Saving Aeneas had an interesting post recently, which is not to say that most of his posts aren't interesting. He took an Article which delved into that most elusive of human emotions: happiness.
From his post:
"The political implications of this are obvious. There’s far greater merit in helping those at the bottom than giving more to the ones who already have so much.
Basic healthcare for everyone is better than the best healthcare for a few.
Public education for all does more good than private education for those who can afford it.
The guy who works at MacDonald’s gets a lot more joy from a $2 increase in the minimum wage than your average CEO would get from a new Ferrari."
Capitalism leads to, or perhaps is inseperable from consumerism. Though I am a free-marketer, I despise rampant consumerism. The article was interesting, but not necessarily surprising. Things do not make us as happy as we think they will, and most things don't make us happy at all.
This doesn't mean we are allowed to prevent people from drowning in their unhappiness. Humans are to remain as free as possible, which is why the capitalism system works best. They should be free to pursue this happiness in any ways they see fit--without inflicting harm on another of course. If they cannot attain this happiness, this is not the fault of the government, but rather a basic and incorrectable flaw in human nature.
As noble as it may seem to let the government make us happy, this is neither practial, nor proper. Providing services for some, eliminates the means for others to pursue their happiness.
What right do we have to determine when someone's capital is not necessary for them to keep? Put another way: how can we allow the taxing of one man, to pay for another's happiness? Does the end: making the first man happy, justify the means: preventing the second man from becoming happy?
These are not easy questions of course. Happiness is something mankind will always wrestle with. Yet, without a doubt, we have the knowledge of the system which best allows for happiness.
Jefferson had it right all along, "we are endowed by our creater with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
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1 comment:
Jefferson also said: "the best corrective (to the unequal accumulation of wealth and the dangers it posed to society) is the law of equal inheritance to all in equall degree"
"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation." Marx
The bourgeois freedom you are talking about inevitably leads to exploitation and classes.
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