Recently in the news: Europeans may have to scale back their generous welfare state benefits which have included six weeks of vacation per year, retirement often at age 60 etc. France is seriously considering raising the retirement age. As a result, the Greeks are rioting and many French are preparing their standard response of major demonstrations and strikes.
That is a sad situation for the Europeans, predictable though it was. They are having to give up what they consider their entitlements. It is human nature to think that we are entitled to what we have. Nobody likes to accept a lower salary, shorter vacations, or a delay in planned retirement. However the laws of economics neither know nor care about our preferences. Those laws just apply the consequences of our actions (and often of luck) – and they apply to the U.S as well as to Europe.
The situation is simple in concept. People think they are entitled to a certain standard of living and that they are entitled not to have to work very hard to maintain that standard. However the benefits of all those entitlement programs now exceed the resources being used to provide said benefits. Though the concept is simple, people resist understanding that concept. After all, understanding why they must cut back implies that they will accept the cut-backs.
The fact is that we cannot generate entitlements without some means to provide for them, at least if we expect to deliver on those entitlements. In nearly all cases that means that someone has to work to produce what people are “entitled” to. Europe is now seeing the results of having created entitlements to goods and services while at the same time creating entitlements to leisure time and early retirement. That essentially means that they consider themselves entitled to not to have to work very hard to provide those entitlements.
We are on the same road in the U.S. though we have not traveled as far down that road. Many think they are entitled to decent living quarters, good food, medical care etc. but they fail to think of where those “entitlements” come from. Who will build the housing? Who will raise and transport the food? Who will provide the medical care? Who will pay the people who do all that? If you say “government,” you get a zero on the test. Government is not some magic creator of goods and services, though some seem to think it is. Government can dispense nothing without first taking it from the citizens.
That is the important point many Europeans and even some in the U.S. are overlooking. Government cannot magically create goods or services; it must get them from the people. When the Greeks or French riot to protest the need to cut back on benefits, they are simply ignoring fundamental laws of Nature. Goods and services must be produced, they are not created by a wave of a magic wand or by government decreeing that they shall exist.
If we want early retirement we must either work more effectively while young or accept fewer benefits in retirement.
If we want medical care, someone must work to train medical personnel and to provide them with the tools of their trade plus what they need to live.
If we want decent housing, someone must work to provide the building materials and to build that housing, then to maintain it in good condition.
Any “entitlement” requires production. The reasonable conclusion is that we are entitled only to what we earn by honest work. As I wrote earlier, we have a right to nothing. (http://hallillywhite.blogspot.com/2009/08/you-have-right-to-nothing.html)
We must realize that in general entitlements are nonsense. We are not entitled to the fruits of someone else’s labor, any more than a slave owner is entitled to the fruits of the labor of the slave.
Showing posts with label entitlement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entitlement. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Entitlement Fraud
Suppose you are studying for your dream job, a job that will be interesting, rewarding, and that will pay well and provide good benefits. You expect that 1000 people will be hired when you graduate. The hiring process will require that you demonstrate knowledge of all aspects of your qualifications. However you learn that there are 10,000 people expected to apply for that job. How hard would you study?
Now let's change the scenario a bit. The people hiring not only want employees who can do the job, they also want a certain physical characteristic, namely red hair. In fact they are willing to hire people otherwise unqualified if they have naturally red hair. Of the 10,000 people studying for that job, only 800 are redheads and you are one of them. That means you are essentially guaranteed a job. Now how hard would you study?
“That's silly,” you say. “What employer would ever do such a thing? If they did they would only encourage certain groups to slack off. The employer would end up with incompetent employees. Other employees would resent them and the incompetents would feel inferior. Morale and company performance would both suffer.”
Sadly the answer is that lots of employers do similar things, and our government encourages them to do it. In fact government is the prime offender. The desired characteristics are not red hair but dark skin or two X chromosomes. Any employer with an insufficient number of employees in those categories is considered to be discriminatory, regardless of other reasons for the workforce makeup. Universities also attempt to admit students at least partly on the basis of ethnicity. The results are predictable. We've created a form of identity-based society. Groups of people think that they are entitled to jobs or advanced education because of their ethnicity or sex. In all too many cases, identity supersedes qualification.
For example, “Black American college students planning to go on to post-graduate education were found by one study to feel no sense of urgency about needing to prepare themselves academically 'because they believe that certain rules would simply be set aside for them.'”* That study was done before such things as the Bakke decision, but it does illustrate the problems created by entitlements. People simply don't work as hard when they perceive no need to do so.
Similar studies have found a lackadaisical approach to learning elsewhere when some ethnicities were given preference for hiring or admission. Malaysian students were legally entitled to preferential hiring for government jobs, over the better-educated Chinese minority. In the American Virgin Islands children knew they would have government jobs waiting so they failed to apply themselves in school. Meanwhile their West Indian classmates did better academically but were not eligible for those jobs. In those cases it was the majority getting the preferences and slacking off because of those preferences.* *
The result in such cases is discrimination against those who work harder to become qualified. Another result is poor performance of all employees. Those employees hired (or students admitted) to achieve “racial balance” or something similar are seldom qualified so they cannot do the work well. The qualified employees resent those hired to meet quotas, so they often fail to work to their ability. Everybody loses.
The U.S. Naval Academy is a sad example. Most applicants with C average grades and a 500 SAT score can forget about ever being admitted. Not so for black applicants. In an effort to “remove artificial barriers” they can be sent to a remedial school in Rhode Island where they will have a chance to improve their grades. Even if they fail there they may be admitted to the academy. Then if they do poorly in either class work or deportment they will be treated with kid gloves in order to reach the de facto quota of black naval officers.
As a result of this special treatment, those “special” students are the subject of resentment. Their white classmates resent the fact that they got special treatment. Of course there are plenty of qualified black cadets at the academy and they resent the fact that people may think that they were also admitted under affirmative action instead for their very real qualifications. As citizens we might all resent the fact that defense of our country is being entrusted to the unqualified.
Of course we should help inner city kids whose schools are hardly worthy of the name. However the way to do it is to provide them with opportunity for a good education, not to put them into situations where they are unqualified. Unfortunately too many people want to do it backwards. They want to build the superstructure before the foundation by admitting the unqualified to higher education or by hiring them. Instead we should build the foundation first by educating them at the primary and secondary level.
College admission is not an entitlement. Neither is a job. We need to encourage people to become qualified for education and jobs, not just give it to them because of skin color. Giving someone an “entitlement” because of irrelevant physical features deprives the person of the satisfaction that comes from being a productive citizen. It deprives others of the jobs or education they might have had. It deprives the country of what that person might have produced had he developed his potential instead of just taking “entitlements.”
We should all work to stop this nonsense, for the betterment of the country and for the benefit of both those discriminated against and those handicapped by receiving preferences.
*Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice, p40, referring to Daniel C. Thompson, Private Black Colleges at the Crossroads
** Ibid
Now let's change the scenario a bit. The people hiring not only want employees who can do the job, they also want a certain physical characteristic, namely red hair. In fact they are willing to hire people otherwise unqualified if they have naturally red hair. Of the 10,000 people studying for that job, only 800 are redheads and you are one of them. That means you are essentially guaranteed a job. Now how hard would you study?
“That's silly,” you say. “What employer would ever do such a thing? If they did they would only encourage certain groups to slack off. The employer would end up with incompetent employees. Other employees would resent them and the incompetents would feel inferior. Morale and company performance would both suffer.”
Sadly the answer is that lots of employers do similar things, and our government encourages them to do it. In fact government is the prime offender. The desired characteristics are not red hair but dark skin or two X chromosomes. Any employer with an insufficient number of employees in those categories is considered to be discriminatory, regardless of other reasons for the workforce makeup. Universities also attempt to admit students at least partly on the basis of ethnicity. The results are predictable. We've created a form of identity-based society. Groups of people think that they are entitled to jobs or advanced education because of their ethnicity or sex. In all too many cases, identity supersedes qualification.
For example, “Black American college students planning to go on to post-graduate education were found by one study to feel no sense of urgency about needing to prepare themselves academically 'because they believe that certain rules would simply be set aside for them.'”* That study was done before such things as the Bakke decision, but it does illustrate the problems created by entitlements. People simply don't work as hard when they perceive no need to do so.
Similar studies have found a lackadaisical approach to learning elsewhere when some ethnicities were given preference for hiring or admission. Malaysian students were legally entitled to preferential hiring for government jobs, over the better-educated Chinese minority. In the American Virgin Islands children knew they would have government jobs waiting so they failed to apply themselves in school. Meanwhile their West Indian classmates did better academically but were not eligible for those jobs. In those cases it was the majority getting the preferences and slacking off because of those preferences.* *
The result in such cases is discrimination against those who work harder to become qualified. Another result is poor performance of all employees. Those employees hired (or students admitted) to achieve “racial balance” or something similar are seldom qualified so they cannot do the work well. The qualified employees resent those hired to meet quotas, so they often fail to work to their ability. Everybody loses.
The U.S. Naval Academy is a sad example. Most applicants with C average grades and a 500 SAT score can forget about ever being admitted. Not so for black applicants. In an effort to “remove artificial barriers” they can be sent to a remedial school in Rhode Island where they will have a chance to improve their grades. Even if they fail there they may be admitted to the academy. Then if they do poorly in either class work or deportment they will be treated with kid gloves in order to reach the de facto quota of black naval officers.
As a result of this special treatment, those “special” students are the subject of resentment. Their white classmates resent the fact that they got special treatment. Of course there are plenty of qualified black cadets at the academy and they resent the fact that people may think that they were also admitted under affirmative action instead for their very real qualifications. As citizens we might all resent the fact that defense of our country is being entrusted to the unqualified.
Of course we should help inner city kids whose schools are hardly worthy of the name. However the way to do it is to provide them with opportunity for a good education, not to put them into situations where they are unqualified. Unfortunately too many people want to do it backwards. They want to build the superstructure before the foundation by admitting the unqualified to higher education or by hiring them. Instead we should build the foundation first by educating them at the primary and secondary level.
College admission is not an entitlement. Neither is a job. We need to encourage people to become qualified for education and jobs, not just give it to them because of skin color. Giving someone an “entitlement” because of irrelevant physical features deprives the person of the satisfaction that comes from being a productive citizen. It deprives others of the jobs or education they might have had. It deprives the country of what that person might have produced had he developed his potential instead of just taking “entitlements.”
We should all work to stop this nonsense, for the betterment of the country and for the benefit of both those discriminated against and those handicapped by receiving preferences.
*Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice, p40, referring to Daniel C. Thompson, Private Black Colleges at the Crossroads
** Ibid
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