Blind Spot

Ahh, the holidays are here.  I have survived the little masked extortionists at the front door and celebrated our national gluttony day with family.  I prefer Thanksgiving.  Stuffed turkeys are the precursors to lit trees.  My Thanksgiving was good, surrounded by family and their legal and significant others.  There is always some tension in the air as young men must posture regarding football, hunting, and manliness in general, and the women must practice superficial niceties while waltzing around each other in the kitchen checking out each other’s recipes and marking their territory.  Children romp oblivious to the adult games, and infants wail seeking to draw their parents in.  I have grown too old to engage in these silly competitions and for the most part am amused watching in-laws and out-laws merging holiday traditions and two sets of expectations regarding dressing and giblet gravy.  But the food was wonderful!  After eating way too much I was content to adjourn to the couch, settle in as the matriarch to watch football, digest, and politely nap.

The nap was not meant to be.  A young man in his early 50’s sat near me and engaged an older gentleman in his mid 60’s regarding the state of things in America.  The young man owns his own business, has property in Texas and California, drives a Mercedes, and is very wealthy.  (He has never married and my wish for him is that he could commit to another in the ways he has committed to his political perspective.)  The older man is a petroleum engineer working for a large oil company, nearing retirement and also very wealthy, trophy wife, groomed and affluent children and grandchildren.  Fortunately I am not directly related to either.  They sat together to lambast all things Democrat, liberal and Obama.  My blood pressure rose as I listened to them share lies and shared perspectives.  Neither was interested in thinking about the issues.  They were much more interested in proclaiming truths a la Cruz and Limbaugh, in which there are few truths at all.  As they told each other the same lies they confirmed for each other that such lies must be true.  I opted to listen, eyes shut, to see if I could discern where they went astray.  Neither of these men is stupid.  After about 30 minutes of mutually reinforcing demagoguery I finally understood.  Yes, I was mad enough to kick the cat, but I had learned.

“When will they learn the government can’t do everything!” was the final shot across the bow, expressed by the younger and enthusiastically endorsed by the elder.  I was ready to vent my spleen when the conversation quickly morphed to football.  I took a deep breath and attempted to calm down.  As I did so, I realized I had just been granted an epiphany for which I remain ever so thankful.

The “they” in this final statement clearly refers to liberals, Democrats and the like.  I find it interesting that I have never seen nor read any liberal proposal for the government of the US to do “everything”.  That would be foolish.  The government is never likely to manufacture automobiles, develop a retail chain store, or open a fast food restaurant.  Virtually everything that is produced and sold in our market economy is done so by the private sector via mom and pop operations, partnerships and corporations.  In this I agree with my mislead friends, the government cannot do everything, nor should it, nor does anyone propose that it do so, even staunch liberals such as me.  So why do “we”, the onerous “they,” propose that the government do anything at all?

The market has been a wonderful structure for generating jobs and goods and innovations and wealth, etc., etc.  The market, however, is not moral.  It has a bottom line.  The goal in the market is to make money for the owners of the operation.  Clearly, if the owners are making less money they will cut their employees, so the goal is not employment.  Clearly if the owners can produce their product for less by manufacturing it oversees they will do so, so the goal is not patriotism.  Clearly if the owners can make more money by ignoring health risks they will do so, so the goal is not the health and well being of their employees.  The goal is making money for the owners.  If there is a demand for goods the market will provide a producer for that good, whether we perceive the good to be moral or not.  That is why we have large fire arms manufacturers and drug dealers, prostitutes and pornography.  There is a demand, the market produces the goods.  The market looks only at the profit from production, not the morality of the production.  The debacle of 1929 and 2008 were both symptomatic of an unfettered market run amuck. 

What should we as a nation do when we discover that the market is generating goods and services that we deem immoral or unhealthy?  The owners will not change production because to do so will reduce profits.  Profit is the raison d’être.  Upton Sinclair pointed out that the meat packing industry was making a lot of money but they were doing so with no regard for the health of the consumer.  Therefore, the government intervened.  That is why we have regulatory agencies to oversee the production of the food we eat.  It would be more profitable for the producers of food to not worry about E. coli and other diseases.  The same is true in restaurants.  The same is true with the water we drink.  The same is true with the drugs we take.  The same is true regarding the working conditions in our economy.  The same is true regarding the dependability of the goods we buy.  The same is true regarding the pollutants we release in our atmosphere.  On and on and on “we” have turned to the government to overlay a moral principle on the market economy when people are at risk.  Yes, that is government intervention in the market.  But it has occurred because as a people we have learned that the market is not moral.  Producers will not raise their costs and reduce their profit because it is moral.  When the government intervenes with a regulation it levels the playing field.  All producers must comply with the moral requirement, so no one producer suffers the cost of going broke acting on moral grounds.  To put it another way, the government does what it does because of the failure of the market economy to have a conscience. 

So, what about health care?  Insurance companies will clearly make more money if they can refuse to cover people based on pre-existing conditions.  Insurance companies will clearly make more money if they only insure those who can afford the insurance and those who are healthy.  As a nation, should we allow the insurance companies, and the employers who select them, to determine who can have insurance and who receives appropriate medical care?  The answer for years has been yes, we should allow the market to determine such things.  Now, we look at the data and the market solution has been deemed by many to be immoral. Only some people get insurance.  Those who can get insurance pay more if they are more at risk, or in other words, the more you need insurance the less likely you are to get it and if you do the more it will cost.  Is that what we as a nation want:  Big bucks for insurance companies while millions of Americans go without?  I find that immoral.  I wonder and worry about the folks who do not.  I suspect they all have insurance and/or own stock in insurance companies.  Again, the government has stepped in only because the market has failed to do the moral thing. 

The conservative flaw is the assumption that the market functions better than the government on moral issues.  It clearly does not; it clearly has not.  As I look at the ways in which the market selected employees prior to the legislative end of discrimination and the required equal employment opportunities, and the rise of women in the ranks of CEO’s it is clear the market would never address these issues.  As I look at the number of hungry and mistreated children it is clear that the market would never address these issues.  As I look at the health risks in manufacturing it is clear the market would never address the issue.  As I look at the wages paid and overtime pay it is clear the market would never address these issues.  In fact, the market has a stellar record of ignoring all things moral for the sake of making money.  To do otherwise would end the production in a competitive setting.  (You may care to look at my earlier posts regarding competition.)

I know a lot of liberals, few in Texas.  I do not know a single one who awakes each day seeking new ways to intervene in the market for the sake of government usurpation of production.  That is pure folly.  I do see and I do experience an ongoing exasperation with the private sector argument that what is good for business is good for the USA.  We have heard that before and it has not worked, or at least it has not worked for anyone other than the owners of production who have grown very rich.  I am a liberal because of my belief system, my sense of moral right and wrong.  I have a hard time understanding the conservative argument that allowing the market to freely operate is in our best interest.  We keep trying that and the market keeps spitting in our collective faces. 

The government only intervenes when the market fails.  Period.  It does not intervene for reasons other than the protection and promotion of the citizens of this country.  And when the market crashes, and major companies are on the verge of failing, they change their tune very quickly and turn to the government for support.  Amazing.

The conservative blind spot is an honest appraisal of the market, its strengths and weaknesses, and honest support when the government should intervene.  If they argue that it should not, not ever, then I see them as immoral, worshiping the profit god.  If they drink water from the tap, buy meat at the grocery store, take medications, drive on highways, fly on planes, talk on cell phones, drop letters in the mail, purchase new vehicles, take a deep breath of air, or ever have to go to the emergency room to be treated by doctors and nurses then they should celebrate and support the role of government as watchdog, protector, monitor and insurer of moral practices more than profit. 

Worse, if the conservatives take a purely government function like education and argue that it will be improved if it functioned more like the market then my knickers really are in a twist.  When it comes to the education of our children why would we abandon a moral motivation for an immoral one?

Why is that so hard to see?  Must be in a blind spot.

I close my eyes to nap, but never to injustice.