'What he said!' Ignorance

More than once, the Oklahoman has run a letter praising one of the syndicated columns it runs. Such letters are generally quite worthless, since whatever point the columnist was trying to make was already made the first time. Simply writing in to agree with a columnist without somehow augmenting the original argument is a waste of space.

Well, unless your paper's letters section is just a tool to further a plutocratic/theocratic agenda, and then having more and more repetition of "what he said!" is exactly what you want to do over and over again.

Thus, it's hardly surprising to see today's letter from Robert A. Baron of Edmond. He writes:

Reading Cal Thomas' “Exploring income ‘inequality'” (Commentary, Dec. 14) reminded me of advice my parents and teachers gave me when I was a boy: “Work hard, and you'll be a success.” Basically, they were expressing their belief in a strong link between effort and rewards: the harder you work, the more likely you are to achieve your goals. Decades of research indicate that they were right: the link between effort and outcomes is crucial.

(Note to the Oklahoman: there's a thing called "hyperlink" on the web.)

So the aptly-named Baron is talking about this column by Cal Thomas. It is, without question, one of the dumbest things that could be written by a professional opinion writer about income inequality, which is probably why the Oklahoman ran it. Thomas tries to make the case that back in his day, he had it hard, but nevertheless managed to succeed.

He talks about when he was 14 and working as a bellhop he pulled down $8 in tips "on a really good day." Of course, when Thomas was 14, it was 1956, and inflation calculators suggest that nowadays that has the same buying power as almost $70 today-- NOT A BAD DAY AT ALL FOR 14, CAL!

Cal says that "In the early '60s, as a copyboy at NBC News in Washington," his "take-home pay was less than $100 a week." WOW! Life must have been hard, Cal (inflation adjusted, that's ca. $700 a week). He laments that he "made $25,000 a year and took public transportation to and from work" back in 1979 (that's almost $80,000 today).

Cal's point-- even though he fails to actually make it convincingly-- is that he worked hard but somehow managed to succeed and get rich. Amazingly, though, Cal did this back in the 50's and 60's-- you know, when the tax on top income rates was upwards of 70%, and when college was affordable, and when unions made sure that workers had pensions and healthcare. Indeed, NO WONDER CAL SUCCEEDED. Yes, one needs to work hard, but it makes more sense when there is actually such a thing as upward mobility.

Indeed, when Thomas writes "Was it 'fair' that these people were richer than I was? Absolutely, as long as I had the opportunity through education, risk-taking, experience and hard work to eventually make more," he does so imagining that in the present, that there are opportunities for an affordable education (like he had) and that experience and hard work will actually lead to chances to make more money.

This, of course, is exactly the same sentiment that Mr Baron tries to make. Of course, Baron, who was born about the same time Thomas was, benefitted from the same advantages as ol' Cal. Nevertheless, he imagines that somehow trying to deal with income inequality will lead to a world where no one wants to work.

So what's wrong with income inequality? Well, it's not hard. If you imagine an America where working hard means you get ahead, then you're imagining a fictional America. That's because right now, success is far more connected to who your parents were than to how hard you work.

That's why it's so frustrating to read things like this:

Another downside to such a policy is its negative impact on entrepreneurship. As a professor of entrepreneurship, I've known many entrepreneurs. They differ in countless ways, but they all believe that working hard is necessary for success. So when leaders who urge "income equalization" also express support for entrepreneurship, I'm puzzled. How can they hold both views?

Notice the strawmen here? Again, Baron imagines that "working hard" is the only thing that leads to success. And also, no one is talking about "income equalization" here. It's about making opportunity (things like health, education, and experience) more available to Americans, instead of just those at the top of the income ladder.

Could there be a more disingenuous letter than Baron's? Perhaps. Would a real newspaper run such a letter? No. But the Oklahoman isn't a real newspaper, and so it is happy to run letters that parrot right wing plutocracy mythology, and so we get crap like this.