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The Zero-Sum Candidate

Both Barack and Michelle Obama have a collectivist mentality:

Jeff Dobbs, a little while back, saw Michelle Obama's statement that "The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

...Barack Obama today: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

Would an Obama Administration really mean an end to "eating as much as we want?"

There is an implicit assumption here that, in order for one person (or country) to have more, another must thereby have less. This is the view of a person who views wealth not as something that is created, but something that simply exists, and the only important issue is how to divvy it up. But no one in Zimbabwe is starving because I took food away from them and ate it myself. They are starving in former Rhodesia, and in North Korea, and other places, because the governments there, in thrall to greed and the poisonous ideology of collectivism, have destroyed the agricultural sector.

What are the Obamas going to take away from us to give to someone else? And how will they decide from whom to take it, and to whom to give it? And what means will they choose to do so?

And which countries' approval are we seeking? Egypt, to whom we give billions a year in aid? France? Germany? The Europeans seemed to be well fed, last time I checked.

My mother, who used to tell me to clean my plate in the sixties because there were children starving in China, had her mother tell her to clean her plate during the depression because there were children starving in Europe. Who is it that Obama is asking (telling?) us to clean our plates (or better yet, put less on them) for? Will he set up rationing? Will Michelle be in charge of the rationing board and pie distribution?

Hungry stomachs want to know, before November.

The sad thing, of course, is that our agricultural policies, which actually increase the cost of our food (though we're wealthy enough to afford it, at least until the Obamas take over), are also complicit in destroying the agricultural sector of many third-world countries, by providing foreign aid in the form of subsidized grain and depressing the price of food there, making farming a non-viable economic activity. What will Barack do about that?

[Update a few minutes later]

This doesn't speak so much to their collectivism, but Charlotte Hays asks:

I loved Obama telling us how how "unacceptable" and "low class" it would be for us to to mention his wife's anti-American remarks. How's he gonna stop us? (I certainly hope he will have a tougher approach when negotiating with dictators!) And, come to think of it, this isn't the first time Obama has said that anti-American "snippets" by a close associate were taken out of context. We get to decide if we think this is relevant, not the candidate.

Do we really want to be bossed around by these arrogant people and their double standards for four years?

[Update in the afternoon]

Rachel Lucas and her commenters aren't very impressed by Obama's Calvin-ball campaign rules.

So I just want to know what happens if Republican's aren't "careful." Is he gonna give them karate? Write a strongly worded letter of disapproval?

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19 Comments

Robert wrote:

Hmmm, I think Obama is only talking about not being a hypocrite. His wife may be making a zero-sum argument, but isn't it unfair to lump in his comment with his wife's?

Referring back to your recent "busy weekend" roof repair post, I have to wonder if you are not only a fascia-ist, but are also guilty of soffit-stry.

:-)

May 20, 2008 7:35 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

...isn't it unfair to lump in his comment with his wife's?

Obviously, I don't think so.

May 20, 2008 7:38 AM

mz wrote:

Hmm. Zero sum game vs infinite wealth with no relation to natural resources and their division among people.
The reality in this case is probably somewhere in the middle.

May 20, 2008 7:50 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

Zero sum game vs infinite wealth with no relation to natural resources and their division among people.

What natural resources does Hong Kong have?

May 20, 2008 8:14 AM

mz wrote:

Or Switzerland or Denmark or Japan. Yes, I know that, I had it in my post but deleted as obvious.

But they do trade and rely on other areas producing cheap stuff for them. Probably for example many companies who have their headquarters in Hong Kong have their hardware operations somewhere else.

May 20, 2008 8:25 AM

Dan in MD wrote:

What is sad about the zero sum people is I had the same argument in 5th grade (in 1970) when there was a big discussion leading up to the first Earth Day.

Some of the kids in science were talking about 'using up' all the metals from other countries to make cars. I pointed out that even if we did throw the cars away, the metal was still there in the dump waiting to be mined. (I knew this because on a trip to the dump with my father and grandfather, the owner told them he was getting ready to send all the cars to a smelter because he could get more money for them than letting them set.)

The teacher sided with me and that ended it - for that one, but I have had the same argument over and over. No one seems to notice that life is better than it was - for nearly everyone in the world, not just America.

May 20, 2008 8:40 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

But they do trade and rely on other areas producing cheap stuff for them.

So? What's your point?

They're creating wealth. The Mugabes and Kim Jung-Ils (and Obamas?) of the world are destroying it.

May 20, 2008 8:52 AM

Lurking Observer wrote:

In the case of Hong Kong, mz, it's quite the opposite.

Hong Kong has long been where foreign companies established factories, NOT where Hong Kong companies offshored their factories elsewhere.

The combination of a excellent infrastructure (one of the world's finest harbors and ports), educated and motivated work force that spoke English, relatively low wages, and low taxes combines to make it an excellent place for locating factories.

Indeed, Hong Kong is a tribute to relatively laissez-faire economics, as it is one of the few places where even the mass transit system is profitable.

May 20, 2008 9:22 AM

Alan K. Henderson wrote:

J. K. Rowling has fewer resources than Zimbabwe. Which of the two is the greater generator of commerce?

May 20, 2008 9:31 AM

Jim Harris wrote:

Indeed, Hong Kong is a tribute to relatively laissez-faire economics, as it is one of the few places where even the mass transit system is profitable.

It's profitable all right, but it isn't laissez faire. The Hong Kong government built and owns the transit system. Hong Kong residents didn't get there by airily declaring that the market would fix it. Nor by throwing tantrums over collectivism and hair shirts. Nor by fantasizing about miracle technologies of the future.

In other news, oil reached $129 today.

May 20, 2008 9:36 AM

Anonymous wrote:

I see that Mr. Simby is catering to his usual instincts.

May 20, 2008 11:12 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

>I see that Mr. Simby is catering to his usual instincts.

Was this supposed to mean something, Anonymous Moron?

May 20, 2008 11:15 AM

Karl Hallowell wrote:

In other news, oil reached $129 today.

This again. I can see why public transportation would need public funding. But you continue to ignore that expensive oil and oil derivatives (the same things you think are problems) will do more to move the US's economy from oil-based consumption than feel-good government initiatives. The "miracle technologies" are here and have been for some time. They just weren't economical in a cheap oil world.

May 20, 2008 11:16 PM

Robert wrote:

Jim Harris said:

Nor by fantasizing about miracle technologies of the future.

Yeah, one can't fantasize about ridiculous technologies like the PC and the Internet. I mean, how can Dan Rather be possibly unseated by networks of amateurs on the fantasy technology of the Internet?
/Sarc

P.S. your notions on this topic as well as others (ex. gun bans) are simply obsolete.

May 21, 2008 12:06 AM

Alan K. Henderson wrote:

Hong Kong's transit system can be profitable and efficient because it serves a dense, relatively compact area. Sprawling cities like the Dallas metro area can't do either, since only so much of the city can be connected by rail, the only time-efficient transport medium.

Buses are notoriously slow. It took me 90 minutes to make a 12-mile bus commute; now that work is six miles closer, the bus commute time would now be - 90 minutes, which includes a 20-minute layover at the Irving Mall. I have since liberated myself from mass transit. On rainy days I can scurry quickly to my Ford Ranger instead of getting drenched at the bus stop and needing to bring a change of shoes and socks to work. I can shop at stores that aren't on the bus route. I can make out-of-town trips. I can drive to see relatives instead of going through ~~the mirror-universe Enterprise's agonizer booth~~ federalized airport security.

One wonders if the people who overestimate the practicality of mass transit tend to live in those few dense and compact metro areas where it can actually run efficiently.

May 21, 2008 5:05 AM

Robert wrote:

Jim, note that there are two different people using the handle "Robert" posting here.

May 21, 2008 7:44 AM

Jim Harris wrote:

But you continue to ignore that expensive oil and oil derivatives (the same things you think are problems) will do more to move the US's economy from oil-based consumption than feel-good government initiatives.

No, Karl, I'm not ignoring it. Expensive oil derivatives will indeed, slowly, move the US economy away from oil-based consumption. Instead of feel-good initiatives, most of the gain will come from feel-bad initiatives. Our mistake was that we refused to hedge against this outcome by making oil derivatives more expensive ourselves. On the contrary, the government subsidizes the consumption of those oil derivatives, even if it doesn't subsidize the oil derivatives themselves.

It wouldn't feel as bad now if the US had hedged better.

You're right, Alan, and Krugman agrees too. His point is that we created a chicken-and-egg problem. One reason that Dallas is such a sprawl is that it has been easy to pay for the gas. Now that the gas is expensive, Dallas is "stranded in suburbia", which is the title of Krugman's article.

Yeah, one can't fantasize about ridiculous technologies like the PC and the Internet.

You are free to fantasize as you please, and I didn't use the word "ridiculous". Actually many more people predicted things that do seem a little ridiculous, like family airplanes, than predicted the real advances such as the PC and the Internet. Ridiculous or not, it doesn't move the world forward to fantasize about things that haven't yet been invented. Or to cheer at every wild new claim from SBIR fly-by-nights; that's not very different from idle fantasizing.

May 21, 2008 8:21 AM

Jonathan wrote:

Hong Kong didn't take off economically until British colonial official John Cowperthwaite imposed laissez-faire economic policies on it.

May 21, 2008 12:25 PM

Alan K. Henderson wrote:

One reason that Dallas is such a sprawl is that it has been easy to pay for the gas.

I dunno - London did a pretty good job of sprawling before the internal combustion engine existed...

Here are significant reasons for the sprawl:

1. We have room to sprawl; NYC does not.
2. We have more economic freedom than NYC and NY State, thus we have a better economy.
3. High-rise commercial and residential buildings cost more per square foot than low-rise buildings - see #1.
4. All the reasons why many prefer suburbs over big crumbly traffic-congested cities.

May 23, 2008 11:47 AM

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The Zero-Sum Candidate

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