Welcome to Keith and I don't tread on anyone in the
Libertarian Institute. This is a Thanksgiving message
from Thomas Sowell. Thanksgiving and Fairness.
There was a time when Thanksgiving meant an occasion
for counting our blessings. But now that we have so many
blessings that previous generations could hardly have
dreamed about, we take them all for granted and are much more
likely to count our grievances and the ways in which others
have been unfair to us. Everybody is for fairness
because we all use the same word to mean very different things.
Most of us think you have been treated fairly when you have
been treated the same as everyone else, subjected to the
same rules, and judged by the same standards.
But some think that you have been treated fairly only if you
have had the same chances as everyone else.
These are very different and completely incompatible notions.
When the rules of basketball treat me the same as they treat
Michael Jordan, that does not mean that we have equal chances
of success. In fact, that virtually
guarantees that I have no chance.
People on opposite sides of political and legal issues often
talk right past each other because they are using the same
word to mean totally different and mutually contradictory
things. When statistics are flung around
on the disparities, often called inequities, between groups, the
implication is that such statistical differences could
not exist without unfair treatment.
It's always selective. When they do this, they seldom,
if ever discuss the fact that 95.5% of people killed by the
police are men. They never mentioned that men
are more likely to be in prison. Men are much more likely to get
the death penalty than women are.
This is because men have higher levels of testosterone and men
are more violent. Younger people are more likely
to get killed by the police than older people because the cops
are so ageist. No, because younger men tend to
be the more violent demographic. They also never mentioned the
fact that Asians tend to outer and whites along with Indian
Americans, Taiwanese Americans, Japanese Americans.
You can always go down the list and look at the disparities that
they're not mentioning. When it comes to disparities,
how about the fact that one organization, the federal
government, gets $6.27 trillion a year to spend and they still
managed to run a deficit? What other company even comes
close to spending that much money?
Even in situations where there is a total absence of evidence
for this unfair treatment, that scarcely causes a pause.
If there is no evidence, then there must be covert
discrimination, a glass ceiling, or some other elusive and
sinister influence that you cannot substantiate.
This kind of circular reasoning says, in effect, heads I win,
tails you lose. Politically, there are few ideas
more potent than the notion that all your problems are caused by
other people and their unfairness to you.
That notion was the royal Rd. to unbridled power for Hitler,
Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Which is to say, millions of
human beings paid with their lives for believing it.
The unfairness that these demagogues talked about was not
a myth. Nothing is easier than finding
examples of unfair treatment among human beings.
The fatal misstep is in assuming that such unfairness can be
presumed wherever results are unequal.
For the truly clever, unfairness is simply defined as anything
producing unequal results or unequal prospects.
So the fact that government politicians have an unequal
amount of power with regard to the rest of the citizenry, you'd
think this inequality would get a little more attention when it
comes to the social justice advocates to those with this
mindset. If individual's life chances are
unequal, then that is unfair. This might be an interesting
argument if you are filing a class action lawsuit against
God, but it is idiocy when trying to hold any given human
being responsible for a whole Galaxy of complex interactions
beyond the control of anyone made of flesh and blood.
When we confuse the vagaries of fate with the sins of man and
look for leaders to redress this unfairness, we are setting
ourselves up to become dupes of those who know how to arouse
emotions and promise the impossible.
The lesson is written in blood across the history of the 20th
century. Any serious study of geography
alone would show that utter unrealism of expecting people
whose histories and cultures evolved in very different
physical settings to have the same skills and experiences.
How could the peoples living in the Himalayas have developed the
same sea farming skills as people living in in the Greek
islands? How could the Eskimos have
learned to grow pineapples? These are just some of the more
obvious geographic sources of unequal results.
And geography is just one of many influences on our ability
to create wealth or do the thousands of things which
influence our life chances. This is why Thomas Soul's work
is so empowering. He really takes it away.
He takes you from the mindset of, well, I'm a subject of the
system. There's no power that I have
except maybe I can vote once every four years and maybe I
could start a revolution and change the entire system.
Seoul focuses on the individual. Look at people who show up to
work on time. Are they more likely or less
likely to get promoted than people who don't show up at all?
Well, that's something you can actually control.
When you ask for on the job training, does that increase the
amount of skills? Does that increase the amount of
value you're providing to your employer?
Seoul is so empowering with this message.
First born children have higher Iqs than later children.
Technology makes some people's jobs obsolete and opens up great
opportunities for others. The unfairness of other people
is just one more item on this very long list.
How many are interested in the unfairness that has made us so
much more fortunate than people in previous centuries?
If the average American of today could be transported back over
the centuries and become a nobleman in the Middle Ages,
that would produce a reduced standard of living and shorter
lifespan. Maybe that is the reason to
count our blessings instead of our grievances.
This is from Thomas Soul controversial essays.
Thank you for watching Keith Knight.
Don't try it on anyone and the Libertarian Institute.
Happy Thanksgiving.