On this subject, I had intended to blog about this thought-provoking post, and the comments below, which take a fairly extreme view:

http://baselinescenario.com/2009/11/02/smart-hard-working-people/

“Surely at least people who work hard deserve to do well. In the hierarchy of American moral virtues, hard work must be right at the top. But I’m not convinced of that, either. The ability to work hard is something that you either inherit from your parents or that you develop in your early childhood as a function of the environment around you. Either way, whether or not you have it is as much a matter of luck as is your IQ.”

I disagree. I’ve got the job I’ve got now because I have spent a huge amount of my free time reading macroeconomics textbooks, JS Mill instead of John Grisham. I go to the pub 10 times a year, and wake first to the kids 330 times. All of these things will keep the Wilkes clan in bread and future happiness, I hope: and the idea that I just came upon some virtues of diligence is a bit annoying.

http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text191_p.html

And I don’t think redistribution solves everything. In fact, when preparing for that event with TD and Kate Green and a clever chap from the Fabians, I thought MY role would be reminding the more left wing people there that there was no money for their aspirations, and it was time to try other things. This comes from my experience of previous events:

http://freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/great-news-on-tuition-fees/

describes the more left wing reaction at the Liberal conference (where I was a watcher and not a participant). And when I prepared for the Conservative event, I hope my annoyance at the naivity of the left wing position was clear:

http://freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/off-to-the-conservative-conference/

I had also half hoped that the Conservative event would dismiss for me some of the more hoary old stereotypes of Conservativism that the other parties hoist up in order to scare their children/activists: you know, viscerally hating Europe, loving inequality, that sort of thing. This is why TD’s intervention was so shocking – it was almost a charicature of what people think Tories say amongst themselves, the sort of thing the Left uses to attack them, saying “they may pretend to be nice, but this is what they really think”.

That is a big question on why inequality matters. As I’ve said, I’m not on the far side of this debate. These people have thought longer on it:

http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/social%20exclusion.shtml

I personally think it matter more than the Libertarian freemarket thinkers do, because I think they have a very naive view of how fair the unconstrained behaviour of markets are: they don’t seem to recognise path dependence, monopoly, monopsony, and sheer bad luck in their calculus

Will Wilkinson agrees with you

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10351

and I think that absolute equality can be tyrannical, like you do

Egalitarianism goes beyond assisting the disadvantaged and requires that we take from those with the most and give to those with the least, whatever their abilities and whatever their absolute level of wealth. Holding up equality as the objective necessarily means that government will make no determination regarding who is deserving and who is not. If someone has chosen not to work, they are still given the fruits of others’ labor. In this way, the undiscriminating welfare state rewards and encourages resentment, envy, helplessness, sloth, crime — and paradoxically, inequality itself!

The best way to promote equality (as well as a higher absolute standard of living) would be to require all but the most truly disadvantaged to be self-reliant, so that they would develop the skills, virtues and character necessary for success.

I can see the problems of egalitarianism but not the problems of inequality. How does inequality harm society? (I assume you didn’t really mean “destroy”, since I’m sure you would concede that society existed before the modern welfare state.)

I was only going off what TD said publicly,which i promise that i faithfully reported. & I appreciate that he does not deny the reality of material progress – instead I think he grossly undervalues their importance relative to anecdotally supported claims of spiritual decline.

Welfare may not create wealth – thoughI think material poverty generates its own enormous negative externalities. And it does boost utility. It is needed because os the society-destroying inequalities that would otherwise exist

G

“Mankind has indeed become ever wealthier and ever healthier. The fact of progress is obvious. The life expectancy of an Indian peasant, for example, now exceeds by far that of a member of the British royal family at the apogee of British power. In much of the world, poverty is no longer absolute, a lack of food, shelter or clothing; it is relative. Its miseries are no longer those of raw physical deprivation but those induced by comparison with the vast numbers of prosperous people by whom the relatively poor are surrounded and whose comparative wealth the poor feel as a wound, a reproach, and an injustice.”
—Theodore Dalrymple, “Our Culture, What’s Left of It”

Obviously, this wealth was not created by welfare. As any freethinking economist knows, welfare redistributes wealth but does not create it. Dalrymple frequently says that the squalor in modern Britain is spiritual and that the welfare system itself can not be the sole cause. He blames the spread of disastrous ideas propagated by intellectuals. He argues against a welfare state that makes no moral distinction about who is deserving of assistance.

By the way, since people have it so good today, why the need for a huge welfare state?