he still is laid off, (c) typically has enough savings to cover some considerable time out of employment. However, should he be exempted from such schemes, the scheme has less money to pay out to those who are more likely to be laid off, less likely to find a new job, and less likely to have own savings—not to mention those who deliberately abuse unemployment benefits to finance a work-free life. (Also note the immediately following topic and how the above is a good example of something that is insurance in name but not fact.)
The U.S. comic strip “On a Claire Day” included an arch dealing with health insurance, beginning in June 2007. Several of the strips exemplify a faulty attitude to health insurance and the problems that can arise from them. Faulty attitudes, a faulty or absent understanding how health insurance works, a faulty or absent understanding of incentives, etc., are strong contributors to why healthcare is such a problem in today’s world, why politicians intervene in a manner that makes matters worse, whatnot—and the same applies, m.m., to many other issues.
The below is not a full analysis, only some remarks that sprung to mind during the reading of the strip.
Note that the U.S. 2024 (time of my writing) situation has grown even worse than the 2007 (time of the strip author’s writing) situation on many counts, through a continuation of misdevelopments and the mistakes of ObamaCare. In particular, detaching responsibility for payment from use of service even further is a horrifying error.
Some particularly noteworthy examples:
2007-06-18: Claire, an unemployed early twenties woman, compares insurances. One is at 500 USD a month, which she, understandably, cannot afford. But in what system is it reasonable that a young woman, with no known health issues, should pay 500 USD a month for health insurance? This amount is entirely out of proportion to the risks and the costs-in-a-sane-system.
A part of the explanation is that it is not (as far as I can speculate based on the limited information given) not a true insurance, but one of those “you pay us 500 USD/month in a blanket manner and we cover any costs that arise” schemes. (If, likely, with a rider of “except for one-thousand-and-one-things that we will weasel out of”.)
The effect of such a scheme, on top of the proper insurance sub-part, is that Claire pays more into the “insurance” than she, per expectation, would ever get back, making her better off with a proper insurance and “out of pocket” payment for lesser issues.
The second appears to be a proper insurance: For a 100 USD a month, costs beyond 10,000 USD are covered. (Again, with reservations for interpretation.) We can discuss whether fee and coverage are in proportion and whether a limit at specifically 10k is suitable, but the general idea is much better. (For instance, maybe, especially for someone with little or no savings, amounts of 200 USD a month resp. 1,000 USD would be a better choice.) This is what insurance should do—cover the really big things that, without insurance, would hit us too hard if they hit.
(Imagine a car insurance that would not just cover accidents, but the cost for regular maintenance, a monthly visit to the car wash, and the cost for re-fueling the car—and how much such an insurance might cost. The idea is idiotic—but it is exactly what many insurance schemes amount to.)
2007-06-23: Claire is told that a physician (“doctor”) would not even shake her hand, unless she held an insurance card in it.
While likely not strictly true, it does show the systematic problems caused by the U.S. insurance system. There is no reason (except for risk of default on payments, which is a minor issue for e.g. checkups and trivial treatments) that someone who pays out of pocket should be less welcome than someone who pays through insurance. To the degree that they are, it perpetuates a vicious circle.
Here we see that the citizens’ attitudes are to some degree forced by surrounding circumstances. A “health insurance should pay for everything” attitude is fundamentally flawed, but a “I have to be insured because the system punishes those who pay out of pocket” might be a necessary evil in a broken system.
2007-06-23: Claire takes a basically sound attitude of I-will-just-take-care-of-myself, which would likely work quite well for a woman her age and basic health, when combined with a proper insurance. She refers to the “pioneers”, who got by without health insurance—and is told that they “all keeled over by age 40”.
Not only is this claim factually untrue, but the reasons for a lower life expectancy did not rest in having or not having health insurance, but in factors like a more physically dangerous life, the number of diseases without effective treatments at any cost, an insufficient understanding of hygiene, malnutrition, and similar. (We simply do not need the “insurance pays for everything nonsense”.)
Moreover, the overall impression from the strip is less that Claire has a healthy attitude and more that she is trying to find excuses for remaining uninsured. (And, yes, I have serious doubts as to how sound the attitude of the strip author is.)
I gave up on the strip comparatively soon after writing this text. This, in part, because of poor execution of promising ideas; in part, exactly because of examples of Leftist naiveté or agenda pushing on behalf of the author shining through. This included several entirely unnecessary jabs at Bush Jr. and, in-the-final-read-by-me installation, an attempt at raising Obama to the skies. (I did not keep exact notes, but consider a dialogue along the lines of “Marrying an X might not be so bad.”, “Isn’t Bush an X?”, “Oh, yeah, never mind.” anti-Bush, and claims like “Obama got a JD from Harvard! He must be super-smart!” pro-Obama for the respective gist.)
With hindsight, and an eye at the timing, it seems somewhat likely that the health-insurance arch was also an attempt at exactly Obama-pushing.
2007-06-27: A friend (of a similar age and apparent health) tries to justify her own high payments with the claim that “It’s important to treat your body as a temple.”. Phrasing aside, this is a non sequitur: Health insurance does not lead to such treatments, nor does such treatment require health insurance. On the contrary, Claire’s idea of e.g. eating healthier is the better approach.
Now, what the friend might have intended is that she now could go to a physician for even minor problems and suspicions of problems. However, this is unlikely to bring her much benefit (at least, at that age; at 80, it might be different). What it does is to drive up costs in the overall system, use up physician time that could be used for other purposes, and otherwise worsen the problems of health care. Note that even her own health situation might be worsened in the aggregate. What e.g. if she has a real problem on some occasion and she does not get timely enough treatment because too many physicians are bogged down prescribing vitamins to young women with a cold? Or if the demand for physicians has pushed competence levels down so that she is mistreated? Of if her physician is over-worked and misses something important that he otherwise would have found?
2007-08-06: Claire now actually is at the physician’s, for “feeling run-down”, and wants some type of medication against the issue. She gets the advice to eat better and to get some exercise. Her reply? A request for a pill to make her do that...
Now, it might well be that Claire intended her answer as a joke towards the physician, but combined with her trivial reason for going to him in the first place (and her failure to try his fairly obvious advice on her own, before going), it displays a very poor attitude—and one highly likely to lead to an overloaded healthcare system, etc. I often feel run-down and I have yet to visit a physician for it. Instead, I get some rest-and-relaxation and catch up on my sleep, which actually works. A trip to a physician, on the other hand, would waste my time and money, leave me with some trivial advice or a pointless shot, and otherwise be useless. (This, unless some rare long-term condition is found. A visit to check something like that might be justified if rest-and-relaxation, sleep, better eating, and exercise fails over a non-trivial time.)
(Note the overlap with the previous item, which was written before I encountered the 2007-08-06 strip. The 2007-08-06 strip gratifyingly reduces the amount of speculation above. A continuation of that arch points to Claire trying to take the easy way out. The “wants a pill” attitude might be a symptom of that and such an attitude could also negatively affect the health-care system, if in an off-topic manner.)
While I will not go into details of the flaws of various systems, I do point to the risks involved with variations of “single payer” (an extremely misleading term) and “insurance pays” systems. When there is no connection between use of a service and payment for a service, the use of the service will be suboptimal. Overuse and use by those who do not actually need/benefit is particularly common. In the other direction, those who charge (here physicians, hospitals, and the like) will tend to charge more and more, because charging more is not a deterrent for the patients/customers.
An interesting complication in the U.S. system, in my understanding, is that the original bill is often viewed as a starting bid and hospitals start well above what they actually expect to receive. The insurance company has the negotiating clout to pay an amount well short of the bill (and/or an aggregated set of bills). An uninsured patient does not have such clout and ends up obliged to pay the full amount of that starting bid.
Important: The main problem in the U.S. system (and the German and many others) is costs. It simply costs too much to get this-or-that treatment due to decades of flawed incentives and distortions. Cut the patient costs down to where they rightfully should be, and issues like “Millions lack insurance!!!” become far less important. (And with the resulting, more affordable, insurance, the proportion without insurance would likely shrink too.)
To avoid misunderstandings: With “Cut” I refer to a correction of incentives followed by the workings of market forces—not some governmental edict that tries to force a certain price level. Such governmental intervention tends to do more harm than good. (And, of course, the current situation is less a matter of “greedy capitalists” and more of overall misdevelopments that have been enabled or outright furthered by the government.)
An upside in comparison with the German system is that Claire actually had the option of going uninsured and, importantly, the option of going for a proper insurance. In Germany, we are stuck in mandatory insurance schemes that are based on ideas like “the insurance company pays for everything” (except that the insured pay so much to the insurance that they lose money on the scheme), “the ‘rich’ pay for the ‘poor’—social justice!” (instead of the “lucky pay for the unlucky”, as with proper insurance), and similar. In particular, those who do take care of themselves, by and large, pay as much as those who do not, despite the latter causing much larger costs. Likewise, those who go to a physician only when they have a legitimate reason pay as much as those who run to a physician for any trivial complaint. (The resulting incentives are horrible.)
An interesting thought is how productivity of the workforce (or, more accurately, the average and/or marginal profit gained from a worker/employee/whatnot) affects e.g. working conditions, wages, what businesses are sustainable, what the effects of union activity or government interventions (notably, minimum wages) are, etc. Below I give some examples on a “food for thought” basis, especially with an eye at political pressures of various types.
Numbers are for illustration only, with no claim of realism or that they would match specifically the U.S. dollar.
Unless otherwise stated, I make the simplifying assumption that the only costs incurred are those to pay workers. This does not alter the general principles illustrated, but it does make the discussion much easier. (Consider, for a more realistic discussion, the need to factor in fix and variable costs of production in a factory, that the marginal value of even a productive worker can drop with the number of workers, and countless other complications.)
The repeated use of minimum wages for contrast is based on how well they fit in the particular scenarios used. The point is not that minimum wages are bad, let alone worse than many other problems, and minimum wages, at their current size, are not in my top-10 list of societal problems.
(I do, for the record, consider minimum wages a bad thing, at least beyond some very low threshold. However, (a) they are, again, not a top-10 issue, (b) I would use a wider range of arguments, were minimum wages the actual topic and/or target, e.g. the entry and re-entry hurdles that minimum wages cause.)
Compare two workers that create revenue of 10 resp. 20 dollar/hour. A trivial observation is that the latter brings as much benefit per hour when paid 10 dollar/hour as the former when unpaid. Another that the employer will be much more open to pay the latter a given amount of money than the former (all other factors equal), as well as more willing to pay the latter more than the former. For instance, at a payment of 8 dollar/hour, the former generates a net profit of 2 dollar, the latter 12 dollar, implying that the one brings the net benefit of six of the former—despite “only” being twice as productive. (For simplicity, I will usually leave out the “/hour”.)
In a next step, consider e.g. what might happen when a minimum wage pushes those 8 dollar to 10. Note how the first worker now brings no net benefit to his employer, while the second still creates a value of another 10 dollar (unless already better paid as a consequence of his productivity). Move to a 12-dollar minimum wage, and the first loses his employer 2 dollar, while the former still brings in 8 dollar. If the first is not outright laid off, his employment will now effectively be subsidized by the latter, who, in turn, might be much less likely to receive voluntary raises and other benefits, because there is less money to go around.
Compare two different factories, where the average revenue generated by all workers are 10 resp. 20 dollar/hour.
Which of the two factories is more likely to offer higher wages, various voluntary benefits, give company picnics, whatnot? Which is more likely to scrimp and try to cut corners, including on worker safety?
Which will be affected how by e.g. union activity and minimum wages?
If someone wants to help the workers, how is this best done? Do we impose minimum wages or do we help to increase productivity or, more generally, the net profit per employee? Note how the net profit (in a scenario without simplifying assumptions) also includes factors like company taxes and hidden taxes on salaries that are paid by the employer (but hurt the employee through reducing wage increases and issues like the ones discussed in this text). Likewise, consider the effects of VAT and governmental bureaucracy.
For instance, take a worker paid 8 dollar who generates 10 dollar worth of revenue. Is he helped more by a minimum wage that gives him 9 dollar per hour (shrinking his “net productivity” to 1 dollar) or by a reduction of government interference that moves his revenue to 11 dollar (increasing his “net productivity” to 3 dollar)? What are his chances of being laid off or seeing his employer go bankrupt vs. his chances of better working conditions or a voluntary raise? Where will his long-term prospects be the better? Etc.
(Note that I am not saying that he will necessarily benefit more from the latter. More generally, many of the questions posed in this text are best understood as food for thought. Some have clear answers that can be found with minimal thought; others are of e.g. the “well, it all depends” type.)
Likewise, are union efforts better spent striking or improving the skills of the workforce, if improving the conditions for the workforce is the goal? (Note that strikes bring productivity to a temporary halt and, thereby, reduce average long-term productivity. If strikes are common, they can be a considerable obstacle. If poor working conditions, low pay, whatnot, are a result of low productivity, a strike for better conditions or more pay can be outright counterproductive through lowering that productivity further.)
What will be more beneficial for the workers? Minimum wages or new and better technology that increases productivity?
The effects of new technology go far beyond the scope of this text. However, it is noteworthy that the net effects of new technology usually have defied the fears of e.g. increased long-term unemployment. (So far, knock on wood.)
Slavery is a particularly interesting example, where the low (but not zero) cost of work gives few incentives to increase productivity per worker/slave, which keeps productivity down, which keeps working conditions poor, which makes the slaves less likely to be productive workers, which keeps productivity down, etc.
Looking at e.g. the “field” slaves of the U.S. slavery era, with an eye at working conditions, chances are that the productivity was quite low, well in line with the idea that slavery does more to hold societies with slavery back than to enrichen them. (I have also heard claimed, but have not looked into this, that the “cotton gin” was more important to Southern wealth from cotton than slavery. If so, with an eye at the previous item, it would be interesting to see who did or did not benefit in what manner.)
It is also historically noteworthy that slaves with different abilities have had different trajectories, based on differences in what benefits they brought their masters. In ancient Rome, for instance, a slave with a solid education and a good mind, if landing with the right master, could lead a good life by the standards of the day, even to the point of being freed and growing independently wealthy.
One of the fundamental problems with certain groups (often, but not necessarily, Leftist) is the assumption that anyone rational or proposing a rational approach would also be “cold and calculating”.
To exactly define what “rational” implies would require far more deliberation, and might result in a far longer text, than I have time for. However, a typical case would be to begin with some given goal and to see how that goal is best achieved; another, to begin with some set of premises/priorities/values/whatnot and to see where thinking takes us. (And, of course, any suitable mixture of the two.)
Nothing in this requires, e.g., that someone strives to maximize profits at any and all cost (“And to hell with everyone else!”). The common misperception (often, it seems, deliberate caricature) as “cold and calculating” presupposes certain goals and whatnots that, however, are not a part of being rational. Someone rational might have such goals, certainly, but he might equally have goals like “maximize the common good”, “save the community center”, and “find loving homes for abandoned children”, or anything in between.
Another problem might exist, however, namely that someone becomes so focused on a certain goal that other concerns are ignored, e.g. that human rights are trampled in favor of “the greater good”. However, in my impression, such an attitude is much more common among the irrational than the rational and, certainly, much more common on the Left than the non-Left. If in doubt, a fanatical dedication to a certain cause is usually a matter of emotions.
Indeed, many of the great evils, violations of human rights, and whatnots, throughout history have been rooted in lack of rationality, be it through someone or some group being driven by emotions or through failing to think matters through. A hatred of Jews, e.g., is a matter of irrationality and emotionality (consequences include the Holocaust and the 2023 Hamas-led massacre of Jews). Ditto e.g. a hatred of those with more money/land/education/whatnot (consequences include countless Communist atrocities).
For a more specific example, consider various forms of governmental aid and checks for actual eligibility, requirements on the recipients (e.g. that someone receiving unemployment aid must actively look for job), upper time limits, and similar. Many Leftists try to paint this as sheer callousness (at extremes, even as deliberate evil or deliberate oppression). In reality, it is a matter of applying reason to the situation. For instance, if there are no, or too lax, checks for eligibility, then many who are ineligible will receive aid, which will enrichen them at the cost of everyone else—including the actually eligible that have less money to go around and/or the tax payers who need to pay more to finance the aid scheme. Even if someone has an expansive welfare state as a goal (I do not, obviously; if in doubt, I see the expensive welfare state), rationality implies that such restrictions must be present in order to maximize the intended positive, and minimize the unintended negative, effects of the welfare state.
Likewise, who does more to help the needy—the bleeding heart that throws them each a fish or the rational mind that gives them the skills, tools, and opportunities to fish for themselves? (Even when the former comes back with more fish, day after day, and the latter leaves the needy to their own devices, once they have been set up for fishing.)
It is also very important to keep in mind that different goals and priorities are not necessarily a sign of different levels of e.g. egoism and idealism. Certainly, from what I have seen over the last three or four decades, egoism is more common on the Left while idealism is very common on the non-Left. (Whether the same applies in the juxtapositions emotional/irrational vs. rational is not a given, however.)
Consider the following statement by Walter E. Williams:
But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?
(Quoted from the notoriously unreliable goodreads.come; however, I have seen the same or almost the same quote even in printed form.)
Why should the one who wants to keep what he has earned, let alone the one who wants that we all keep what we earn, be more of an egoist and less of an idealist than the one who wants the government to take the money that others have earned and give it him? In particular, the Leftist caricature of the greedy Capitalist who wants lower taxes so that he has more money is a caricature—a typical position among e.g. Libertarians, even those who are not very wealthy or well earning, is that (a) it is a matter of common fairness that we all have a right to our own income, (b) lower taxes, less redistribution, etc., leads to more growth, which will leave everyone better off in the long run. Here, (a) is idealistic, while (b) is an excellent illustration of a rational approach: a sensible goal exists and we choose a good way to reach that goal.
Finally, consider a community center in jeopardy: An emotional reaction that “We must save the community center!” is unlikely to be helpful—it might or might not save the community center, but it will not necessarily be for the best, and will, barring sheer luck, be worse or much worse than a rational approach. Instead, we have to take that rational approach, beginning with the question whether we would be better off if we save the community center than if we do not. This includes looking at alternatives, e.g. whether the important purposes can be saved without saving the whole center; giving proper attention to factors like opportunity costs (e.g. whether saving the community center might force the sacrifice of something else and whether a better use for the community-center money can be found); and other acts aimed at finding the best approach overall, not just the best approach to “save”. The community center must be seen as a means to an end—not as an end in it self. If the rational verdict comes down on “save the community center”, then we should save it. If not, then not.
Looking back at history, one of the main ways to gain followers has been to promise them a better future, be it on Earth or in some afterlife, be it through rewarding own efforts or through arbitrary hand-outs, be it through “righting wrongs” or through favoring the chosen, whatnot.
This is a common approach on the Left, and especially the Marxist Left, with variations along the lines of “after the Revolution, we will build a Paradise on Earth”, “if you vote us into power, we will raise taxes for the Evil Rich and give to you”, “you are only poor because of Capitalism—vote for us and we will make everything fair and proper”, “the government can solve all your problems, it just needs enough power”—with endless variations, depending on e.g. the target group at hand. (Below, I will simply speak of “the Revolution”. This, however, mostly for convenience—similar issues apply to a wide range of Leftist promises and whatnots, and especially when there is a future threshold involved, e.g. that “if you vote us into power for the next election cycle, then XYZ”.)
From this, there are at least two issues of interest to the Left now as opposed to the Left in the 19th century.
Firstly, the promised carrot works best when it cannot yet be delivered because of external obstacles. If and when the Revolution comes, the Party actually has to deliver, which it might not be able to do. (In fact, for many promises, this is a near certainty, because of how economically flawed Leftist thinking and policies almost invariably are.) In a next step, some scape-goat has to be found, e.g. that Paradise is only prevented through “subversives”, “counter-revolutionaries”, enemies abroad, or similar.
From another angle, even a successful deliverer of promises, let alone an unsuccessful one, is faced with issues like a natural human tendency to be discontent, the “the grass is always greener on the other side” effect, different expectations in detail among different adherents, which are then fulfilled to different degrees, and that someone might find that what was “supposed” to make him happy actually does not. (To the last, consider e.g. someone who was a factory worker in a privately owned factory and is now a factory worker in a factory collectively owned by all the workers. The latter might seem more satisfying than the former to a Communist, but if work, and life in general, otherwise remains more-or-less the same, is he truly better off?)
Secondly, what happens when life grows better even without a Revolution or when the problem(s) that justified a cause otherwise disappear? Consider the massive improvements in living standards for workers since the days of Marx, how much the lives of U.S. Blacks have improved both absolutely and relative to Whites since the Civil War, or how women have become an outright privileged group. (More specifically, a group that has kept all old rights and privileges of women and added all rights and privileges of men, but usually without (a) accepting the obligations and duties of men, (b) extending women’s rights and privileges to men. Note how Feminists have been given everything that they asked for, yet seem to grow ever more dissatisfied as time goes by.)
Sooner or later, usually sooner, the point comes where it makes little sense to give sincere promises, make fair comparisons, etc., and great twists and turns become necessary. (From what I have seen, it is often dubious whether earlier promises were sincere and earlier comparisons fair, but the chance was, at least, better.)
For instance, in today’s world, the allegedly poor often have an obesity problem. Instead of then emphasising the purchasing power needed to grow obese (and the need to take own responsibility for one’s exercise and eating habits), health problems among the allegedly poor are ascribed to e.g. their being “‘underprivileged” or being victims of “structures” or some other vague and misleading formulation. We must now defeat poverty in order to prevent obesity!
For instance, goal posts are constantly moved, as with outrageous misdefinitions of poverty that are pushed by the Left: the poor are no longer those who have problems keeping themselves clothed and fed, but those who e.g. earn “less than half the median income”—which all but ensures that a significant portion of the population will always be mislabeled as “poor”, no matter how well off they are relative past generations and no matter how much society progresses. (As I have noted elsewhere, this type of metric is not of poverty at all, but of income distribution—among several problems. TODO import Wordpress text and link.)
For instance, it becomes ever more important to push “us vs. them” thinking and the alleged evil of “them”.
For instance, it is possible to prey on the ignorance of the masses and compensate for a lack of problems by screaming ever and ever more loudly about the remnants of problems that exist—or to outright invent them when they do not.
For instance, much can be gained by keeping own responsibility, own abilities, whatnot, out of the equation: any and all failure is caused by someone or something else, be it the young Black man who hung out with a gang instead of studying and ended up in prison instead of college (e.g. “Systemic Racism!!!” or “School-to-prison pipeline!!!”) or the incompetent and belligerent middle-aged woman who was passed over for a promotion (e.g. “Patriarchy!!!” or “Glass ceiling!!!”)—and never mind the Black men who did study and end up in college or the competent and friendly women who did get promotions.
Such observations explains quite a lot about the modern Left.
Various remarks:
Even promising an afterlife is, in and by itself, a potential source of incentives, hope, fear, or whatnot.
There is often a reverse side, e.g. in that someone sinful on Earth might be punished, not rewarded, in the afterlife, while those who “misbehave” in the now might be punished once the Revolution comes.
Here we have yet another area where the Left and religions fight for a following in the same groups and with similar means.
An interesting contrast, however, is how e.g. the Catholic Church promises something with more-or-less certainty in the afterlife, while e.g. Communist agitators promise something potential on Earth: If you behave like you “should”, you will go to heaven vs. if you (and sufficiently many others) behave like you “should” we will have a Communist Paradise on Earth after the Revolution.
Another issue is the individual vs. the collective: The fate of a Catholic after death depends on his own actions and only affects himself. (With some reservations, e.g. for masses read in favor of someone dead.) The fate of a Communist on Earth depends on how many others behave and his fate will be shared by many others.
In today’s Western world, there is actually a significant bonus for being Black in college admissions, measured at equal levels of own accomplishment. Ditto for being both Black and a woman in e.g. promotions. In both cases, to a considerable portion, because of Leftist propaganda tactics, as discussed above, the problems caused by countless unfounded cries of “Racism!!!” and “Sexism!!!”, and the “diversity” nonsense.
Fake diversity could exemplify yet another tactic to overcome the problems that the Left has, but I am currently uncertain how to approach that aspect of the issue. A problem is that fake diversity does not have the countless counterparts that so many other Leftist tricks have.
A common difference between Libertarians and Leftists, especially on the New Left and/or among those who abuse the word “Liberal” in the manner common in the U.S.:
A Libertarian might want everyone to have the right to do this-and-that, even while acknowledging that it can be a bad idea and that we are better off not exercising that right. For instance, that someone has the right to live on junk food, while foregoing vegetables, does not mean that this is a good idea.
Leftists often have two contrasting takes:
Firstly, the superficially similar that everyone should have the right—but that it would be virtuous to exercise that right.
(Including in many cases where it is hard or impossible to argue that the action would be virtuous, beneficial, or otherwise positive. At the extreme end, I have e.g. seen mentions of an increased number of abortions as a sign of progress. I am open to the possibility that relatively unrestricted abortion laws are a good thing, but under no circumstances can I see an abortion as something good. An occasionally necessary evil, yes; something good, no.)
Secondly, that what is not good should be forbidden or otherwise prevented by the government, even when it would seem to be a natural matter of personal choice. (This take is sometimes shared by Conservatives, if usually with very different priorities and, in my impression, less often.) To boot, “[not] good” must often be seen with a particular Leftist interpretation. Some Leftists might be content with favoring bans, restrictions, or additional taxes on what is widely considered negative; others might go after what is considered outright positive outside the Left, e.g. hiring help for the household and giving someone else a new source of income. (One of my earlier political memories is the Swedish Communists having conniption fits over the mere thought of making such help easier to hire. Swedish readers might recognize “pigdebatten”.)
The same applies, to some degree, to what is good, in that a Libertarian sees a right to forego it, while the Leftist is much more likely to want to make it mandatory. (See below for a lengthier example. Note the above comment on interpretation of “[not] good”.)
Going back to the original example, we would then, all too often, see one of two takes on unhealthy food: Either eating it is both a right and a virtue or it should be forbidden. (In this particular case, however, the question is sufficiently trivial and/or low-priority that most Leftists likely do not have very strong opinions in either direction.)
To what degree these two groups within the Left overlap, I leave unstated. However, I suspect that the overlap is considerably larger than might be believed based on the apparent incompatibility of the positions, the hitch being that different issues can see very different takes, with more regard for partisan concerns than logical consistency.
A particular absurdity in this vein were claims by some Leftist nitwit during the COVID-countermeasure era:
This was likely well over a year before the time of writing, 2024-03-19, so I do not remember the who, when, and where, beyond it being a woman. It might have been someone like Birx, Arden, Sturgeon, who all have a horrible track record; it might have been some far lesser figure among the COVID fanatics.
Sweden had fared well, despite having a cautious take on lockdowns. This was ascribed to Swedes behaving responsibly without being forced by the government. (Something that proponents of the Swedish approach had indeed predicted—if in doubt, and contrary to misleading propaganda, the risks taken by the individual were more likely to hit said individual than to hit others.)
At this juncture, someone sane, reasonable, and intellectually honest would have concluded that mandatory lockdowns, etc., were unnecessary and that advisories of various kinds were the better way to go—take Sweden as an example and trust the people to make individual decisions. This would have almost the same positive effects (if any) as mandatory lockdowns, while avoiding some of the negatives (see excursion).
A vanilla proponent of lockdowns might have simply dishonestly ignored the Swedish example or, with some justification, noted that the mentality of the populations in different countries can vary, implying that what was true in Sweden was not guaranteed to be true, or true to the same degree, in e.g. Scotland.
What was the conclusion of the nitwit at hand? Because the Swedes had acted responsibly, we should make lockdowns/whatnot mandatory! After all, if the people showed a certain behavior anyway, what harm would it do to make the behavior mandatory?
(The below is not a complete analysis, and only intended to show that there are considerable advantages to the voluntary.)
From an overall societal point of view, a voluntary system brings benefits like shorter reaction times, less need for regulation and bureaucracy, less need to control and enforce, less risk of miscommunications and delays in propagation of rule changes, etc. (I note e.g. that Germany long used a system of restrictions that depended on the current, ever varying, infection rates; that restrictions were accumulated from at least three levels, the federal, state, and county/city/whatnot levels; and that it was up to the citizen to inform himself about what restrictions were currently in place.)
From the government’s/politicians’ point of view, mandatory lockdowns obviously bring justified feelings of resentment towards the government, implying that even the most high-handed politicians and whatnots should take great care.
Looking, more importantly, at the people, a voluntary system predominantly has benefits “on the margin”. Exactly what these are will depend on what exactly the respective voluntary and mandatory systems contain, but consider e.g.:
That someone who would normally stay at home has greater options when something goes wrong.
This ranging from a lack of toilet paper to a medical issue. (Note the “stay away from hospitals unless you have COVID or are dying” attitude displayed in some countries.)
The greater ability to e.g. exercise in low-risk settings and at low-risk times.
Germany, for instance, had various rules about not leaving the home (at all or outside certain hours) for long stretches, notwithstanding that e.g. a solitary walk in the late evening carried a greater risk of being hit by a car than by COVID.
The ability to save considerable time in stores, through not having to wait until an open-but-restricted store was sufficiently empty.
At least Germany had rules that restricted the number of simultaneous customers in a store relative the floor space, leading to such counterproductive nonsense like queues outside the stores in order to get inside the stores.
That some stores and restaurants that died would have just barely scraped by, through having lesser costs, a customer more here and there, and, above all, no mandatory period of complete shutdown. (A semi-voluntary such period might, of course, still have followed, if remaining open at a given time brought too little revenue relative costs.)
Another major issue is the breaking of habits, e.g. in that many have seen a mid- to long term reduction in amount of exercise (bad for health of the individual and an additional long-term risk for the healthcare systems, with costs pushed down on the tax-payers or whoever is stuck with the bill). Ditto, a lesser probability of visiting cafés, restaurants, and the like (bad for business, employment, tax revenues, etc.). Speaking for myself, as of 2024-03-19, I am still far from where I used to be in terms of walking and I have not had as much as a cup of coffee outside my home since last year, months ago. (Compared to several times a month pre-lockdown, as well as the rarer restaurant visit.). What if I, and so many others, had had more continuity in that I could have had a cup of coffee every once in a while, instead of an endless draft of nothing at all?
(There is also an overlap, as I often used to walk, say, three miles in the one direction, have a rest in a café, and then walk back. The lack of open cafés thus contributed to breaking my walking habits. Similar overlap and interaction between factors is common, e.g. in that a permanent closing of cafés can lead to fewer opportunities for that cup of coffee, which makes potential customers less likely to take walks, which reduces the number of café visitors, which can lead to the permanent closing of more cafés, etc.)
The more I read about history in various forms, the more I see that problems that seem, in some sense, “recent”, “modern”, whatnot, have a disturbingly long history. (With similar remarks applying to positive things, but these are of less interest to me.)
This includes a great many issues in and around politics, be it faulty government, various forms of capture, poor economics, whatnot.
A particular range of cases relate to the Left, where I sometimes have the impression that the main change is not in what problems appear, but in how large the problems have become after the Left has accumulated political victories, pushed goal posts, shifted Overton windows, increased further what should be minimized and decreased further what should be maximized, etc.
A good example mentioned in earlier writings is Feminism and how it was “never not rotten” (a phrase borrowed from a linked-to text that goes into depth on this issue), as well as a similarly themed text on Ellen Key.
For another example, consider the extensive treatment by Henry Hazlitt of problems with welfare states and, more generally, systems with a “the government pays for the poor” mentality in “The Conquest of Poverty”. (In all fairness, the motivations have sometimes been more opportunistic than Leftist, but, even here, the current Left insists on pushing something that has always failed.)
A personal speculation of potentially great importance (but where I have yet to do sufficiently in-depth readings), is that much of the current (and likely, in the plural, past) incarnation of the Left is explainable as a continuation or reappearance of an over-focus on “emotionality” (for want of a better word) that stretches back through history, manifested e.g. in Orphic/Dionysic cults in Ancient Greece and in the 19th-century Romantic movement. More generally, human motivations, human mentality, whatnot, has changed much less than the surrounding society and this tends to be reflected in political, societal, religious, etc., manifestations and developments.
The last paragraph also points to strong similarities between the Left and religious thought/methods/developments/whatnot (as I have noted repeatedly in the past), and it can pay to look for a certain problem not just in the history of politics but in the history of religion. This, in particular, for the Left. Consider issues like fanaticism, extreme intolerance against “heretics”, a prioritization of faith over reason and facts (“credo ut intelligam”), belief in (quasi-)holy books and (quasi-)prophets, etc. However, issues outside the Left are often present, especially when we move into the borderline area of “church politics”. (And portions of the history of the Catholic Church, in particular, sometimes have more to do with secular politics than with matters religious.)
The idea of “nothing new under the sun” is it self not new: Latin has a direct equivalent (“nihil sub sole novum”) and it could conceivably have been imported even in Latin. It is also it self an example of something recurring in variations over time, as with “the same old story”, “history repeats it self”, and the French “plus ça change, plus c’est le même chose”.
A particularly sad case is Santayana’s proverbial claim that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it—almost everyone seems to know it but hardly anyone heeds it. This, in turn, is a major reason for why so many “recent” problems have such a long history.
The idea, however, is older than Santayana, which brings us to a final frustration: over time, a great many have warned, cautioned, advised, upbraided, whatnot that, e.g., “X will not work” and “Y will lead to disaster”—in vain. Usually, they have been Cassandras even in their own day, and a generation later, or in the next country over, they have either been unknown or, like Santayana, seen lip-service, while yet another group warns, cautions, advises, and upbraids in vain.
A personal twist is that I spend much time writing for such purposes despite being well aware of how little effect my writings might have. Among my motivations is that, to stick with the proverb theme, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I also note in words attributed to Luther that “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders.”. My use might not be contextually correct, but the words do reflect my feelings on the matter.
Of course, if current developments continue down the wrong historical path, I might find myself in a situation more similar to Luther’s in due time.
I have repeatedly made the observation that this-or-that well known (admired, influential, whatnot) book (author, theory, system of thought, system of explanations, whatnot) does not live up to its reputation—and often because it tries to explain everything with a set of underlying principles that are taken for granted. (At least one prior text deals with a concrete example: The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
While I have not investigated this in detail, I strongly suspect that the underlying principles are chosen for poor reason and the observations then bent to fit the resulting theory/model. In some cases, we might not just have a faulty set of principles but principles that might have no real-life equivalent, no equivalent at that level of abstraction/explanation, and/or no equivalent with an explanatory value that extensive.
Looking at historical developments, this might be the single most important thing that sets science apart from various earlier philosophical speculations, meta-physics, religious takes on nature, etc. For instance, because the circle was considered the ideal shape, the trajectories of planets “should” be circles, according to some old thinkers. In combination with geocentrism, also potentially influenced by what “should” be, this brought on absurdly complicated systems of calculations and epicycles—and the result was still unsatisfactory. Modern scientists base their theories on observations, try to fit the theories to the facts, try to find theories that are economical in explaining observations (as opposed to determined by a pre-observation “should”), etc.
The above gives the right idea and is true in essence, but is, of course, an over-simplification and, for a truly fair comparison, we must also consider factors like the greater limits on possible observations in past times.
Nevertheless, there was a very common and undue tendency to pick a “should”, be it based on virtual superstition or prolonged contemplation, while ignoring mere facts, observations, and whatnots. See any reasonable book on the history of scientific and/or philosophical thought, e.g. Bertrand Russell’s “A History of Western Philosophy”.
The move away from this gave us the natural sciences. Later, various other sciences arose, often with an aspiration to emulate the natural sciences. However, these, especially in the realm of the social sciences, usually took a step backwards, put (often ideologically driven) “shoulds” in the center, ignored facts and observations, interpreted facts and observations to fit the “shoulds”, etc. The result was large fields of mostly poor or pseudo- science that often did more harm than good—especially, because they were taken to be the peers of the natural sciences by far too many. In reality, they might have more in common with old philosophy than with modern science.
In my own observations, those historians, economists, sociologists, etc., who keep a firm eye on facts and observations tend to deliver useful material, while those who go by “shoulds” usually (!) end up with quackery. I would strongly advice anyone reading materials from such fields to be very cautious, take everything (non-factual) said with several grains of salt, question whether the reasoning used makes sense, check whether claimed conclusions actually match reality, etc. This applies doubly in fields with a strong (usually: Leftist) ideological drive, like sociology and gender-studies.
To elaborate on “(non-factual)”:
Factual claims are less problematic, e.g. in that a history book can usually be trusted with simple and “easy” facts (when and how did a certain king die and who succeeded him) and often have more complicated facts in the right ballpark (how many died at a certain battle)—especially, when we get closer to the “now”. (But with some fields or authors, including gender-studies, not even simple factual claims are necessarily trustworthy.) Likewise, more ad-hoc conclusions/speculations are often reasonable, especially when dealing with easier problems (why was a specific battle lost). They should be taken with a grain of salt, and the realisation that they are ultimately opinion and not fact, but a single grain is usually enough. (If in doubt, the authors often combine them with reservations and caveats of their own.)
When it comes to more sweeping explanatory systems and claims presented as revealed truth, the situation is very different and the several grains are needed.
Politicians, government services, whatnot, often have a perverse approach to costs and services:
If there is a surplus, the message is “Great news, citizen! We can extend our services for you!”.
If there is a deficit, the message is “Bad news, citizen: in order to keep our services up, we have to raise your taxes [fees, whatnots].”.
With variations from case to case, including that the communication is not necessarily towards the citizens directly but from a government institution towards the governmental purse-string holder.
To what degree this reflects just the message or an underlying attitude is a point of speculation, but I would not be surprised if the decision makers are deliberately expansionist.
Overlapping, a common issue with budgets, even in the private sector, is that a surplus present towards the end of the fiscal year is spent wastefully in order to ensure that there is no surplus at the end, because showing a surplus could lead to a smaller allocation of money in the next budget cycle.)
Consider what long-term developments we have with this attitude and would have with one that went in the other direction, be it in a mere neutralizing manner (turning one of the two around to either lower taxes in the first case or reduce services in the second) or in a reversing manner (turning both around).
The current approach is particularly harmful because the citizens rarely have any opportunity to opt out, themselves choose less services for less money, or otherwise counter this perverse approach.
A similar issue can exist in the private sector, but is less dire exactly because the customer usually does have countermeasures, e.g. to jump to another provider of some service. Things can get very iffy in the overlap between the private and the public, however, as with German health-insurance companies, which can rely on (a) that everyone must be insured, which prevents customers from opting out entirely, (b) there being very high minimum rules for what must be covered, which prevents effective competition through better pricing and makes a switch of provider almost pointless to the customer. (Of course, German health insurance is not an insurance at all, but that is a different topic.)
Overlapping with the above, there is a common issue with (usually, government imposed) mechanisms that hinder competition over price, which forces various businesses to compete by offering more services (often of a low-relevance kind) or through some mechanism that does more harm than good, or prevents them from meaningful competition. In a next step, these additional services and whatnots can increase the pressure for a higher price further, e.g. with politicians being lobbied with arguments like “We barely make a profit! We need higher prices to survive! Think of the poor consumers, should we go out of business!”.
German health insurance is one example (cf. above). German bookstores another (retail prices of books are fixed by the publisher and identical for all stores). German taxis yet another (prices are fixed by the county (?) and identical for all taxis). Health insurers, then, compete by forcing in low value additional services within the same price, e.g. coverage of homeopathic quackery. Bookstores can compete by means like having a coffee shop, but not by e.g. having low-price orientation. (Which gives the large chains a massive advantage, as they have the resources and floorspace for coffee shops.) Taxi companies, as far as I can tell, compete mostly through having more cars and getting a larger slice of a fix cake, with an enormous waste as a result. Competing with e.g. a better car or more pleasant drivers is largely pointless, as passengers at airports and train stations (and, maybe, elsewhere too) are obliged to pick the first car from a queue shared by all companies.
A potentially related issue, if largely unpolitical, is the drive to justify a high price of something through additional features, services, whatnot, which can drive the price up further. For instance, all other factors equal, a bigger TV costs more than a smaller TV, both for the manufacturer to produce and for the customer to buy. To give customers incentives to pick the bigger TV, it might be given extra bells and whistles not given to the smaller (or, worse, the smaller might be artificially “de-belled”). While the additional cost of these is usually small relative the overall cost/price, it does increase the cost and adds further upwards pressure on the price relative that “all other factors equal” situation.
Utilitarian reasoning can be very valuable, but it is also extremely dangerous and can often be used to give a (pseudo-)justification for true atrocities. This especially when we enter the area of “the greater good”, “the needs of the many”, whatnot—especially, in combination with force exerted on others.
At least (!) three distinctions between good and bad Utilitarianism are needed to avoid such traps.
Firstly, the difference between applying Utilitarian reasoning to one’s own actions for oneself and to e.g. the actions of the government and actions directly or indirectly imposed on or affecting others through the government.
Consider, for an excellent example, Spock’s self-sacrificial attitude and claim that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. As a justification for laying down one’s own life, as Spock did, it is perfectly valid. As a justification for forcing someone else to lay down his life, it is an abomination.
Secondly, the difference between actions that are reasonably likely to benefit everyone and those that merely blindly maximize, e.g., happiness in the overall population with no regard for the individual and the negatives that the minority might incur. (This overlaps with the idea of Pareto effectiveness.)
Take an action that would give most of those affected more of some good, give a very small minority less, and leave the rest at roughly their original level, while keeping the “who gets what” reasonably random. (Consider the use of a budget surplus to lower taxes, with both a direct effect through the lowering and an indirect through the chance at greater growth.) Contrast this with an action that would take from a specifically chosen group in order to enrichen others—even should the latter form a larger group than the former. (Consider increasing taxes on the minority to hand out to the majority.)
Thirdly, the difference between combining Utilitarian thinking with other factors and going blindly by Utilitarianism. Such other factors can include who has or has not some existing right, who is more or less deserving of a certain effect, and similar. (The exact factors will obviously depend on the case at hand.)
As additional, if off-topic, cautions:
The measure to maximize must be chosen wisely. For instance, money is a highly imperfect proxy for happiness and well-being, and anyone wishing to maximize one of the latter two should be cautious about focusing on money. For instance, different individuals can value some given good differently, making a mere counting of goods, goods per person, and/or persons with goods naive. For instance, diminishing returns can make a large increase in a proxy misleading.
Whatever decision is made must consider potential long-term effects and side-effects that can make a seemingly Utilitarian decision turn non- or anti-Utilitarian. (To return to Spock, we might well have a situation where one Spock provides more value than a handful of red-shirts. Losing Spock to save them now might lead to the entire Enterprise being lost at a later time, for want of a Spock. Likewise, a selective tax increase for purposes of redistribution can have effects like a lowering of growth, which ultimately might harm even those intended to benefit.)
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