Liberal Entitlement

Keith Burgess-Jackson in today's TechCentralStation column attacks Paul Krugman's criticism of Bush's tax policies. The heart of the matter is the differences in the conceptions of ownership and entitlement between liberals and conservatives in the US (and elsewhere). The philosophical difference boils down who owns the fruits of one's labor. For liberals, society owns it and is free to do what it wills; alternatively, for conservatives, ownership resides with the individual.

Krugman says that unless taxes are raised, social programs will have to be cut. These programs help poor and middle-class families, not the families of the well-to-do; so cutting them hurts poor and middle-class families (but not the families of the well-to-do). The Bush administration, however, is adamant about not raising taxes. So, in effect, the Bush administration makes things better for the well-to-do and worse for everyone else.

What Krugman conveniently ignores -- perhaps because it undermines his position -- is the question of entitlement. He writes as if nobody is entitled to anything. Suppose that were the case. A policy that hurt many and helped only a few would indeed be unjust (not to mention irrational). But when you factor in entitlement, the situation changes completely from the moral point of view. Lowering taxes isn't giving the well-to-do something to which they're not entitled. It's not a boon to them, or a windfall. It's letting them keep that to which they're entitled!

In Krugman's twisted mind (I say that endearingly), not taking your money against your will is giving you money. Read that sentence again, slowly and carefully.

It all goes back to liberal first principles. Nobody, to the liberal, has a valid claim on anything, even his or her talents. Those who produce or acquire wealth do so not because of effort, initiative, creativity, or sacrifice. They're just lucky. They were born healthy and into loving families. Others are unlucky. They were born unhealthy or into indifferent families. Since none of us is entitled to what we have at birth, none of us is entitled to anything we produce thereafter. We might call this, to borrow a term from the criminal law, the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine. Wealth, to the liberal, belongs to all of us in common, not to any of us in particular. There are possessions, but not property.