So often, politicians pick up on themes the public is clamoring about, and exploit them in order to promote themselves. They play to the ignorance of the masses (you and me), to get votes, but really, what they propose is often misguided. Thomas Sowell points out that we really shouldn’t be focused on good intentions or nice-sounding promises. Instead, we need to focus on results. What will really come of a proposed policy?
For instance, doesn’t raising the minimum wage, so that workers have a “living wage” sound like something everybody should support? “Yeah,” cry the people. “We need to be concerned about the poor!” Well, guess what? Studies have shown over and over, in many parts of the world, that artificially controlling wages or prices, instead of letting them adjust to the ebb and flow of the market, actually makes the lives of poor people much worse! It shuts young people out of entry-level jobs where they can get experience, and because business owners can’t make a profit paying such wages, they use more and more machines to do the work, or they hire fewer workers, use only part-time workers, etc. Wanting to help the poor sounds so noble. But noble intentions don’t help the poor! Providing job opportunities helps the poor! A functioning market helps the poor.
I didn’t know that New York and San Francisco set rent controls, “to help the poor.” The idea was, “greedy landowners” shouldn’t be allowed to charge more than a certain amount for rent. Sounds noble, right? Guess what? It had the opposite effect! Landowners couldn’t make what they needed, so they didn’t maintain their buildings, and those buildings became slums. Meanwhile, the only new buildings built were for people with more money, because no one would build a building they couldn’t make a profit selling or renting! So many today seem to think profit is evil, but without making a profit, nobody can produce anything we need in life!
Examples of all this abound, not just in Sowell’s book, but in many others. When I read Jay Richard’s book, Money, Greed, and God, he talked about how Starbucks asked people to pay a little more for their coffee, so they could help out the coffee growers in Central America and other places. Sounded so noble, right? The white collar workers in Seattle were happy to pay a little more. It made them feel noble. They were helping the poor, while enjoying their $4.50 lattes. Well guess what? Turns out this didn’t help those poor coffee growers. It encouraged more people there to grow coffee, which created a surplus and lowered prices. When prices went down the only way to keep the coffee growers going was to subsidize them. But subsidizing always props up something artificially that really should just die, and can only last so long. Subsidizing eventually has to stop, and the crash is much more difficult. Letting the market do its thing means the farmers quickly look for other crops to grow and end up better off.
Jason Riley, in his book, Please Stop Helping Us, talks about how welfare has damaged his black community. This has been proven and shown over and over, and I’ve read it and heard it from many sources. One night we had a prayer meeting in my church, and a black pastor I’d never met came. During prayer, I found myself crying out for God to help the black community, knowing that it’s not good for any of us if a segment of our population isn’t doing well. Afterwards, this pastor came up and said, “Pastor, you said in your prayer you didn’t know why the black community is behind, suffering, economically depressed, drug and crime addicted, etc. I can tell you exactly why it is, what caused it, and when it began.” I was shocked at his certainty! I said, “Please, tell me!” He immediately said it began with Lyndon Johnson’s welfare state policies in the mid 60s. In essence, he said exactly what Jason Riley, the Wall Street Journal reporter had said in his book!
Welfare programs, Affirmative Action, the War on Poverty, these programs were all well-intentioned. (I say this knowing that not all those responsible were well-intentioned. Some knew full well these things would be harmful, but they also knew their seemingly good intentions would win them votes.) The same goes today for those who promote open borders. They want you to think they care about the poor, huddled masses out there in Central America or wherever, but a lot of them would never let any of those masses live in their neighborhoods. They just want their votes, because native-born Americans see through their lying schemes!
But many truly believe these things are good, and they want to promote these sorts of programs out of good intentions, noble intentions. They think this will relieve human suffering and difficulty, and they want to help the less fortunate. The problem is, these good intentions do not produce correspondingly good results! This has been demonstrated over and over again and there are ample statistics to prove it. What helps the poor is a good economy, where they can work hard, move up the ladder, and make a decent living.
Today, what shocks me the most is how many people were for Bernie Sanders and for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from Brooklyn. These people are avowed socialists, yet they are garnering a lot of attention and excitement. Many Democrats seem to be moving in this direction. They claim what they favor isn’t the kind of socialism being tried in Venezuela. It’s a different kind, it’s “democratic socialism,” like what’s practiced in Scandinavia in particular, as well as most of Europe.
It might sound like a good idea. Hey, it’s so expensive to go to the doctor or a hospital. It’s so expensive to have health insurance or to get an education. Wouldn’t it be better if these things came under the control of the government? Then they’d be out from under the control of the “greedy capitalist” doctors, pharmaceutical companies, the “greedy” academic institutions, and the profit motive would be done away with! Then prices would come down and everyone could afford health care or a good education. If everyone pays into the system a little bit, or according to their ability, that is, if everyone paid their “fair share,” why then, it’d be better for everyone, wouldn’t it? “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Sound noble?
It must be that this sounds good to a lot of people. It must sound reasonable to them, somehow. But I think we need to step back, take a deep breath, and think these things through a bit more carefully! Think about it, if the government is run by people, and greedy companies are also run by people, then why would anybody think “government people” would be more noble or loving than other kinds of people? Companies have to compete to survive. They have to constantly struggle to keep their prices down and produce good services, so they won’t lose customers to their competitors. If they don’t do these things, they’ll go out of business. Governments, on the other hand, get your “business” no matter how they treat you or how efficient or inefficient they might be. Does anybody really think government will do a better job than a private company?
Maybe an illustration might help. Do you get better service from a waitress who stands to get a good tip if she smiles, is friendly, and gives good service, or from a place where nobody gets tips; they all get paid the same? I saw this so clearly when traveling in former communist countries, even in the airports. You could tell who the people were who used to do their jobs for the government. They didn’t smile, they were rude, and they could care less if you didn’t have something you needed! One night in Kazakhstan, an airport counter man was so rude, I actually heard people around me muttering and laughing about how he was obviously a former communist. The difference is night and day. Have you ever seen those satellite pictures of North and South Korea at night? Total darkness in the north, brilliant, bustling, well-lighted cities in the south. That’s the difference between what socialism produces and what capitalism can.
Yet these socialist ideas sound so nice. Everyone has a “right” to healthcare, to a quality education. “No human being is illegal.” We all deserve a “living wage.” The problem is, they sound very noble, but they never produce good results! The proof is all around, for anyone who cares to do a little investigating. I pray to God the American public wakes up to the games politicians play, and the lies so many believe! Good intentions sound nice. But we need wise and practical policies that get results. Instead of believing in fantasies, I’m praying we have a revival of good old common sense, that, unfortunately, hasn’t been that common lately.