The Future Generation

Families must be supported by the government. Raising children and teaching them civilized values is EXTREMELY important to society. Even if you don’t care what happens after you die, you should care what happens in your old age. Throughout history, support for the aged was primarily their grown children. Social Security merely pools that--- it assumes people are having and raising kids. Therefore the government that backs social security has an obligation to make the system workable by subsidizing fertility when it drops too low.
Some, perhaps, oppose such policy because they want the human race to die out or it’s numbers drastically reduced. At them I sneer, that is not going to happen; people have kids all across the globe despite adverse conditions-it is a fundamental human drive. Attempts to reduce fertility rates by government policy will merely ensure that more kids will be raised in poverty and by parents who have not been able to plan a secure future for their kids.
I consider deliberately having no kids despite the ability to raise them to be immoral, as a default to societal obligations (Imagine the effects on social security, pensions, investments, public services if no one/few had kids + 50 years. Substantially contributing to raising other people’s kids, I think, mostly mitigates the immorality of deliberate childlessness.) The government already spends a lot of money on supporting families and the raising of children, but I think more and better focused spending/tax breaks are needed.

That said, women, under all circumstances should have the final say on having children and how many—government and society can incentivize and persuade but it is immoral for them to dictate---either to limit or to mandate. I have not reached any conclusion as to welfare for single mothers with kids as it creates moral hazard. Ideally, I would like policy that supports such children without incentivizing fatherlessness-but nothing occurs to me so far.
I consider abortion immoral proportional to its proximity to birth. Infanticide is murder, contraception is not immoral, because of that, as a pragmatist, I would consider a political compromise where all but early term abortions are allowed in exchange for government subsidized contraceptives and matching available sex-ed. The goal is to reduce number of abortions per capita, especially late term abortions. Some exceptions for abortion: Incest, Rape, Mothers life at risk in carrying to term, and if the fetus will not survive childhood. That moral call in those cases should delegated to individuals.

One final issue: I oppose designer babies for the following reasons;
1. We don’t know what to select for. This has always been the fundamental problem of eugenics. Consider sickle cell and that our civilization may collapse or be radically different in the future.
2. It reduces the value of human life in a similar fashion to racism by making it plain that certain lives are to be valued above others.
3. It reduces human genetic diversity, which impoverishes society and makes humanity less adaptable and less disease resistant.

Lincoln, War and Slavery

President Lincoln when talking about the struggle of his countries Civil War, and his desire to see it through its end said, “Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword..” Lincoln is proposing that the destruction of the civil war could be seen in part as punishment (Justice) for the misery and death allowed to perpetuate by the nation prior.
Logically, if that were the case, slavery world wide would need to also have been ended in a destructive struggle. I propose that the Napoleonic wars were that struggle, and that the most decisive blow against slavery was inadvertently dealt because of it.
The greatest blow ever dealt slavery was when the British Parliament outlawed the slave trade – not just for themselves but for every nation that sailed upon the deep. This simply couldn’t have happened without the Napoleonic wars.
Without the backdrop of war a measure that called for regulating all shipping on the seas not just British ships – would have been considered absurd. Such a course would surely lead to war – as in fact it did in 1812 with the Americans, upset that their commercial shipping was routinely boarded by the British. While it was true that many British citizens were sympathetic to the plight of slaves, it is doubtful they would have risked a major war to hinder the practice. In the middle of wartime however, the risk was minimal as Britain already was at war---and shipping everywhere was interdicted.
Since this ban was universal, it severely weakened the whole institution. First, in the future the mass expansion of slavery would be impracticable. Secondly, the practice of working slaves to death and then replacing them cheaply with ones fresh from Africa was no longer viable. If slavery was to survive it would have to be by treating the slaves well enough that they could replace their own numbers or even increase their populations.
The effect of this was to reduce the profitability of slavery drastically. In the long term, the economic system of slavery could not grow, (economically speaking), as quickly as the competing free labor system. With its economic power fading, slave owning societies lost power and eventually were defeated by anti-slavery factions both as internal politics and international politics. A good example of this is the divergence of the economic fortunes of the South and the North after the ban and its eventual conclusion in the American Civil War. Both economies grew, but the North simply outpaced the South.
In less than a century after the slave trade was banned, slavery was almost non-existent all over the globe. It is most fortuitous for humanity that cheap supplies of slaves were abolished just at the moment that the Industrial Revolution began in earnest. Certainly the inhumanities of that revolution took a mighty struggle to correct – and that was in a free labor markets system! I do not wish to imagine the horror that could conceivably have resulted.
Blood drawn --- 750,000 American CW, 4-5 million in the Napoleonic Wars
A lot of treasure lost in both wars.
Slaves brought across the atlantic, to North and S.America approx 15 million.

Class Mobility, Rent Seekers & Inheritance

I believe that socio-economic classes are a fact of civilized life. No society has mananged to prevent the formation of classes. (Look for the irony in the authors actions). Attempts to abolish class such as socialism or communism have resulted in a new class where rank is determined not by income but by how effectively one can control/influence the resulting all powerful bureaucracies. I believe any attempt in the U.S. to equalize incomes will have those same corrupt results
If we don’t know how to abolish classes then our design must be to minimize the harm that the existence of classes does. Namely: class warfare, inhumane treatment of lower classes, power accrued to upper classes in excess of their competence. In other words: revolution, oppression and incompetence.
Democracy solves many of those problems. However in order for it to function well, there needs to be healthy class mobility. This Study shows there is still a large amount of class mobility. Some counter-arguments here. Our system is more or less working and attempts to increase income equality jeopardize income mobility w/o any substantial success.
To the end of increasing class mobility I propose abolishing capital gains taxes on small business (perhaps with a cap, after which taxes kick back in). I also propose giving poor kids school vouchers (especially in areas where school kid population is temporarily up) so they have opportunities currently available only to more privileged kids. Additionally;
I oppose rent seeking. Rent seekers are those who try to assure themselves a comfortable wealthy life style regardless of its effect on the body economic. Some examples are agriculturists who receive massive subsidies (ethanol and corn comes to mind) for dubious economic improvement. Industries that get high tariffs/excessive regulations to block their competitors from their markets (We pay for those in higher prices and less selection). Unions that use their political muscle to dictate terms to their employees (Hello UAW). The effect of this is to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us. Why did I go to school? That is not the worst though. In many instances these rent seekers block reform and contribute to general dysfunction. The teachers union is an example of this. Bad teachers can’t be fired, nor incentives put in place to reward good ones–even if their current salaries are untouched.
Finally, I think that inheritance taxes should be increased somewhat. I am concerned that an excessive long term concentration of wealth into a family or trust or foundation (I’m talking to you Harvard) leads to concentration of power in the hands of the incompetent. Additionally, it distorts my ideals of capitalism where capital tends to accrue to producers. Of course this is usually a self-correcting problem.

Policies I am in favor of.

This is stuff that seems acheivable and desirable. It is intended to be a general framework, not a complete list and is vague in some places for that reason. I am going to expand on this points in future posts. One every wednesday until done.

1. Class mobility should be increased. I believe the elimination of classes is not possible as a function of public policy. Therefore increased mobility is the best method of preventing destructive class struggles. 2, 3 to support this goal.
2. Rent seeking should be curtailed as much as possible. It redistributes wealth to those who are already well off, and rent seekers protecting their turf often interfere with the adoption of sane public policy.
3. Inherited wealth should be taxed at high enough rate that it dissipates in two or three generations. Both for individuals and foundations.
4. Families should be subsidized and protected.
5. I oppose all forms eugenics, support free birth control, and want to restrict abortion more than it is now.
6. Advocate subsidiaritywhere practical with a larger entity to step in, in case of local failure – for both government and private entities.
7. Markets need to be corrected by government intervention. Some behaviors prohibited and externalities corrected.
8. Against the “This can never be allowed to happen again” mentality as its goal is unrealistic and unduly hampers normal functioning. As an example I oppose Sarbanes-Oxley.
9. Research should be amply funded, through various mechanisms. I have some ideas on how this could be done differently than it is now.
10. Practicality and people should always be above ideology.