13 Jan 2016

Reynolds’ Law

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MiddleClass

Philo contends that Professor Reynolds’ aperçu ought to be awarded the status of a law.

    The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

I dub this Reynolds’ Law: “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.” It’s easy to see why. If people don’t need to defer gratification, work hard, etc., in order to achieve the status they desire, they’ll be less inclined to do those things. The greater the government subsidy, the greater the effect, and the more net harm produced.

This law is thus a relative to Murray’s third law in Losing Ground, the Law of Net Harm: “The less likely it is that the unwanted behavior will change voluntarily, the more likely it is that a program to induce change will cause net harm.” But Reynolds’ Law rests on a different and more secure foundation. It focuses on character as fundamental.

Since the time of Woodrow Wilson, Democrats—but not only Democrats—have fretted that the middle class is shrinking due to the power of large corporations, and that only government action to “level the playing field” can save the middle class. The “middle class is being more and more squeezed out by the processes which we have been taught to call processes of prosperity.” Obama? Hillary? No, that’s Woodrow Wilson in 1913 (The New Freedom). It’s striking to realize that progressives have been playing the same tune for a century, no matter what’s actually taking place in the economy—indeed, in the midst of the greatest expansion of affluence in the history of the world—with the same set of proffered solutions: greater government power, regulations, higher taxes, and subsidies for the markers of affluence.

Reynolds’ Law thus strikes at the heart of progressivism as a political ideology. Progressivism can’t deliver on its central promise. In fact, it’s guaranteed to make things worse in exactly that respect.

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7 Feedbacks on "Reynolds’ Law"

BMD

Progressivism is ultimately the precursor to gentrification. Which is a consummate and delicious irony.

14 Jan 2016 um 7:27 am


SDD

And, of course, progressives see “self-esteem” as a cause of success rather than a result from it.

14 Jan 2016 um 9:39 am


sound awake

ferns law: democrats actually believe none of the things that they preach to you about

godwins law: as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving nazis or hitler approaches 1

betteridge’s law: any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no’

andy and bill’s law: when a computer chip is released new software will be released to use up all of its power

campbell’s law: the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor

brooks law: adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

amaras law: we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run

cunningham’s law: the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question its to post the wrong answer

dilberts law: the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.

14 Jan 2016 um 10:17 pm


roger

It is the result of being ill-educated – confusing essence with accidence.

17 Jan 2016 um 11:05 pm


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