Home Contact Register Subscribe to the Beacon Login

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

CHUCK ROGÉR: WILL BRITISH-STYLE INCOME ‘FAIRNESS’ COME TO AMERICA?

The opening line of a recent Financial Times commentary warns of the utter nonsense that is to follow: "Fairness is on everyone’s lips."

No, actually "fairness" is on very few people's lips. But nonchalant presumptiveness comes natural to progressives. To these creatures, everyone should think as they do, want what they want, or act as they act.

Scottish Writer and former investment analyst Will Hutton proclaims that in tough times, "suddenly the question of how society distributes its benefits and burdens becomes more salient."

The contention that somehow "society distributes its benefits" to individuals is fallacious at best. Precisely when, in the history of civilization, would Mr. Hutton and other collectivist pontificators have us believe that there has existed some mechanism by which societies have functioned as vehicles for distributing "benefits" earned by individuals in said societies?

The three-step process of working, achieving, and reaping rewards of achievement eludes left thinkers, who instead profess that an entity called "society" owes everyone "fair" distribution of "benefits."

Hutton descends into silliness.

Do the very highly paid deserve their ever more generous compensation because of their vital contribution – or are they being unfairly spared privations visited upon the rest of the society?


It took the man only five sentences to arrive at progressivism's core denial. Here we see the thinking of the fairness monger. When achievers achieve, everyone must "benefit." When non-achievers fail, everyone must suffer. "Fairness" means never having to suffer alone.

At the request of British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, Hutton set about to...

…investigate fair pay in the public sector, and whether in particular a multiple of top to bottom pay, for example 20:1, could create more fairness. I was also asked to what extent such a principle could be extended to become a wider social norm.


From the grave, the ghost of Karl Marx is screaming, "Recht auf!" (It's German. Look it up on Google.)

So then, wise government office dwellers would decide what compensation is "fair" and inflict that determination on society as a whole. Although the approach is not something that past Americans would have tolerated, it would come as no surprise to see such an effort arise from Washington, D.C. if Democrats regain simultaneous control of Congress and the White House.

Mr. Hutton issues forth two shoulds.

Yes people should get paid more the more they contribute – but proportionally. And there should be upper boundaries, because no one individual, however talented, can claim that an entire organisation [sic] has improved because of his or her contribution alone…


Indeed, and just who "should" decide how much an achiever can earn for achieving?

Not once in Hutton's commentary does he acknowledge that as the gap between top and bottom earners has widened, overall prosperity and the earnings of even the lowest earners have increased. To the fairness ideologue, such real progress is overshadowed by the "unfairness" of the income gap itself.

Hutton calls for a government-mandated upper limit on the top-to-bottom "pay multiple." Companies exceeding that multiple would be accountable to a government bureaucrat who would decide if high earners should be allowed to continue highly earning.

Hutton concluded his commentary by calling capitalism "the best generator of wealth we know..." But immediately, he adds that capitalism "needs good answers to hard questions about how much its CEOs are paid." In textbook, non-thinking, progressive fashion, the way forward is defined by the freest, most wealth-generating economic system known to humankind. Just throw out that pesky freedom part.

Click HERE to receive all posts by email FREE

© 2010 Chuck Rogér

Click here to email your elected representatives.

Comments

No Comments Yet

Post a Comment


Name   
Email   
URL   
Human?
  
 

Upload Image    

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?