Socialists all over the country are happily performing eulogies for
Social Security reform. By reform, I mean the meaningful reform of private accounts that reduce the inefficiencies causing the
(now universally admitted, even by Robert Scheer and other statist
columnists whose chronic aversion of fiscal reality is legendary)
budget shortfalls.
Either because Social Security nonreform lacks logical justification,
or simply the supporters ceased their assiduous and fruitless hunt
for logical justification, opposition has fallen back on one
principle. This principle, disturbing every individual with an
elementary understanding of public policy implications, is that
Social Security reform has lost steam within the locomotive tracks of
public opinion.
Paul Krugman has been happily citing Zogby polls for months with this
end in mind, and lately it has become the consensus that all proposals
have public support as their raison d'etre.
Public opinion has its usefulness. It is one method of obtaining
political legitimacy, it is an index of the Zeitgeist, it is an ideal
target for politicians' rhetoric, and it often is a tool of
revolution against infringement.
But what good is public opinion when it clamors for injurious or inefficient
policies? What good is power to the people when the power harms the
freedoms of others? When these preferences are putting retirement at
risk, what should be the course of action? Ideally, true
libertarians should recognize the need for protections, so the
little guy doesn't have to win the Zogby poll in order to receive a
solid retirement, the right to his income, the right to use cannabis, the right to marry his partner,
or any other activity that the public may not necessarily
approve of.
The public has an interest in what benefits the public, and it is
delusional to expect it to resist temptation in order to defend
Constitutional principles. Social Security is certainly not a
Constitutional issue, but it is both a moral one and an economic one,
and public opinion violates both.
I actually was untruthful with my argument that public opinion was
the only extant socialist argument against reform. Howard Dean,
appearing on Meet the Press, illuminated us all as to the
secondary (in terms of cogency, they would be closer to tertiary)
arguments with which the Democrats were arming themselves.
Howard Dean called the Social Security plan, don't laugh, "run by the
same people who gave us Enron." He even admitted that this is what
he tells "everyone." Presumably, Mr. Dean considers every private
job in the United States "run by the same people who gave us Enron," as the nexus between Social Security private accounts and the Houston
corporation is the exact same as the nexus between it and any
American corporation that exists or has ever existed. Thus, the
logical extension of Mr. Dean's sloppy enthymeme is that the largest
economy on the planet offering the highest standard of living ever
seen in human history is run by the same people who gave us Enron.
Yes, I'm quaking, and I hope you are, too. Down with the free market!
A shameless demagogue like Mr. Dean can cite a single example of
corporate malfeasance, subsequently commit a slew of logical
fallacies to institutionalize the indictment, and his myrmidons naturally congratulate him on the shrewd formulation of a pro-Social
Security argument. However, no degree of unctuous drivel can change
the fact that Social Security, a federal program, collapsed naturally
under its own weight. Is the best argument against that fact
the observation that private businesses have been controlled by corrupt individuals?
Social Security's supporters can point to (unrelated) Enron as an
example of failure; Social Security's opponents can point to Social
Security as an example of failure. That's the salient distinction.
Social Security's difficulties are the result of an asymmetrical
population pattern. Private accounts do not explicitly address the
problem simply because asymmetrical population growth would not
affect the provision of retirement at an individual level. We
then ask, how will gross disparities between workers and retirees be
solved within a system whose solvency requires the
nonexistence of these disparities?
An individual whose retirement funds are treated as personal property
will not be deleteriously affected if he happens to retire with a
large number or a small number of fellow Americans. The reasons are
obvious. Because his retirement funds are not contingent upon the
aggregate number of young workers at the time of his exit from the
economic society, the numbers are irrelevant.
The only provision to prevent against a reoccurence of these problems
without eliminating the redistributive mechanisms is population
control, in such a manner to ensure that the number of retirees will
not exceed the minimum number of workers. Otherwise, a system that
relies on the intergenerational transit of currency will remain a
slave of demographics.
The minute our elected representatives capitulate to the demands of
the retreating socialists and remove privatization from
consideration, the Social Security system cements its eternal
failure.
Mr. Dean's (unintentional) joke parade closed with the peroration, "Democrats are for the individual and individual choice." How he
reconciles that disgusting canard with his hysterical opposition to the only existing plan which
recognizes the individual as the preeminent unit in pension fund
dispensation is anyone's guess.
With plenipotentiary authority, I would have usurped Tim Russert's
position and would have made these apodictic points to embarrass the
DNC chairman. Unfortunately, my authority is still resigned to op-ed
columns at this fine think tank.
Following in quaternary argument status for the Left is the
theological argument for Social Security. Yes, you read that
correctly. In fact, you can read the article yourself right here.
This gem comes from Common Dreams. What does Common Dreams do, you
ask? Besides representing a thoroughbred gift horse of Prometheus
rebuttal fodder, it also serves as the grassroots source for
progressive dogma. It is self-described as a source for "Breaking
News and Views for the Progressive Community." Unfortunately, one is
left to suppose that the breaking news that the United States has a
Bill of Rights that establishes a wall of separation between church
and state missed the exit for the Progressive Community.
Ha, I'm kidding myself. The Progressive Community (with the
appropriate acronym PC) has been screaming about said wall of
separation for decades. Now, what possessed them to contradict years
of manic opposition in order to sanction theology as a valid
political argument? I don't have the answer, if you're wondering.
If Howard Dean's "Democracy in Action" is a political genuflection to
the gods of public opinion, demagogy, and convenient theology, the
path to effective reform clearly will not run through the DNC.
The onus falls to the rational, the independent, and the vigenarians whose welfare is continuously skewered by this elongated lack of a
fiscal divorce from state-supported pensions. If we are successful,
however, the requiem march will finally blare over the funeral of uxorious policy.
The above work is the opinion of the author,
and not necessarily that of the Prometheus Institute.
