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When Ignorance Borders on Stupidity by Harry Goslin On
more than one occasion this year, I have either been involved in a
discussion/argument over economics and social issues with a colleague,
or been bystander to one, usually walking away shaking my head and
mumbling some choice profanity under my breath.
I’ve resigned myself to listening to periodic tripe from
intelligent and mostly competent adults completely ignorant about the
basics of economics, markets, and private property.
Given that this type of personality needs to vent emotionally
about that which it cannot think rationally, I’ve concluded that
working relationships are better preserved if these individuals
receive a cordial smile while basking in their ignorance. Recently,
Thomas Sowell discussed the latest vitriol directed at WalMart from
the usual suspects: academia and media.
Once again, WalMart was being excoriated for its lack of
“compassion” towards its employees.
As we’ve all heard on numerous occasions, WalMart does not
pay its employees a “living wage,” something the self-ordained
elitists remind us is the “social responsibility” of corporate
giants. In case any of you
have forgotten, big companies have a duty to pay their employees what
benevolent third parties in ivory towers and shiny, tall buildings
determine is fair, the market be damned. One
of my colleagues is always bashing WalMart.
He’s not the only one of my colleagues critical of WalMart
for the same irrational and ignorant reasons, but I share an office
with him, so it is from his barbs that I am stuck the most.
All the clichés cited by Sowell, the “living wage,”
“social responsibility,” and even the “social contract” we are
all supposedly bound by, have been used by my colleague in his attacks
on WalMart. Only WalMart,
it seems, is an evil corporate giant in the world of retail and bulk
merchandising. Target,
Kmart, and Costco, are all legitimate corporations.
Evidently, they pay their employees a “living wage,” so he
will patronize them at the expense of WalMart.
Fine with me; if this is the free country so many people claim
that it is, he’s free to shop wherever he chooses. My
friend’s problem, as I told him during our first economic argument,
is that he and others who think like him know little to nothing about
real freedom, the functioning of markets, and private property.
In his convoluted world, freedom only extends to individuals so
long as they do not resist the collective will, enforced through the
mythical “social contract,” in deciding how much of the
individual’s property and liberty must be surrendered to the
interests of the state (the “community”).
Markets are too impersonal to be trusted to operate on their
own without strict supervision, much like the corporate monsters who
exploit their employees. As
with any other economic and political reasoning based in fascism,
private property exists in name only, with decisions for use
ultimately made by the state, while sparing it all the headaches
associated with possession.
What
about the argument, and his contention as well, that WalMart does not
pay a “living wage”? Let’s
forget, once again, that in a truly free society, we would not even be
discussing such a point. Being
a teacher, I sometimes look to supplement my income with summer
employment. Recently I
applied for a part-time job at Target for an early morning shift.
The wage being offered was $6.50 an hour.
Is that a living wage? When
I lived in northern I’m
not complaining about Target as a corporation or about the wages the
company was offering. During
the interview I sat through, the supervisor said that she was short a
full crew by about twelve people. Well,
people who understand markets know how to make that problem go away:
increase the price offered in exchange for labor.
Was Target going to do that?
Probably not. My
impression was that they would hire who they could to make up some of
the shortfall and keep the wage being offered the same.
Employees working that shift might not work as hard as before,
but they would still be working harder than they would under optimal
conditions. Is that shirking
social responsibility and compassion?
If you think so, then don’t work for Target on the early
morning shift. That
is your choice, as it is Target’s choice to offer whatever wages it
thinks appropriate and see how the market of people looking for work
responds. As I told my
colleague, he and those who think like him can choose not to shop at
WalMart, they can spew their hatred of the corporation, and then go into
an irrational tirade about the underlying evil of the capitalist system,
but they have no right to energize their ignorance into action or embark
on a crusade that limits the choices available to me and my family in
seeking out the products we use, with ample choices, and at the best
possible prices. If they
find the existence of WalMart so repugnant, with its supposed lack of
sympathy for low-income families, let them open their own retail giant
and operate it according to the principles they espouse.
It won’t be long before economic reality hits them square in
the face and they are forced to either sing a different tune or dry up
and blow away with the wind.
What
really inhibits my colleague and others like him from seeing economic
issues clearly is a profound level of ignorance, bordering on stupidity.
As any teacher will attest, you never want to think of any of
your students as stupid, only ignorant, because they lack sufficient
knowledge to understand specific topics.
But when ignorance placates people to the point that they do
nothing to educate themselves to reality, even making them arrogant and
self-righteous about their ignorance, then the rest of us should have no
qualms about treating them as the truly stupid, even dangerous, people
they are. In
all fairness to my colleague, he did acknowledge later on, and not even
grudgingly, that every opinion he holds about economic issues is rooted
in pure emotion. Maybe
there’s hope for him yet. He,
and others like him, have not yet grasped what Thomas Sowell said about
wealth: “Ultimately it is only wealth that can reduce poverty.”
Wealth accumulated by innovation, entrepreneurship, individuals,
and corporations. Wealth
free to move through market forces, not according to “social
contracts,” “social responsibility,” or through “living
wages.”
discuss this column in the forum Harry Goslin lives in Tucson, Arizona, where he still tries to demonstrate to high school students the superiority of free markets and free people.
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