Hard Heads, Soft Hearts Makes Me Want to Throw Up

Ugh.  I mean every word of my title.

Blinder's book wouldn't have been half as bad if he had just been honest.  The goal of his book wasn't to find policies that incorporate both "hard headedness" (reliance on market structures) and "soft heartededness" (curbing inequality); rather, it was to bash Republicans and praise Democrats.  

I'm sure my liberal classmates (whom I love dearly!) loved this book.

On page 10, Blinder makes the laughable assertion that, "The many policy changes that I advocate in this book are not easily classified as 'conservative' or 'liberal,' as Democratic or Republican.  They derive... from a coherent underlying philosophy."  Nevermind that his philosophy is the philosophy of the Democratic Party.  [He was on Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors and an advisor to Kerry's campaign in 2004!!!  And this guy claims to be anti-partisan?!]

He makes his first error on page 24, stating that welfare is 'public generosity.'  He goes on and on about how Democrats and liberals care more about 'public charity' and 'public generosity' than conservatives and Republicans.  

But taxes and welfare spending are not charity or generosity.  I choose to give to charities; I am forced to pay taxes.  If I don't give money to Make A Wish Foundation, no one throws me in jail.  If I don't pay taxes, I end up in the slammer.  Are we beginning to see the difference?

Blinder also states that the free market produces winners and losers, as if every market transaction produced a loser.  (And as if only the rich win, another Democratic Party line.)  But in a free market, wouldn't we see almost all winners?  If I am (freely) engaging in a transaction, then I believe I am going to "win" and so does the person on the other end of the deal.  Only when coercion enters the system (through taxes, regulations, etc.) will there be a loser produced.  

Blinder is not wrong, however, to point out that the market produces inequalities.  Free markets might produce inequalities... but they also make the poor better off - and if we are really to have a "soft-heart" for the poor, then the most just thing to do would be to follow the free market and abandon Blinder's redistributive policies.