{"id":61862,"date":"2020-11-16T16:31:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T22:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=61862"},"modified":"2020-11-16T16:31:17","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T22:31:17","slug":"61862","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=61862","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chump Effect<\/a>
\nProgressive policies penalize those who play by the rules and shower benefits on those who don\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n

L<\/span>ast January, a small but telling exchange took place at an Elizabeth Warren campaign event in Grimes, Iowa. At the time, Warren was attracting support from the Democratic Party\u2019s left flank, with her bulging portfolio of progressive proposals. \u201cWarren Has a Plan for That<\/a>\u201d read her campaign T-shirts. The biggest buzz surrounded her $1.25 trillion plan to pay off student-loan debt for most Americans.<\/p>\n

A man approached Warren\u00a0with a question<\/a>. \u201cMy daughter is getting out of school. I\u2019ve saved all my money [so that] she doesn\u2019t have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d Warren replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re going to pay for people who didn\u2019t save any money, and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?\u201d<\/p>\n

A video of the exchange went viral. It summed up the frustration many feel over the way progressive policies so often benefit select groups, while subtly undermining others. Saving money to send your children to college used to be considered a hallmark of middle-class responsibility. By subsidizing people who run up large debts, Warren\u2019s policy would penalize those who took that responsibility seriously. \u201cYou\u2019re laughing at me,\u201d the man said, when Warren seemed to wave off his concerns. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what you\u2019re doing. We did the right thing and we get screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That father was expressing an emotion growing more common these days: he felt like a chump. Feeling like a chump doesn\u2019t just mean being upset that your taxes are rising or annoyed that you\u2019re missing out on some windfall. It\u2019s more visceral than that. People feel like chumps when they believe that they\u2019ve played a game by the rules, only to discover that the game is rigged. Not only are they losing, they realize, but their good sportsmanship is being exploited. The players flouting the rules are the ones who get the trophy. Like that Iowa dad, the chumps of modern America feel that the life choices they\u2019re most proud of\u2014working hard, taking care of their families, being good citizens\u2014aren\u2019t just undervalued, but scorned.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cchump\u201d probably derives from an ancient Norse term for a stump or large chunk of wood. The modern word \u201cblockhead\u201d comes to mind, which\u2014no coincidence\u2014was Lucy\u2019s favorite label for the too-trusting Charlie Brown in the\u00a0Peanuts<\/i>\u00a0comic strip. Lucy never tired of snatching away the football; Charlie fell for it every time. We all know the feeling: when you\u2019re inching forward in the freeway exit lane, say, and another driver flies past and swerves onto the ramp at the last second; when your child has to complete her college-entrance exams within a designated time period, but your neighbor\u2019s child gets twice as long because of a suddenly diagnosed \u201clearning disability\u201d; when you pay extra to have your pet travel in the airplane\u2019s cargo hold but the yipping poodle across the aisle, an \u201cemotional-support animal,\u201d gets to ride on its owner\u2019s lap for free. You didn\u2019t know that you could get an\u00a0emotional-support card<\/a>\u00a0just by claiming an anxiety disorder and paying a fee to an online agency? What are you\u2014a chump?<\/p>\n

What makes these indignities so infuriating isn\u2019t just that a few people game the system. It\u2019s that their selfish gambits work only because the rest of us follow the rules. If every driver mobbed the freeway exit from the passing lanes, traffic would come to a halt. The student who fraudulently obtains extra test time gets a leg up only if most other students stick to the original time limit. And if every pet were designated an emotional-support animal, airplanes and restaurants would become full-time menageries. (Some airlines have begun tightening rules on support animals for just this reason.)<\/p>\n

Thousands of norms, rules, and traditions make civilized life possible. Some, like paying taxes or not littering, are enshrined in law. Others are informal. Most of us take pride in adhering to basic standards of etiquette and fairness, to say nothing of following the law. And we have a deep emotional investment in having the people around us follow these norms as well. There\u2019s a reason that we call selfish, disruptive, or criminal behavior \u201cantisocial.\u201d We know that if everyone stopped paying their taxes, or started running red lights and shoplifting, our society would be on its way to collapse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad enough when some random jerk makes you feel like a chump; it\u2019s much worse when government policies create entire classes of chumps. Warren fizzled as a presidential candidate, but her activist positions remain very much in play, promoted by far-left Democrats and party leaders. Many of these plans would penalize people who follow traditional norms and shower benefits on those who don\u2019t. Joe Biden\u2019s platform includes many similar proposals, including a scaled-down college-debt plan. And, across the country, progressive governors, mayors, and district attorneys are pushing local policies\u2014including ultra-lenient treatment of lawbreakers\u2014that turn responsible citizens into chumps, too. The economic and ideological disruptions brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests have only intensified this ongoing bifurcation of America. Call it the Chump Effect.<\/p>\n

C<\/span>hump-Effect policies take two main forms. The first involves bestowing some financial or other benefit on a favored group. Often, these groups are poor or considered victims of discrimination. To be clear, having a compassionate safety net for the poor does not, in itself, turn other people into chumps. The problem arises when antipoverty programs make it more attractive to stay on public assistance than to become self-reliant. When poorly structured incentives reward dependence and penalize work, strivers wonder: Why do I bother? Of course, not all benefit programs are aimed at the poor. Various farm subsidies cost U.S. taxpayers more than\u00a0$20 billion a year<\/a>. Most of that money goes to the\u00a0largest and wealthiest<\/a>\u00a0producers. Meantime, most farmers\u2014just like most businesspeople\u2014somehow survive without tapping into a giant federal slush fund. Then there are various \u201cpro-business\u201d programs such as the Export Import Bank, which, as\u00a0Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center documents<\/a>, inevitably favor huge corporations such as Boeing. Businesses without armies of lobbyists must fend for themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, policies that excuse lax behavior by the few will begin to influence the many, corroding standards.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The other type of policy that turns regular folks into chumps is the failure to penalize\u2014or sometimes even criticize\u2014irresponsible or illegal behavior. This often reflects a well-meaning effort to avoid excessively punishing those who already face challenges in life. We see this in the decision not to prosecute most fare-beaters in New York subways, or the reluctance to remove some disruptive students from classrooms. But \u201cdefining deviancy down<\/a>,\u201d in the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan\u2019s famous phrase, doesn\u2019t affect only the underclass. White-collar criminals sometimes benefit from the perception that their crimes are less serious than those of common thieves. Today, in Portland, Oregon, and other cities, organized provocateurs\u2014many of them white and college-educated\u2014nightly attack government buildings and law-enforcement officers with fireworks, lasers, and firebombs. But as long as the protesters are assumed to be on the left, the national press describes their actions as \u201cmostly peaceful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virtually all transit riders pay their fares. Most students are reasonably well behaved, even in the toughest schools. Most people protesting George Floyd\u2019s killing really have been peaceful. But when authorities downplay or ignore violations of those norms, it sends an unmistakable message to the principled majority: we take you for granted; our sympathies are with the transgressors.<\/p>\n

Both types of Chump-Effect policies\u2014those that unfairly distribute benefits and those that normalize transgressive behavior\u2014are dismissive of what many call bourgeois norms. Policies that selectively favor the needs, or tolerate the misdeeds, of certain groups often have the perverse corollary of undermining the norm followers. When disruptive students remain in the classroom, it\u2019s their attentive classmates who suffer. If a big business games federal programs for an unfair advantage, smaller businesses and consumers pay the price. What\u2019s particularly galling about such policies isn\u2019t just that they reward norm violators\u2014it\u2019s that they\u2019re predicated on the assumption that everyone else will continue adhering to the norms. That\u2019s wishful thinking, of course. Over time, policies that excuse lax behavior by the few will begin to influence the many, corroding the standards that keep a society healthy.<\/p>\n

To be clear, not everyone who benefits from Chump-Effect policies is a slacker or selfish rulebreaker. People in genuine need have every right to sign up for anti-poverty programs, just as farmers who receive federal aid are simply working within the existing system. Nor is it unethical for people to take advantage of arcane tax breaks, or for members of public-employee unions to enjoy their lavish pensions. When flawed programs make unemployment more lucrative than work, pay farmers to grow\u00a0crops no one wants to buy<\/a>, or create\u00a0tax loopholes for favored industries<\/a>, you can\u2019t blame people for acting accordingly. And when government expands its role in distributing society\u2019s resources, you can\u2019t blame influential groups\u2014farmers, unions, businesses\u2014for lobbying in their own interests. But over time, the number of people and businesses dependent on subsidies and other targeted benefits will grow. So will their political influence. Meantime, the pool of people forced to get by without special carve-outs will shrink, even as its members pay the tab for everyone else. In the end, Chump Effect policies encourage Americans to see themselves, not as self-reliant individuals and families, but as members of competing groups, all jockeying for advantage. This is a recipe for political conflict and resentment.<\/p>\n

N<\/span>o one likes being treated like a chump. Not even monkeys. In a famous 2003 experiment, researchers trained capuchin monkeys to perform small tasks in return for a treat, either a delicious grape or a less desirable chunk of cucumber. When the monkeys were alone, they would accept either grapes or cucumbers as their reward. But then the researchers put two female capuchins in adjacent cages. Each completed her task, and each received a treat. But one monkey got a grape, while the other got only cucumber. When the second monkey saw that she\u2019d been shortchanged, she\u00a0howled in protest<\/a>\u00a0and hurled the cucumber back at the researcher. When the task was repeated, and again poor capuchin #2 received a cucumber while her neighbor got a grape, she stood up and shook her enclosure in outrage and despair.<\/p>\n

Who can\u2019t relate? Studies involving humans show that this \u201csocial inequity aversion<\/a>\u201d can be found in cultures around the world. Even young children will protest being shortchanged in social settings. What\u2019s more, children and adults also sometimes resist being given\u00a0more<\/i>\u00a0than their fair share in these sorts of\u00a0experiments<\/a>. It seems that fairness is hardwired into human psychology. When we see others receive unearned benefits\u2014or escape well-earned condemnation\u2014it can trigger resentment. And we are willing to go to surprising lengths to make sure that others live up to our standards.<\/p>\n

\"Victims
Victims of the May violence and looting in Minneapolis include Flora Westbrooks, who lost her hair salon business (DAVID PIERINI\/NORTH NEWS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a\u00a02002 study<\/a>, Swiss researchers Ernst Fehr and Simon G\u00e4chter tried to discover the unwritten rules that enable cooperation between strangers. They recruited volunteers for a game-like experiment involving constantly changing groups of participants who never met face-to-face. Each player in a group of four would receive 20 \u201cmoney unit\u201d credits, which the players were told they could convert to real cash and take home at the end of the session. A player could hold on to his or her credits or choose to invest some or all of them in a joint pot. Money added to the pot would be partially matched with a contribution from the researchers. At the end of each round, the now-expanded pot would be divided evenly among the players,\u00a0regardless of how much each contributed<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the best strategy for the group as a whole would be for all the players to invest all their money in the pot; all would go home considerably richer. But since players weren\u2019t allowed to communicate, they couldn\u2019t be sure how much the other participants would contribute. For an individual player, therefore, the best strategy would be to hold on to the initial 20 credits and then share in whatever money the other players put into the pot. In this scenario, the least cooperative player would take home the most money. Nonetheless, at first, most players were willing to contribute substantial sums to the pot. But when the pots were divvied up after each round\u2014and each player\u2019s contribution revealed\u2014it was obvious that the stingiest players were reaping the biggest benefits. Not surprisingly, with each successive round, players were less and less willing to contribute.<\/p>\n

Economists call this the\u00a0free-rider problem<\/a>, and it has bedeviled cooperative economic systems since hunter-gatherer days. But Fehr and G\u00e4chter also conducted a different version of the money-pot game, one that addressed the free-rider issue. In this version, after the players\u2019 contributions were revealed at the end of each round, the other players had the option of \u201cpunishing\u201d the freeloaders by taking away some of their winnings. But doing so wasn\u2019t cheap. In order to take away three credits from a \u201cdefector,\u201d or a low-contributing player, the punishing player had to give up one credit. So individual players actually lost money each time they opted to punish another. And they didn\u2019t even have the incentive of goading freeloaders to contribute more in future rounds. Since the makeup of the groups changed with each round, the players knew that they would never interact with a particular player again. Nonetheless, \u201cpunishment of defectors was harsh,\u201d the researchers reported. And the more a particular player\u2019s contributions fell short of the group average, the more severe the punishment.<\/p>\n

Fehr and G\u00e4chter used the term \u201caltruistic punishment\u201d to describe this willingness to penalize another for violating a norm, even at cost to oneself. When the researchers asked the players why they were willing to do this, the answer was simple: they were mad as hell. On a scale of \u201cnegative emotions,\u201d participants reported very high levels of animosity toward the defectors. Nobody likes a freeloader. But with the punishment option in place, the experiment changed dramatically. Even on the first round, players contributed more to the pot. And contributions rose with each successive round, as players grew more confident that other players would do their part. What\u2019s fascinating here is how willing participants were to spend their own money punishing the free riders. They weren\u2019t acting in self-interest; they were defending a social norm.<\/p>\n

E<\/span>veryone knows that resentment can be a powerful force in politics. But the money-pot game and similar experiments show just how primal the impulse to punish perceived free riders can be. Most forms of populism are based on the idea that some other group is getting an unfair leg up, while\u00a0we<\/i>\u00a0are being taken advantage of. On the left, that sentiment leads to calls to punish \u201cthe 1 percent.\u201d On the right, it can lead to distrust of \u201celites\u201d and a backlash against immigration and free trade. Donald Trump\u2019s aggrieved style of political speech ably mines this vein of discontent. So does Elizabeth Warren\u2019s refrain that \u201cthe game is rigged<\/a>.\u201d Around the world, rising populist anger has erupted in the\u00a0gilets jaunes<\/i>\u00a0protests in France and last year\u2019s mass demonstrations in Chile. The initial targets of those protests seemed modest: in France, rural workers complained that climate policies unfairly burdened them with high fuel prices; in Chile, a small rise in transit fares was the ostensible spark. In both cases, though, the broader motivation was summed up in a graffito commonly scrawled on Santiago buildings: \u201cDignidad<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politicians ignore such primal forces at their peril. On the right, free-market advocates have long downplayed the social tensions caused by rising income inequality. Today, many young people, facing poor job prospects despite heavy education debts, see American society\u2014and capitalism itself\u2014as fundamentally unfair. That\u2019s one reason the initial outrage over George Floyd\u2019s death ballooned into a much broader protest movement. But policies promoted on the left can also lead to backlashes. Under Barack Obama, many heartland Americans believed that government policies were biased toward helping undocumented immigrants and educated elites, while undermining opportunities for the middle class. That frustration led to the Tea Party movement and, later, the stunning rise of Trump.<\/p>\n

Today, progressives have cultural momentum. Ideas that would have seemed radical under Obama\u2014defund the police, abolish ICE, ban fossil fuels\u2014are now on the table. But that swing of the pendulum may be short-lived. The policies beloved by progressives are particularly prone to creating counterreactions among the citizens they turn into chumps. There are two main reasons for this. First, the social-justice worldview sees all people not as individuals but as members of intersecting categories of power or victimization, defined by class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and more. Since these categories are mostly immutable, individual choices don\u2019t matter much; all life outcomes are the result of \u201cstructural inequities.\u201d Thus, progressives necessarily downplay the importance of individual behavior. If people mention that bad personal choices might limit a person\u2019s progress in life, they are, of course, blaming the victim. On the flip side, a person proud of achieving success is likely to be told some version of Barack Obama\u2019s retort in the 2012 presidential campaign: \u201cYou didn\u2019t build that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, the backlash produced by progressive policies isn\u2019t just a matter of hurt feelings. Progressives believe that the primary role of government is to redistribute society\u2019s resources: housing, jobs, education, and other benefits should all be preferentially allocated to certain groups. The sacrifices that an individual might have made, say, to invest in a small apartment building, or to excel in school, aren\u2019t considered when officials determine who deserves discounted rent or should be admitted to a selective high school. It\u2019s easy to assume that the beneficiaries of progressive policies are mostly the poor or minorities, but that\u2019s often not the case. Many zoning rules, environmental programs, and government pension plans, for example, wind up hurting low-income groups while favoring those more affluent. By the same token, many progressives believe that, since certain groups are targets of discrimination, criminal behavior by members of those groups should be penalized less severely, or not at all. Here, too, the victims of the resulting increased crime are almost always members of those same communities.<\/p>\n

Both types of progressive policies do tangible harm to the followers of traditional norms. \u201cPro-tenant\u201d housing regulations can destroy an urban striver\u2019s lifelong investment. In Chicago, New York, and other cities, sweeping bail reform and early-release programs to protect prisoners from Covid-19 returned thousands of criminals to their neighborhoods in 2020. Murder rates predictably skyrocketed. Many of those caught in the crossfire have been children. Progressive policies aim for \u201cequity,\u201d but in practice, many function more like the money-pot game or the capuchin experiment. Under proposals now on the table, wise technocrats would divvy up society\u2019s rewards\u2014doling out grapes to some, cucumber to others\u2014while free riders would have broader license to game the system.<\/p>\n

N<\/span>ext to the extremism of Warren or Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden struck many primary voters as the sensible, moderate choice. In reality, Biden and his advisors have embraced their party\u2019s leftward lurch, even as the candidate retains his amiable Uncle Joe image. \u201cHe appears more centrist than he actually is,\u201d Peter Beinart writes admiringly in\u00a0The Atlantic<\/i><\/a>. A delighted Noam Chomsky calls Biden\u2019s policy positions \u201cfarther to the left than any Democratic candidate in memory<\/a>.\u201d And the party\u2019s hardliners are planning to hold the presumptive president-elect\u00a0to these promises. The Warren-aligned Progressive Change Campaign Committee is\u00a0working with allied groups<\/a>\u00a0to pack a Biden executive branch with activists. \u201cThe goal is to have people throughout the federal government who know how to exercise power,\u201d says PCCC cofounder Stephanie Taylor.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats believe we must embed environmental justice, economic justice, and climate justice at the heart of our policy and governing agenda,\u201d the\u00a0party platform<\/a>\u00a0states, using the coded jargon of the modern Left. In progressive circles, \u201cjustice\u201d doesn\u2019t mean fairness or evenhandedness; it describes a world in which every problem is the fault of some entrenched power group. Therefore, every solution should involve both special aid for the victims and some sort of punishment for those who created the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia shows how environmental programs can burden the poor and middle class while benefiting the affluent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Democratic platform promises a root-and-branch overhaul of federal programs to ensure that they operate according to elaborate calculations of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other metrics. As the country struggles through the Covid recession, for example, the party promises that funds supporting small businesses will\u00a0flow preferentially to companies\u00a0owned by women and minorities and promises to \u201ccombat gentrification\u201d and offer relief from \u201cexorbitant\u201d rents. (Under the \u201cjustice\u201d paradigm, landlords are guilty until proven innocent.) A Biden Department of Education would bring back Obama-era rules forbidding \u201cdisparate disciplinary treatment\u201d of students based on race. In practice, that means that students will be disciplined not based on the frequency of their misbehavior but according to racial quotas.<\/p>\n

Even Biden\u2019s $2 trillion climate plan seems designed more to spread wealth among favored groups than to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. You\u2019d think anyone who believes that climate change is an existential threat would want to build green infrastructure as quickly and as cheaply as possible\u2014the faster it\u2019s deployed, the quicker emissions come down, right? But in announcing his plan, Biden said, \u201cWhen I think about climate change,\u00a0the word I think of is \u2018jobs.\u2019<\/a>\u201d His platform proposes obligating green contractors to hire union workers, which would drive up costs dramatically. \u201cAnd we will do all this with an eye towards equity, access, benefits, and ownership opportunities for frontline communities,\u201d\u00a0the platform says<\/a>. In other words, expect every green project to be bogged down in endless reviews to ensure that contractors and workers represent the prescribed racial and gender mix. The plan is a recipe for high costs, slow progress\u2014and sweetheart deals. Who pays for this? Ordinary consumers\u2014the chumps\u2014who will see their energy, food, and other expenses skyrocket, all for surprisingly little environmental benefit.<\/p>\n

The platform offers sticks along with carrots. Some far-left climate advocates tend to focus more on their desire to drag energy companies into court than on the need to develop alternatives to fossil fuels. \u201cThese are criminals<\/a>,\u201d Bernie Sanders has said of fossil-fuel executives. Warren uses similar language. Biden\u2019s platform also threatens legal action against companies that \u201cput profit over people.\u201d For these politicians, the top priority seems to be ensuring that the right villains are punished and the correct \u201cfrontline communities\u201d get their subsidies. They are less interested in how much their policies will actually help the climate or how deeply they will disrupt the lives of ordinary Americans.<\/p>\n

California is a test case in how environmental programs can wind up burdening the poor and middle class while benefiting the affluent. For example, people who purchase electric cars in California receive a state rebate of up to\u00a0$4,500 per vehicle<\/a>. Given that the most popular EV in California is the luxury Tesla, with an average price of over $50,000, we can assume that few lower-income people are cashing these checks. EV owners also get the right to drive\u2014alone\u2014in the coveted high-occupancy vehicle lanes on the state\u2019s crowded freeways. The upshot: while working-class chumps stew in traffic, rich Tesla owners sail by in their own special \u201cdiamond lane<\/a>,\u201d serenely isolated from the gas-burning hoi polloi.<\/p>\n

The incentives encouraging homeowners to install rooftop solar systems also amount to \u201csubsidizing the rich<\/a>,\u201d according to an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute\u2019s Benjamin Zycher. Meantime, as\u00a0Joel Kotkin notes<\/a>, strict environmental and business regulations have made California \u201cthe worst state in the U.S. when it comes to creating middle-class jobs.\u201d While California\u2019s tech boom mints billionaires, the state\u2019s non-rich have seen their lives become \u201cproletarianized,\u201d he writes. This growing class divide was starkly illustrated during recent heat waves. Though the state has poured billions into wind and solar projects\u2014and residents pay some of the nation\u2019s highest electricity rates\u2014that green infrastructure couldn\u2019t keep up with demand. Rolling blackouts left residents sweltering in the dark\u2014some of them, anyway. Among the state\u2019s most affluent homeowners,\u00a0$30,000 backup-generator systems<\/a>\u00a0are the new must-have.<\/p>\n

I<\/span>n 2010, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds made an offhand comment on his\u00a0Instapundit\u00a0<\/a>blog. The government often tries to expand the middle class by subsidizing the things that middle-class people have, he observed:<\/p>\n

If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we\u2019ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren\u2019t causes of middle-class status; they\u2019re markers for possessing the kinds of traits\u2014self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc.\u2014that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn\u2019t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since then, that insight has been cited so often that it\u2019s become known as Reynolds\u2019s Law. It\u2019s based on a deep truth: success in life isn\u2019t determined by owning things, or even having a high income. It is largely the result of certain habits that lead to lifelong advancement\u2014what economists call \u201ccultural capital.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his book\u00a0Who Killed Civil Society<\/i><\/a>, Manhattan Institute fellow Howard Husock explores how the academic establishment and social-welfare bureaucracy came to denigrate those habits, or bourgeois norms. In the twentieth century, the values of industriousness, good citizenship, and the like were reinforced by organizations including \u201csettlement houses\u201d for immigrants, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and various adult civic groups. Husock has\u00a0cited\u00a0<\/a>the influence of Karl Marx in redefining these values as exclusive privileges of the elite. In reality, Husock argues, \u201cbourgeois norms [are] an inclusive set of norms.\u201d They can benefit anyone who follows them. The mission of settlement houses and similar groups was formative, he says, not reformative\u2014that is, they tried to encourage productive behaviors, rather than simply help people survive the consequences of poor life choices.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the values that lifted generations of immigrants out of poverty have been under thoroughgoing attack for at least two generations. In an effort not to stigmatize the poor, social-welfare reformers overshot the target and also dismantled the stigmas against behaviors that\u00a0keep<\/i>\u00a0people poor. It became considered unseemly to criticize unwed childbearing, drug use, or even petty crime. Under the social-justice paradigm, those behaviors were reframed\u2014not as choices but as symptoms of an unjust social structure.<\/p>\n

In a weird revival of racist stereotypes, today\u2019s critical-race theorists see dysfunctional behaviors occasionally found among minority groups as being emblematic of those groups. In turn, traits that help people succeed\u2014ones shared by cultures around the world\u2014are stigmatized as typically \u201cwhite.\u201d Earlier this year, the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of African American History & Culture explained this bizarre framework on its\u00a0website<\/a>. A handy chart summarized some of those \u201cAspects & Assumptions of Whiteness<\/a>,\u201d including \u201cself-reliance,\u201d \u201cthe nuclear family,\u201d and the idea that \u201chard work is the key to success.\u201d Reliance on the scientific method, mathematics, and \u201crational linear thinking\u201d were also identified as instruments of white dominance. If a secret arm of the KKK created a doctrine designed to undermine the advancement of minority communities, it could hardly do a better job than the Smithsonian\u2019s woke theorists.<\/p>\n

C<\/span>hump-Effect policies don\u2019t just undermine societal values; they also typically fail at their stated goals. One reason they so often backfire is that they rely on present-tense thinking. Lawmakers\u2014and the voters they answer to\u2014tend to look at issues in the current moment, rather than seeing them as evolving conditions. So they create policies to solve a problem for a particular group of people right now, without considering the perverse incentives that their program puts in place.<\/p>\n

Rent control is a classic example: a ceiling on rent hikes certainly helps current tenants. But years pass; family incomes climb; children grow up. Decades later, a well-off widow might be paying minimal rent to stay in an apartment much bigger than she needs. With many people like her staying put in underutilized apartments, the price of unregulated units soars, making it hard, if not impossible, for the next generation of low-income families to find housing. Landlords, the chumps in this scenario, adjust by cutting back on maintenance, and sometimes by simply walking away from money-losing buildings. \u201cRent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city,\u201d writes Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck, \u201cexcept for bombing.\u201d Somehow, this reality always takes progressives by surprise. True to form, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last year proposed a\u00a0federal rent control law<\/a>, and she has joined in the campaign to\u00a0#CancelRent<\/a>\u00a0in the wake of the Covid crisis.<\/p>\n

The failure to anticipate how incentives influence behavior also bedevils most tax-the-rich plans. For progressives, extremely high taxes on the rich serve two functions: they would supposedly yield inexhaustible funds for social programs; and, as an added bonus, they\u2019d inflict some well-deserved pain on the people whom leftists hold responsible for inequality. But high-tax advocates fail to anticipate the dramatic ways people adjust their investments and lifestyles in the face of extreme taxes. The\u00a0Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, and David Bowie<\/a>\u00a0weren\u2019t the only wealthy innovators who fled Britain\u2019s confiscatory taxes in the 1970s. In late August, when many of New York\u2019s richest residents still hadn\u2019t returned from their Covid refuges, Mayor de Blasio pleaded with a voter, \u201cHelp me tax the wealthy<\/a>. Help me redistribute wealth.\u201d New York governor Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, has been\u00a0begging New York\u2019s wealthiest to return<\/a>, conceding that, despite the accusation that the rich don\u2019t pay their fair share, nearly half the city\u2019s income-tax revenues come from the top 1 percent of earners. Given threats of still-higher taxes, many probably won\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n

High earners have been leaving tax-heavy states like California and New York for years. That concern hasn\u2019t stopped AOC and other lawmakers from supporting a new \u201cbillionaires\u2019 tax\u201d that would target not just the income but also the investment wealth of the richest New Yorkers. California lawmakers have also floated proposals for wealth taxes. Characteristically, Warren offers the\u00a0most ambitious plan<\/a>, a 2 percent federal tax on assets over $50 million and a higher rate for billionaires.<\/p>\n

Warren claims that her tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a decade from under 0.1 percent of households. Many economists believe that\u2019s na\u00efve. People don\u2019t become superrich by ignoring economic conditions. Clinton administration Treasury secretary Larry Summers and a colleague estimate that Warren\u2019s tax plan would\u00a0raise less than half\u00a0<\/a>the revenue she predicts. And all those efforts to avoid taxation carry hidden costs: less investment in new businesses, less innovation, less willingness to take risks. These costs are no less real for being diffuse: tepid growth, fewer jobs, and slower progress in pharmaceuticals and other life-improving innovations.<\/p>\n

I<\/span>n early 2019, I swiped my MetroCard to enter the subway in New York\u2019s Grand Central Terminal and noticed a man in his early thirties lingering by the security gate. He was well dressed, with a Jack Spade leather messenger bag tucked under his arm and his blond hair sharply styled. I was wondering why he didn\u2019t swipe his card to enter when a knot of exiting commuters pushed through the gate. He caught the door before it swung shut\u2014and walked through as though he owned the place.<\/p>\n

Just a year earlier, Manhattan district attorney general Cy Vance, Jr. had announced that his office would no longer prosecute most people arrested for beating fares in the transit system. Enforcing laws against turnstile jumping, it was argued, unfairly targets the poor and minorities. Ocasio-Cortez lent her support on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>: \u201cArresting people who can\u2019t afford a $2.75 fare makes no one safer and destabilizes our community,\u201d she wrote. Of course, enforcing laws in the subway makes\u00a0everyone<\/i>\u00a0safer, as fare-beaters are also far more likely to commit other crimes. And turnstile jumping is not a static phenomenon. People respond, again, to incentives\u2014even people who can afford Jack Spade bags. In the months after the DA\u2019s move,\u00a0fare-beating climbed dramatically<\/a>, costing the MTA an estimated\u00a0$300 million<\/a>\u00a0in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most destructive crime waves in U.S. history is being met with a collective yawn from the media.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eliminating penalties for petty crimes is another example of present-tense thinking. Reduced penalties for \u201cminor\u201d offenses in several states have led to\u00a0huge spikes in shoplifting and other crimes<\/a>. In Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and other cities, progressive DAs have cut back on prosecutions of many low-level crimes. The University of Chicago\u2019s Charles Lipson calls the new policy \u201c\u2018Go ahead, break our windows\u2019 policing<\/a>.\u201d And, just as the Broken Windows theory would predict, the resulting upswing in lawbreaking goes beyond petty crime. According to the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/i><\/a>, homicides have spiked in 36 of the nation\u2019s 50 largest cities.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, progressives see tolerance for transgressive behavior as a kind of moral duty. If the perpetrators are poor, or perceived as targets of injustice, the plight of their victims is a secondary concern. After all, the progressive project focuses on\u00a0structural<\/i>\u00a0inequities\u2014that is, the status of entire groups of people as being part of either oppressive or oppressed classes. If a particular crime\u2014say, an unjustified police shooting of a minority suspect\u2014seems to embody that power dynamic, it becomes the focus of national attention. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that, in itself. Unjustified police shootings should merit calls for reform. But if crimes don\u2019t fit the framework\u2014say, gang-related killings, vastly more common\u2014they get little notice. In the end, the large majority of people in poor communities who actually do follow the law are treated as chumps.<\/p>\n

This selective focus has been on dramatic display during the months of protests following the Floyd killing. It\u2019s true that only a small fraction of protests turned violent, but those incidents still added up to thousands of cases of looting and arson and dozens of shootings. Most didn\u2019t make the national news. And, while the peaceful protesters have mostly returned to their lives, the violent minority is growing more emboldened.<\/p>\n

Independent journalist Michael Tracey, who spent weeks touring\u00a0overlooked riot zones\u00a0<\/a>in cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Olympia, Washington, was shocked by the scale of the destruction. Minority and immigrant communities \u201cbore the brunt of the damage,\u201d he reports. Even as the violence has spread, calls to \u201cdefund the police\u201d\u2014even \u201cabolish the police\u201d\u2014are being heeded in many cities.\u00a0Budgets were being slashed<\/a>\u00a0even as riots continued. In Portland, the district attorney is\u00a0declining to prosecute<\/a>\u00a0hundreds of protesters arrested for \u201cnonviolent\u201d crimes. (One such\u00a0quickly released suspect<\/a>\u00a0allegedly stabbed two people to death a week later.) In short, one of the most destructive crime waves in U.S. history is being met with a collective yawn from the media and a mild scolding, at best, from some representatives of law enforcement. It wasn\u2019t until polls started showing rising voter concern that Biden and other Democrats began cautiously criticizing the violence.<\/p>\n

In North Minneapolis, Tracey talked with\u00a0Flora Westbrooks<\/a>, a black woman who had owned a hair salon there for 34 years. The business helped her earn enough to buy a house and send her son to law school. On May 29, arsonists burned it down. \u201cSometimes I\u2019m like, OK, I gotta go to work,\u201d she told Tracey. But then she remembers: \u201cI don\u2019t own anything anymore. Everything\u2019s burned to the ground. I have nothing no more. Everything I worked for.\u201d The tragedy of the Chump Effect is in stories like these. People devote their lives to making things better for themselves, their children, and their communities. They follow the bourgeois norms so disdained by the Left. Then, when our society stops defending those norms, they\u2019re the ones who suffer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chump Effect Progressive policies penalize those who play by the rules and shower benefits on those who don\u2019t. Last January, a small but telling exchange took place at an Elizabeth Warren campaign event in Grimes, Iowa. At the time, Warren was attracting support from the Democratic Party\u2019s left flank, with her bulging portfolio of … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61863,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61862\/revisions\/61863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}