Ideological clashes over particular laws, policies and programs often go far deeper. Those with opposing views of what is desirable for the future also tend to differ equally sharply as to what the reality of the present is. In other words, they envision two very different worlds.
A small but revealing example was a recent New York Times criticism of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs for not contributing to charity as much as the New York Times writer thought he should. The media in general are full of praise for business people and their companies for giving away substantial amounts of their wealth. Indeed, that is one of the few things for which many in the media praise businesses and the wealthy.
Americans in general -- whether rich, poor or in between -- have one of the most remarkable records for donating not only money but time to all sorts of charitable endeavors. Privately financed hospitals, colleges and innumerable other institutions abound in the United States, while they are rare to non-existent in many other countries, where such things are usually left to government or to religious organizations.
However, with charity as with everything else, it cannot simply be assumed that more is always better. A "safety net" can easily become a hammock. "Social justice" can easily become class warfare that polarizes a nation, while leading those at the bottom into the blind alley of resentments, no matter how many broad avenues of achievement may be available to them.
Judging businesses or their owners by how much wealth they give away -- rather than by how much wealth they create -- is putting the cart before the horse. Wealth is ultimately the only thing that can reduce poverty. The most dramatic reductions in poverty, in countries around the world, have come from increasing the amount of wealth, rather than from a redistribution of existing wealth.
What kind of world do we want -- one in which everyone works to increase wealth to whatever extent they can, or a world in which everyone will be supported by either government handouts or private philanthropy, whether they work or don't work?
It is not an abstract question. We can already see the consequences on both sides of the Atlantic. Those who have grown used to having others provide their food, shelter and other basics as "rights" are by no means grateful.
On the contrary, they are more angry, lawless and violent than in years past, whether they are lower-class whites rioting in Britain or black "flash mobs" in America. Their histories are very different, but what they have in common is being supplied with a steady drumbeat of resentments against those who are better off.
Politicians, intellectuals and whole armies of caretaker bureaucrats are among those who benefit, in one way or another, from picturing parasites as victims, and their lags behind the rest of society as reasons for anger rather than achievement.
Leading people into the blind alley of dependency and grievances may be counterproductive for them but it can produce votes, money, power, fame and a sense of exaltation to others who portray themselves as friends of the downtrodden.
Both private philanthropy and the taxpayers' money support this whole edifice of a make-believe world, where largesse replaces achievement and "rights" replace work. Trying to rope Steve Jobs into this world ignores how many other famous businessmen, whose achievements in business have benefited society, have created philanthropies whose harm has offset those benefits.
Henry Ford benefited millions of other people by creating mass production methods that cut the cost of automobiles to a fraction of what they had been before -- bringing cars for the first time within the budgets of people who were not rich. But the Ford Foundation has become a plaything of social experimenters who pay no price for creating programs that have been counterproductive or even socially disastrous.
Nor was this the only foundation created by business philanthropy with a similar history and similar social results.
Let business pioneers do what they do best. And let the rest of us exercise more judgment as to how much charity is beneficial and how much more simply perpetuates dependency, grievances and the polarization of society.
Two Different Worlds: Part II
A few weeks ago, I had what seemed to me a small medical problem, so I phoned my primary physician. However, after we discussed the problem, he directed me to a specialist.
After the specialist examined me, he directed me to a different specialist elsewhere. When I was examined and tested in the second specialist's office, he immediately phoned a hospital, asking to have an operating room available in an hour.
No more than 5 hours elapsed between my seeing the first specialist and the time when I was on an operating table.
This was quite a contrast with what happens in countries with government-run medical systems. In such countries, it is not uncommon to have to wait days to see a physician, weeks to see a specialist and months before you can have an operation. It is very doubtful whether I would have lasted that long.
In the intensive care unit, where I was sent after the first of two operations, I was hooked up to high-tech machines and had a small army of people looking after me around the clock. Would a government-run medical system have provided all this, especially for a man in his eighties?
In some countries with government-run medical systems, individuals are not even permitted to pay out of their own pockets for medications that the government has ruled are too expensive for people in their age bracket or medical condition.
That same mindset has already become evident in the United States, where a very expensive cancer drug has been refused federal approval to be sold, because it helps only a limited number of people and at very high costs.
But what if you are one of those limited numbers of people -- and you are willing to pay what it costs, with your own money?
You are free to take your life's savings and gamble it away in a casino, if you want to -- but you are not free to use your life's savings to save your life.
This is not an isolated paradox. This is the logical consequence of a vision of the world that prevails all too widely among the intelligentsia, and not just as regards medical care.
In that vision, people can draw on the available resources only to the extent that the government considers appropriate, in the light of other claims on those resources. This treats what the people have produced as if it automatically belongs to the government -- and as if politicians and bureaucrats have both the right and the wisdom to override the personal decisions that the people want to make for themselves.
This issue involves a difference between a world in which people can make their own decisions with their own money and a world in which decisions -- including life and death medical decisions -- are taken out of the hands of millions of people across the country and put into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.
One of the big claims for government-run medical systems is that they can "bring down the cost of medical care." But anyone can bring down the cost of anything by simply buying a smaller quantity or a lower quality.
That is why countries with government-run medical systems have waiting lists to see doctors, and even longer waiting lists to see specialists or to get an operation. That is why those countries seldom have as many high-tech medical devices as in the United States or use the newest medications as often.
In those things that are crucially affected by medical care, such as cancer survival rates, the United States leads the way. In things that doctors can do little about -- such as obesity, homicide or drug addiction -- Americans shorten their own lives, more so than people in other comparable societies.
This enables advocates of government-run medical care to cite longevity statistics, in order to claim that our more expensive medical system is less effective, since Americans' longevity does not compare favorably with that in other comparable societies.
For those who think in terms of scoring talking points -- as distinguished from trying to get at the truth -- this kind of argument may sound good. But should something as serious as life and death medical issues be discussed in terms of misleading talking points?
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