Against the Stream

Adam Smith and Taxes

Andrew Sullivan (grudgingly), draws our attention to this quote by Adam Smith:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Though, as The New Yorker (where Sullivan got the quote) goes on to say:

Smith’s notion of reasonableness did not anticipate the Fox News Channel, however. Last Tuesday, Wurzelbacher appeared on that network, where he denounced Obama’s comments as “socialist.” He said that Obama “scared me,” because he “wants to distribute wealth.” Wurzelbacher also granted an interview to the advocacy group Family Security Matters, whose advisory board includes the conservative talk-radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley. By means unknown, Joe’s story of ambition and resentment reached the campaign of Senator John McCain.

The point here, of course, is that modern Repubicans, despite their abject slavering worship of the free market, don't actually understand what is and what isn't consistent with capitalism. Smith understood broadly the ways in which capitalism did (and often didn't) comport with social justice. And with Obama, he seems to support the idea of "spreading the wealth."

The Bishop Gets It Wrong

Via Sullivan, we find the following from Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis:

Judgment Day is on its way. For many, this coming election may very well be judgment day, for this election will measure us. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us in 10:32-33: "Everyone who acknowledges Me before others, I will acknowledge before My heavenly Father. But whoever denies Me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father."

Judgment Day is on its way. When my time comes, I will be measured by my Savior for the decisions I have made. I will either be acknowledged by Jesus or denied by Him in the presence of our heavenly Father. The question I need to ask myself is this: What kind of witness will I give to Him when I go into the voting booth this election day?

The decision I make in the voting booth will reflect my value system. If I value the good of the economy and my current lifestyle more than I do the right to life itself, then I am in trouble. Pope John Paul II, in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Christi fideles laici tells us: "Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination."

The right of our children to be protected from destruction is greater than my right to a thriving economy. I am living proof of this, since I am here because my parents believed this priority and lived it. My desire for a good economy cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion. My desire to end the war in Iraq cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion.

So, in the first place, what the heck is up with St. Louis? It's like nutty bishop central there these days!

But, let's address the substance of the good bishop's remarks, shall we?

He begins with an implicit threat, as Andrew puts it: Vote for McCain or go to hell! It's not quite but like that, but read the first few lines and tell me that's not the implication. But, it's worth noting, he can't even quite get the threat right. The passage he quotes from Matthew identifies salvation in Christ as coming, not from the "decisions we make," as the bishop says, but from confessing Christ. Contrary to the Bishop's assertion, what this passage from Matthew says it is that it is those who acknowledge Christ's lordship that Christ will acknowledge on judgement day, not those who get it right on abortion.

But that's apparently what Hermann thinks is the one and only issue that should motivate voters on election day. Nothing else matters, and not to put too fine a point on it, but it's the bishop standing there telling you how you should vote.

Now, Catholic teaching on abortion is clear (though, not as clear as some Catholics might make it out to be), and it is a grave sin from that perspective. But what the Church has said about how this should affect one's voting is also clear: One is not permitted to vote for a candidate because they are a supporter of abortion rights. To do so would be cooperating in evil. However, one is permitted to vote for a candidate who is pro-choice on abortion, provide the reason one is voting for him is not his pro-choice stance. In other words, regardless of what the bishop might think, if you view the Iraq war and the economy and political corruption and the possibility of a Sarah Palin presidency and a general preference for Obama's tax policy as of greater importance than the issue of abortion, and you're Catholic, you can vote for Obama, not because of his pro-choice stance, but despite it.

However, it's also worth noting the way that this kind of narrow focus on abortion fails to take into account the possibility of common ground, as Obama spoke about in the final debate. One can believe that abortion should be legal, even if one is morally opposed to it, and at the same time seek to reduce and limit abortions through developing policies that make keeping one's pregnancy a more attractive option. A better health care system would be a very good step in that direction, to take but one possible example.

Tax policy and employment can also provide incentives for people to keep pregnancies that they might otherwise have terminated. Indeed, abortions went down under Clinton and then started to go up again under Bush. There may be many reasons for this, but a contributing factor has to be one's sense that keeping a child instead of having an abortion is a viable option.

Since Clinton, the mantra has been that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." I think that's a good policy, and I'll vote for candidates that seek to implement it. And if the bishop doesn't like it, he can stick it in his mitre. On judgment day, I'm sure that God and I will take the issue up, but here in the midst of history, we deal with the ambiguities of the present situation, bishops' misbegotten authoritarianism notwithstanding.

Quote of the Day

"If Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe had a life of its own, it would get a tax cut from a President Obama."

from Talking Points Memo

Muslim McCain Supporters Drive Off Bigot

For all the crap I've given the McCain campaign and it's supporters, I think it's worthwhile to point out some of the good as well:

Good for these folks! I wish there were more of them at McCain's and Palin's rallies. May their number increase.

"Values" voters

As Atrios would say, "The stupid! It burns!":

Libertarianism

And while we're on the subject, consider this Slate article on libertarianism by Jeffery Weisberg:

The argument as a whole is reminiscent of wearying dorm-room debates that took place circa 1989 about whether the fall of the Soviet bloc demonstrated the failure of communism. Academic Marxists were never going to be convinced that anything that happened in the real world could invalidate their belief system. Utopians of the right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. Like all true ideologues, they find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error as proof that they were right all along.

To which the rest of us can only respond, Haven't you people done enough harm already? We have narrowly avoided a global depression and are mercifully pointed toward merely the worst recession in a long while. This is thanks to a global economic meltdown made possible by libertarian ideas.

Another name of libertarianism is anarchism, except, instead of sharing the anarchist agenda of overturning global capitalism in the name of small local communities, they want to make the world free for global capitalists to engage in any kind of exploitation and rapine they want. Libertarians are anarchists who have lost their souls.

As Weisberg writes:

The best thing you can say about libertarians is that because their views derive from abstract theory, they tend to be highly principled and rigorous in their logic. Those outside of government at places like the Cato Institute and Reason magazine are just as consistent in their opposition to government bailouts as to the kind of regulation that might have prevented one from being necessary. "Let failed banks fail" is the purist line. This approach would deliver a wonderful lesson in personal responsibility, creating thousands of new jobs in the soup-kitchen and food-pantry industries.

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong. Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. They are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout.

Meanwhile, there was an interesting full-page ad in this week's Sunday New York Times, bought by the Templeton Foundation to publicize their series of dialogues on their website. This time the subject was "Does the Market Corrode Moral Character?" The answers run from Michael Walzer's "Of course it does!" to Gary Kasparov's "Yes, but" (it's better than the other options), to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Not at all" (really? Not at all? Never? I find it hard to believe she really believes this).

My own answer tends to fall somewhere between the "Of course" and "Yes, but" options, but what I find particularly interesting are appeals to Adam Smith as a defender of the assertion that the market promotes or supports moral values. This has the argument exactly backwards. Capitalism, for Smith, did not promote virtue. On the contrary, he argued it had a tremendous capacity to encourage vice. Rather, he argued, it was only in a community that was already possessed of the necessary virtues of justice, temperance, and fellow-feeling that capitalism was capable of working in the way that he envisioned.

Smith's great accomplishment was in showing how capitalism as a system could be a tremendous benefit to those living under it, but he was not Moses come down from the mountains with a new set of commandments, and he neither misunderstood nor sought to change human nature. He recognized, on the contrary, that the frailties of human nature and our own drive to self-interest, far from being moral ideals, were realities with which we had to grapple, and which are not eliminated in the creation or preservation of a capitalist system.

A regulated market works best, precisely because it does not rely, as Smith's model does, on a pre-existing world in which all participants are just and virtuous. Regulation makes a matter of law what virtue would require us to do as a matter of conscience. Smith recognized that as an essential element in social justice, even if his libertarian followers have forgotten.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Apparently the McCains have a bit of pull with the Cellphone industry:

Early in 2007, just as her husband launched his presidential bid, Cindy McCain sought to resolve an old problem -- the lack of cellphone coverage on her remote 15-acre ranch near Sedona, Ariz., nestled deep in a tree-lined canyon called Hidden Valley.

Over the past year, she offered land for a permanent cell tower, and Verizon Wireless embarked on an expensive public process to meet her needs, hiring contractors and seeking county land-use permits.

Verizon ultimately abandoned its effort to install a permanent tower in August. Company spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said the project would be "an inappropriate way" to build its network. "It doesn't make business sense for us to do that," he added.

Instead, Verizon delivered a portable tower known as a "cell site on wheels" -- free of charge -- to the McCain property in June, after the Secret Service began inquiring about improving coverage in the area. Such devices are used for providing temporary capacity where coverage is lacking or has been knocked out, in circumstances ranging from the Super Bowl to hurricanes.

The problem?

Ethics lawyers said Cindy McCain's dealings with the wireless companies stand out because her husband, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is a senior member of the Senate commerce committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry. He has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunication services.

McCain and his campaign have close ties to Verizon and AT&T. Five campaign officials, including manager Rick Davis, have worked as lobbyists for Verizon. Former McCain staff member Robert Fisher is an in-house lobbyist for Verizon and is volunteering for the campaign. Fisher, Verizon chief executive Ivan G. Seidenberg and company lobbyists have raised more than $1.3 million for McCain's presidential effort, and Verizon employees are among the top 20 corporate donors over McCain's political career, giving his campaigns more than $155,000.

McCain's Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, senior strategist Charles R. Black Jr. and several other campaign staff members have registered as AT&T lobbyists in the past. AT&T Executive Vice President Timothy McKone and AT&T lobbyists have raised more than $2.3 million for McCain. AT&T employees have donated more than $325,000 to the Republican's campaigns, putting the company in the No. 3 spot for career donations to McCain, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

"It raises the aura of special consideration for somebody because he is a member of the Senate," said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel for Democrats and an ethics lawyer who represents politicians in both parties.

The response?

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded that the towers were temporary, the result of a Secret Service request and, while conceding that Cindy McCain had made a separate, earlier request for the towers that predated her husband’s status as Republican presidential nominee, added, “Mrs. McCain's staff went through the Website as any member of the general public would—no string pulling, no phone calls, no involvement of Senate staff.” Today, a Verizon spokesman, Jeffrey Nelson, took greater umbrage, attacking the Post story as “wrong” and stating that the company, after studying McCain’s request, decided in August not to install a permanent tower at the ranch. “It doesn’t make business sense for us to do that,” Nelson told the Post.

Indeed, as The Atlantic Monthly's Joshua Green notes, there's a lot here that doesn't make sense:

What’s clear from the report is that the process of putting up a tower required a lot of work—in addition to consultants and archeologists and Indian tribes, it meant notifying all sorts of government agencies, as the report lays out. What’s also clear from the public record is that Verizon knew full well whose non-sacred Indian land this ranch belonged to. Though the formal, bureaucratic name for the McCain’s ranch seems to be “AZ 2 Hidden Valley Ranch,” Verizon’s internal map, obtained by The Atlantic (it was part of a Verizon engineer's report on the property), refers to it as “John McCain’s cabin.” So while Cindy McCain may indeed have requested the tower over the web like an ordinary millionaire rancher with spotty phone reception, Verizon was well aware that she was anything but that. (As of this posting, Jeffrey Nelson, the Verizon spokesman, hadn’t returned my call.)

All of this suggests a number of things: Rogers looks to have been correct in stating that the Secret Service asked for, and received, temporary towers—but that doesn’t address the parallel issue of the permanent towers, long underway until just recently, that lay at the heart of the Post piece and in the public record. The McCains may not have asked Verizon for any special favors—but, wittingly or not, they sure look like they were about to receive them. To my mind, Verizon looks worst of all: the company is claiming that it abandoned the tower because it wouldn’t “make business sense to do it.” In a sense, this is self evident: you don’t have to look any further than a map of the area to see what a remote and sparsely populated place is “AZ 2 Hidden Valley Ranch.” And so the only reason to embark on the two-year process of lawyers, regulators, consultant, archeologists, and Indians is if you’re seeking a payoff of another kind.

This sounds like an issue in need of further explanation.

Socialism!

Apparently John McCain is now using the "S" word to describe Barack Obama's social policies:

"At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives," the Arizona senator said in his radio address. "They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Sen. Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."

Obama a socialist? I wish! More specifically, I'd be thrilled with some version of the "European socialism" that McCain is comparing Obama's policies to -- Universal health care, a strong social safety net, universal and quality public education. Socialism? Yes, please!

I had the same reaction the other night at the debate when McCain and Obama were arguing healthcare. McCain said something along the lines of: "If you like Canada and Great Britian's health care, you'll love Obama!" At which point I literally shouted at the screen: "I would love a Canadian or British system! Please let me have one!" I don't understand how these kinds of things are successful as attacks.

Of course, the way this works is that we get free association mash-ups like this: Liberalism=> Socialism=> Marxism=> Communism, THEREFORE Barack Obama's a Communist! Oh my God! Get the torches and pitchforks! That fact that this is nonsense doesn't ever enter the picture.

Bear in mind, if you will, that these attacks are taking place at the same time as, under a Republican administraiton, with the support of the very candidate throwing around the word "socialism" as an epithet, we are engaged in a massive, if probably temporary, nationalization of the means of production (in the sense that the Banking industry is one of the major engines of our economy), the main beneficiaries of which are likely to be the extremely wealthy and, if we're lucky a few over-extended homeowners.

Socialism, it seems, is ok with McCain as long as it's welfare for the rich. The rest of us should just have faith in the Power Of The Market. Socialism? I wish!

"Gives Us the Precioussssss!"

This is mean, but I just can't help myself!

Very Meta

This had me laughing out loud: