Ed Hudgins

Here's another piece on scientists making the lame walk, published the day the Pope arrived in NY. How many of you saw the coast-to-coast 24/7 coverage of this science breakthrough? That's my point. Progress is in labs like these. http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/no-exoskeleton-no-brain-surgery-paralyzed-man-walks-again-using-brain-waves

Pope Francis vs. the Cure of Reason
By Edward Hudgins

September 25, 2015 -- A young girl was recently interviewed on TV about her encounter with Pope Francis on his visit to the United States. She cried with joy as she described how he touched her on the forehead and offered a blessing. Now, she said, she might get the miracle she’s prayed for. Maybe someday she’ll be able to walk.

Who could not be moved by a crippled child who wants to be cured? But what is really wrenching is the fact that this child and so many others look to faith rather than science and reason.

Medical breakthroughs

On the same day the Pope was touching the little girl, a news story was circulating about a breakthrough in prosthetics. A brain implant has restored to a man with a robotic hand his sense of touch.

Another story in recent months documented technology that allows individuals to control their artificial limbs with their thoughts.

Some even express fears that bionic legs in the future could be so good that they will be preferred to the natural ones we’re born with.

The sightless have sought divine intersession to cure blindness since before the time of Jesus. A few days before the Pope toured D.C., a breakthrough was announced that involves applying a light-sensitive protein found in algae to the back of the retinas of eyes to, in effect, replace the rods and cones destroyed by certain diseases. The technique has been successful in mice and human tests are now coming.

This restorative treatment has welcome competition. Last month saw a man receive the first bionic eye implant.

And let’s not forget that deafness is in the process of being vanquished thanks to cochlear implants.

Free markets needed

Free markets, of course, if allowed to operate, will make what are now pricey, experimental medical technologies affordable for most, just as markets have allowed entrepreneurs to create and bring down the prices of computers, smartphones, tablets, Wifi, and all the hardware and software of the information revolution.

Handicapped individuals, like the girl who was so happy the Pope touched her, might have bright futures indeed. But they need to recognize that it is not faith that will make them whole. It is reason.

Human reason needed

It is the power of the human mind, especially in science and engineering, that has brought about the benefits of our modern world. Yet where are the parades, the speeches before Congress, and the celebrations that recognize the sources of such benefits and encourage reason and achievement as foundational values in our culture? Why do so many seek hope in faith and otherworldly miracles when real achievements—“miracles” of the human mind—are all around us? Why do so few understand that training minds and encouraging entrepreneurship is the best way to ensure a healthy, prosperous future? With all the enthusiasm we see for the Pope, where is the enthusiasm for the actual creators and achievers in our world?

Ironically, the Pope, in his economic ignorance, denounces the free market system that could cure that little girl. And he promotes draconian economic restrictions to fight hypothesized global warming, restrictions that would ensure that the poor he says he cares so much about will be with us always. The Pope—and all of us—indeed should empathize with that little girl. But he should be touting reason as the cure. This Jesuit Pope needs to read his Thomas Aquinas!

Those who are enthusiastic about the Pope’s visit because he inspires hope for a better world had better look to the real source of all our blessings: the human mind.

Explore

Edward Hudgins, “How Anti-Individualist Fallacies Prevent Us from Curing Death.” April 22, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “Pope Francis: Beware of Earth Day Thinking.” April 22, 2014.

Edward Hudgins, “Francis I: Pope of the Poor.” March 21, 2013.

GOP 2015 Second Debate Rundown

By Edward Hudgins

The second GOP presidential debates (held September 16, 2015) were grueling affairs: four candidates for nearly two hours and eleven others nattering on for over three hours more. The TV audience was torn between coffee to stay awake through it all or gin to ease the pain. But here are some highlights that deserve attention.


CNN opted for a food-fight format. Ask candidates what they thought about what other candidates said about them and let the reality TV begin. Unfortunately, this approach made it tough for candidates to highlight their priorities based on a unified vision and underlying principles. Of course, most don’t have priorities based on a unified vision and underlying principles.

This format meant lots of mini-debates. It also meant that some candidates in the main event were sidelined for long periods of time; after the intros, Huckabee didn’t get a word in for 45 minutes. But the back and forth did bring out some real differences that might have been lost in the normal, press-conference “everybody repeat your one-minute talking point on X” approach.

Donald Trump again was the debate’s big draw. The first question was to Carly Fiorina concerning Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s remark that because of The Donald’s temperament he is a loose cannon and that it’s dangerous for him to control our atomic cannons. (Are you following all this?) Fiorina said that’s for the voters to decide. Trump bizarrely responded first by saying he didn’t know why Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was even included in the debate. What? Paul responded that Trump’s tendency to attack people because they’re short, tall, fat, or ugly indicates a problem. Trump responded that he had not attacked Paul’s appearance (he had attacked Fiorina’s) but said there was plenty of subject material there, presumably worthy of attack.

A source of Trump’s support is he’s perceived as a no-nonsense guy who doesn’t mince words. That’s fine for describing ISIS killers—a refreshing change from President Obama, who saves his vicious attacks for Republicans. But the problem is not just that Trump comes off as a buffoon. When former Florida Governor Jeb Bush criticized Trump for giving money to Hillary Clinton, Trump responded that as a businessman he had to get along with all politicians. And Trump trumpets his alleged ability to get along with world leaders. But if how he gets along with other Republicans is any indication, he will neither be effective in working with members of Congress nor be able to charm other heads of state.

None of the other candidates picked up explicitly on the “elephant in the room” implications of Trump’s remark that businessmen have to get along with all politicians. That is exactly the fundamental problem with the current system: crony politicians run a mafia-like “wealth redistribution” and protection racket.

Is Trump really a political outsider or part of this corrupt political system? Or is this the only way someone like Trump can do business?

The popularity of Trump, Ben Carson, and Fiorina is attributed to their outsider status; and one of Fiorina’s central themes has been “challenging the status quo.” Thus the candidates who do or have held office had to resort to one of two strategies. Governor Chris Christie had to argue that as a Republican in New Jersey he’s always an outsider. Or they had to argue, has Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did to Trump, “We don't need an apprentice in the White House.” With Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Jeb Bush made virtues of their “We did it in our state” creds. We have yet to see whether this will work with GOP voters angry that Republicans continue to get rolled-over by Obama.

On same-sex marriage and the refusal of Kentucky state official Kim Davis to issue wedding licenses to gays as mandated by the Supreme Court, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum at the pre-debate embarrassed themselves by arguing that she had a right to do so because of her religious beliefs.

Worse, Huckabee said, “The courts can't make a law. They can interpret one. They can review one. They can't implement it. They can't force it.” Court rulings might be bad—the ones concerning Obamacare in particular—but Court rulings are the law until the Constitution is amended. In the pre-debate, former New York Governor George Pataki was right about the matter, declaring that he would have fired Davis.

Foreign policy and especially how to deal with ISIS and Iran were important topics. Three approaches emerged among the candidates. First was the “proceed with caution” approach championed by Rand Paul. Second was the “peace through strength” approach. The argument goes that Obama is a weakling clown who sucks up to enemies and gets no respect. That’s why the Russians moved into Ukraine and why Iran stuck us with a terrible treaty that will allow them to get nukes. Show some steel and we might not have to use force. Fiorina gave a detailed account of how to build up the military. This was the safe position because it meant not having to take up the third approach, the almost single issue of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: send in lots of troops.

Immigration was also a hot topic, and pretty much everyone wanted to build a wall to keep out Mexicans. But Trump came under justified criticism, especially from Christie, that his plan to pick up and deport 12 million illegal immigrants was just not doable and not a serious suggestion.

Paul stood out especially by coming out in support of Colorado’s decriminalization of marijuana. He pointed out that while middle-class voters who take a toke—Jeb Bush confessed that he had!—can usually avoid prison time, poor minorities find themselves more often jailed. This makes their hard lives even harder. Paul was responding to Christie’s declaration that he would ignore Colorado’s law the first day he was in office as President because federal law should trump state law.

Fiorina offered a moving and sensible comment when she said, “My husband Frank and I buried a child to drug addiction. So, we must invest more in the treatment of drugs. I agree with Senator Paul. I agree with states' rights. But we are misleading young people when we tell them that marijuana is just like having a beer. It's not.”

Most of the candidates did offer the usual rhetoric about economic liberty, and some even let shine through some deeper truths. Concerning whether to eliminate tax breaks for hedge fund managers, Huckabee actually responded, “I think we ought to get rid of all the taxes on people who produce. Why should we penalize productivity?”

When asked what woman she would place on a $10 bill, Fiorina sounded a universalist note. She said she’d keep the bill as it is because “we ought to recognize that women are not a special-interest group. Women are the majority of this nation. We are half the potential of this nation, and this nation will be better off when every woman has the opportunity to live the life she chooses.”

And in sharp contrast to the sloppy or stupid words of some, like Trump, who asserted that as President “they” would create jobs, Fiorina said, “The highest calling of leadership is to unlock potential in others. Problems have festered in Washington for too long. And the potential of this nation is being crushed.” Hear-hear!

Explore:

Edward Hudgins, The Republican Party’s Civil War: Will Freedom Win? 2014.

William Thomas, “Donald Trump: A Know-Nothing for the 21st Century.” August 31, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “GOP Undercard Debate: Fiorina vs. Santorum.” August 7, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “What Carly Fiorina Brings to the GOP Agenda.” May 6, 2015.

The Robots of Labor Day
By Edward Hudgins

September 2, 2015 -- Fear of robots has been rising: not just fear of the sci-fi killer kind but also fear that robots will take our jobs.

But this Labor Day we should celebrate the fact that robots free us from the need to perform certain tasks, make our labor more valuable, and could usher in new age of prosperity and human flourishing.

Robots are special types of machines. They’re programmed electro-mechanical devices that perform various physical functions, ideally better than humans. They range from the types that have been in factories for decades or that now roam the planet Mars to the more human-looking types that still are not in wide use. Artificial Intelligence (AI), which involves making computers—including those in robotic form—perform the higher-level cognitive functions that so far are only the capacities of humans, is now generally lumped in with robots.

In recent years the fear that robots will take all our jobs has been on the rise. Demonstrators in Austin, Texas held signs reading "Stop the Robots" and "Humans are the future." In Britain, 40 percent of people fear robots will take their jobs. Even in India, where labor is cheap, robots are becoming even cheaper and causing concern about the future of that country’s economy.

So should workers be concerned?

The fear of machines and technologies, of which robots are a subset, goes back to the Industrial Revolution. Two centuries ago the Luddites in Britain sabotaged weaving machines fearing, for example, that textile factories would throw out of work skilled artisans making cloth by hand. And factories did just that! Was this bad for workers?

Karl Marx thought it was good in the long run because machines made production more efficient; more and more goods could be produced. But he believed that increased productivity would mean factory owners would be able to fire many of their workers and cut the wages of the rest. The very few rich—the one percent!—would become richer, and the poor would become poorer as their ranks swelled. Eventually, the workers would revolt, overthrow the system, and distribute wealth from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

But that didn’t happen. A prosperous middle class emerged in Britain and elsewhere. Where was Marx wrong?

Ask this: If an owner’s factory could produce 1,000 shirts a day, driving out of business a cottage workshop that could produce only ten, what would happen to those 1,000 shirts? If most workers were destitute, there would be no customers for those shirts and no revenues for the owners.

Ask this: If an owner’s factory could produce 1,000 shirts a day, driving out of business a cottage workshop that could produce only ten, what would happen to those 1,000 shirts? If most workers were destitute, there would be no customers for those shirts and no revenues for the owners.

In fact, there are always uses for human labor and a competition for labor. The ten cottage workers would have to find other employment. This was a tough adjustment in the class system of Britain. But individuals learned to be entrepreneurial. And as they found new work, indeed, created new roles for themselves, they could buy the necessities of life at lower cost thanks to increased productivity. That’s where the 1,000 shirts went!

In general, as productivity rises, workers might have to go into different fields or industries but they can trade their labor for more purchasing power and acquire clothes, food, automobiles, TVs, and everything that makes up our modern world.

Today no one can doubt that technology makes our lives better. Entrepreneurs have given us a plethora of new consumer goods and services. Ten years ago there were no smartphones. Today every manual laborer at a construction site seems to have one as they chat with friends and check email and websites during their breaks. Five years ago there were no iPads. Now all kids seem to have tablets of one kind or other.

Robots and AI are now saving labor that until now has been the purview of only the smartest of humans. For example, AI is providing better diagnostics and treatment recommendations for certain ailments than do flesh-and-blood physicians. Are they just throwing doctors out of work? Or are they freeing doctors for other tasks while improving health care for all?

Part of the fear of robots, AI, and technology is that they might help the economy overall but eliminate the need for particular individuals to do particular jobs. Lots of folks will have to find different work. America in the past has had the greatest job turnover rate but also the greatest job creation rate, but this fact might be cold comfort for some.

Here is where having a day for “labor” obscures a fundamental truth. There is no real dichotomy between labor on the one hand and managers, investors, and entrepreneurs on the other. All workers are managers of their own time. All workers are investors in their own skills and capacities. All workers are entrepreneurs, deciding what fields they should go into and watching for opportunities in a fast-changing economy.

And here’s where robots can’t replace something humans can and should do. We can and should strive to be the entrepreneurs of our own lives. We should take full responsibility for ourselves, think independently, set our own goals, devise strategies to meet them, and take advantage of every opportunity that allows us to reach our goals. Technologies, including robots, offer us such opportunities. And such technologies are the result of the most human of all attributes: our rational capacity; Ayn Rand called machines the “frozen form of a living intelligence.”

So on Labor Day, let’s celebrate the fact that technology frees us to do more and have more. And let embrace, indeed, let's work for the coming age of robots and AI that will give us all the opportunity for a more prosperous and flourishing future.

Explore:

Bradley Doucet, “Why is There No Money in Star Trek?” May 10, 2009
Edward Hudgins, “Happy Labor Day: We're All Workers!” September 1, 2006.
David Kelley “What is Reason? (video)”

Thought you all would like information on the huge amount of underground water on Mars. Ready for a swim?

And maybe you'd be interested in Buzz Aldrin's latest plans to go there:

GOP Undercard Debate: Fiorina vs. Santorum
By Edward Hudgins

August 6, 2015 ―If the winner of the kiddie-table GOP debate were rewarded a seat at the adult table, Carly Fiorina would be feasting on hot turkey with all the trimmings. And if opposition to economic liberty were to banish a candidate from the primary dining room, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum would be sent to bed without his supper.

The main debate provided some verbal fireworks, especially surrounding Donald Trump. But Fiorina’s performance in the undercard debate could well influence both who participates in the next set of debates and what themes the candidates address

Three GOP factions

As the debates kick off we can evaluate the candidates in terms of three GOP factions. Are they establishment Republicans, simply seeking to tweak the failing welfare-regulatory state? Are they extreme social conservatives, who give priority to limiting liberty? Or are they libertarian/Constitutionalist Republicans who want to roll back the state and restore liberty? We can gauge whether they are sincere, competent, and intelligent rather than being simply spewers of soundbites. And we can gauge which appeals are promising for the advancement of liberty and which are not.

Fiorina’s tech appeal

Fiorina was one of seven August 6 “pre-debate” candidates who scored lower in the polls than the ten featured in the prime-time main event. She was credible in emphasizing that her experience as Hewlett-Packard CEO showed her understanding of economics, business, and technology. Of special note, she mentioned the need for a president who “understands bureaucracies, how to cut them down to size and hold them accountable.” Fiorina is often criticized for cutting the workforce at the Silicon Valley tech giant. She’s making it a virtue. She’ll make the hard decisions. Would that the mismanagers of America’s auto companies had done that decades ago. They might have survived without the need for monetary infusions of American taxpayer blood.

Concerning Donald Trump’s popularity, Fiorina said what some other Republicans would acknowledge in the main debate, that “he's tapped into an anger that people feel. They're sick of politics as usual.” Her promise to shake up the status quo came off as more credible than other candidates who, after emphasizing their competence from years in politics, made the somewhat hollow claim that they are not part of “The System.”

As the former CEO of a top tech company, Fiorina knows overseas markets and many world leaders. So she’s by no means a novice who needs to bone up on the names of foreign capitals. She’s shown her competence as a hardheaded businesswoman. Indeed, she was paid a compliment by former Texas governor Rick Perry. He said concerning the Iranians, he would have “rather had Carly Fiorina over there doing our negotiation than John Kerry. Maybe we would've gotten a deal where we didn't give everything away.” True enough, though this is not a very high bar. The success of my four-year-olds in negotiating from me more candy than they certainly need shows they might best Kerry as well!

Fiorina hit many of the usual GOP hot-button issues, but her focus on economic opportunity was welcome. The one note she should have sounded more in her answers was her standard denunciation of the crony system that is corrupting the country.

All in all, while a social conservative, she sounded like she might fit comfortably in the libertarian/Constitutionalist camp.

Santorum’s social engineering

Rich Santorum, by contrast, is the poster child for extreme social conservatives. Indeed, the theme of his 2012 bid for the GOP nomination was “Faith, Family and Freedom.” In light of his agenda to limit liberty he should have replaced the word “freedom” with “force.” Back then Santorum failed as a Romney-slayer, so this time around he’s taking a new tack.

In the pre-debate, Santorum spoke in a code that marked him as both economically ignorant and no friend of free markets. He said he is “going to grow the manufacturing sector of our economy, so those 74 percent of Americans who don't have a college degree have a chance to rise again.” He wants “to create jobs and make America the number one manufacturing country in the world.” And he complained that illegal immigration is flattening, that is, holding down wages.

Santorum, like many extreme social conservatives, idealizes a past America in which working-class men—the women were apparently all at home raising the kids—labored away in factories making cars or steel, making high wages that make them middle class. But the portion of the non-agricultural workforce in manufacturing in America has fallen from 25 percent in 1970 to about 8.5 percent today. Economic value today is more than ever in brains, not brawn; it's in Silicon Valley, not in the Rust Belt to the extent that it remains rusty.

Santorum does not see his constituency in young entrepreneurs and tech achievers. Millennials who spearhead the new economy are socially liberal; 67 percent are for same-sex marriage. And about one-third have no religious affiliation. They are the antithesis for Santorum’s audience.

Like many extreme social conservatives, Santorum is a social engineer from the right. In this case, he wants to make the economy safe for those who can’t write computer code or start an Uber, at the expense rather than in addition to those who can. Some proposals Santorum voiced in the debate, like a flat tax, are not bad and are meant to appeal to the libertarian/Constitutionalist wing of the GOP. But Santorum is still the ultimate extreme social conservative.

Debates to come

Her strong performance in the pre-debate could boost Fiorina in the polls and propel her into future debates with the major candidates. Hopefully she’ll double down on the theme of an innovative future economy.

And hopefully Santorum’s backwards appeal will keep him in the political basement and show other candidates that such an appeal is radioactive.
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Hudgins is a senior scholar at the Atlas Society.

Explore:

*Edward Hudgins, The Republican Party’s Civil War: Will Freedom Win? 2014.

*Edward Hudgins, “What Carly Fiorina Brings to the GOP Agenda .” May 6, 2015.

*Edward Hudgins, “Rick Santorum: The Most Anti-Reagan Republican.” January 5, 2012.

Is a $70,000 Base Salary Unjust and Corrupting?

By Edward Hudgins

August 6, 2015 -- Dan Price, the CEO of credit card processing company Gravity Payments, recently set a minimum salary of $70,000 for everyone at his company. He saw himself, as did many others, as a benevolent, ideal boss who cared about his employees. But when some employees quit because of this action, it revealed that whether Price meant to be or not, he was a corrupter of justice.

Price, like many liberals today, sees income inequality in-and-of-itself as a moral evil. He has said, “I want to fight for the idea that if someone is intelligent, hard-working and does a good job, then they are entitled to live a middle-class lifestyle.”

Price over the next few years will almost double the starting salaries of entry-level employees to $70,000 and, in solidarity, cut his own million dollar salary to that level. How could he afford to do this? His business is successful for sure, but in order to pay primo wages for entry level jobs, he had to flatten his whole wage structure. Workers who had been at his company for years or who were contributing the most economic value to the company did not get their wages doubled if they received raises at all. There would simply not have been enough money to do this. In any case, to raise everyone’s wages correspondingly would have perpetuated income inequality.

Price’s action was a real-life version of an action depicted in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. In that novel, the owners of the Twentieth Century Motor Company decided to run their car factory on the Marxist doctrine “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” In that factory the best and the brightest were penalized for their productive virtues with more work and lower wages in order to meet the needs of those who were not as productive. The best people left, production declined, needs multiplied as everyone tried to be the neediest, customers fled, and the factory collapsed.

Sure enough, Price has found some of his best workers leaving as well. His company is still hanging on, though, with some financial challenges ahead. But the reasons for employees leaving highlight important ethical truths.

The employees who left felt they were treated unfairly because they had worked the longest and contributed the most but were not being rewarded for their abilities. This is the dark side of the thoughtless obsession with equality of wealth or condition. Equality in this context is fundamentally unjust. It’s a rejection of the basic principle of justice that individuals should earn what they get.

And this is the dark side of the notion of “entitlement” to a certain salary or condition. It requires productive individuals to cover the costs of those who are granted unearned benefits. In the case of Price, it is his business, so if he can convince some of his employees to foot the bill for others, he, as the business owner, is entitled to do so. His workers may choose to stay or go, and his customers can bear the inevitable rise in his prices and decline in the quality of his product, or they can shop elsewhere.

But in the political realm we are not allowed to choose whether to foot the billions dollar bills that pay for welfare entitlements. The government simply taxes us and transfers the money to those who are said to “need it.”

Price is perpetuating a pernicious morality. Some argue that those who start at $70,000 will feel the need to earn their keep and work hard. But the entitlement mentality has produced generations of individuals who whine for handouts, degenerates who have lost the moral understanding that they are first and foremost responsible for themselves. The looters in the Baltimore riots were the ultimate manifestation of that morality. They “need it” so they steal it.

Price and other liberals fail to understand that there is nothing morally wrong with inequality of condition as such. What is important is whether someone acquired wealth legitimately by producing goods and services to sell to voluntary customers. In this country cronyism is the real problem. Big banks, auto manufacturers, money-losing PC eco-companies, and others all profit through political pull rather than by serving the needs to customers. The problem is not rich individuals. It is individuals who grow rich by stealing from others with the aid of their political hacks and cronies.

It’s good business practice for companies to reward employees in order to keep them happy and productive. And most of us want higher salaries. I know I do! But each entrepreneur must judge what works for the bottom line of their company in the long run, and an unjust system will not work. Worse, it perpetuates envy in the stunted souls of those who demand the unearned, and it creates unearned guilt in those individuals who deserve praise rather than censure for their productive achievements.

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Hudgins is a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

The Individualist's Guide to Progressive Change

*Edward Hudgins, ObamaCare's War on Personal Responsibility. April 9, 2012.

Bernie Sanders, Socialism, and the GOP

By Edward Hudgins

July 19, 2015 -- It’s more than ironic that as socialist economies, led by Greece, collapse, Democrats in America are infatuated by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presidential candidate who caucuses with the Democrats but is an avowed socialist. The starry eyes for this supreme statist reflect an ignorance about our own collapsing regime to say nothing of moral failings that Republicans—and everyone else—should take seriously.

Let’s start with the positive reason that Sanders is attracting large, enthusiastic crowds while would-be president Hillary Clinton has trouble filling venues. Sanders does not hide his socialist convictions. Hillary has backed many of the same policies. But she hems and haws about her basic principles, posing as a pragmatic progressive simply looking out for the middle class. Her campaign is managed and faked, from supposed “random” meetings with ordinary voters to her rare press interviews given only to sycophant pseudo-journalists. She is disingenuous, whether about Benghazi, erased emails, or Pacific trade. She just hopes voters will not care.

To understand Sanders’ appeal, consider that young voters in 2008 were enthusiastic about Barack Obama, seeing him as an idealist who would transcend politics as usual. While they still voted for him in 2012, they were disillusioned at his failures, many seeing him as just another politician.

Young people were the most enthusiastic supporters of libertarian Republican Rep. Ron Paul during the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Paul was an idealist and straight talker who didn’t spin his beliefs for the crowd de jour. And while Donald Trump doesn’t offer anything like a set of principles found in Paul or Sanders, part of his popularity is that he says what he thinks.

Young people are far more cynical about politics and the world than their elders, but they clearly thirst for authenticity and ideals, which is what Sanders seems to offer.

But there is more to Sander’s popularity than a bad taste for Hillary.

A Pew survey found that 50% of Americans had a positive reaction to the word “capitalism” while 40% reacted negatively. But only 46% of young people under 29 years old had warm and fuzzys for the word while 47% found it cold and hard.

By contrast, 60% of the population responded negatively to the word “socialism” and only 31% positively. But that word only harshed the buzz of 43% of young people, while a full 49% got good vibrations. Worse, the word “progressive,” a preferred label for many who promote socialist policies, garnered a 67% positive response. Ouch!

Voters don’t simply pull the lever for labels. Indeed, the growth of independent voters, which includes 50% of those under 29, shows that both “Democrat” and “Republican” mean less and less. So what else is behind this benign view of socialism?

Fundamentally, the current political battles reflect conflicting visions: government as protector of our individual liberty, leaving us free to live our lives as we will; or government as the benevolent parent that helps us helpless people directly.

Many Sanders supporters rightly see Hillary as the Queen of Corruption. She and her foundation with ex-prez hubby Bill suck in cash from big bailed-out bankers, politically-connected companies, and foreign governments, while denouncing Wall Street and posing as the enemies of privilege. Most of Sanders’ support comes from donations of $250 or less. Sanders’ socialism, which purports to put “the people” in charge, seems to many the alternative.

But Sanders’ supporters fail to understand that the crony corruption they loathe is a manifestation of our current system in which government helps people directly.

For the democratic form of socialism, political power is the coin of the realm. As government redistributes wealth, the punished producers either produce less wealth or play the political game, seeking special favors and handouts. The only way socialism can overcome the resulting war of all against all is to become anti-democratic and dictatorial. A strongman promises to “transcend politics,” to use his pen and his phone to govern arbitrarily without regard to law.

Bernie Sanders or Barack Obama become Il Duce.

The only alternative to cronyism and Big Brother: a system in which individuals live their own lives and pursue their own dreams, producing goods and services to trade with their fellows based on mutual consent, with government confined to protecting rights.

Will Republicans be able to overcome their own complicity in cronyism—and sometimes in Big Brother—and articulate this ideal? If they can’t or won’t, Sanders might lose but the only open question will be which future dystopia Americans will suffer in.


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Hudgins is a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

*Edward Hudgins, “After the Elections: The GOP Civil War.” November 13, 2014.

*Edward Hudgins, editor, The Republican Party Civil War: Will Freedom Win? 2014.

*Edward Hudgins, “Obama's Grab-Bag Socialism.” April 4, 2009.

Four Facts for Human Achievement Day
By Edward Hudgins

July 20, 2015 -- July 20 is the anniversary of one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments, the first lunar landing. We should not only give a shout out to the thousands of people who made it possible for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk the surface of another world. We should each celebrate this date as Human Achievement Day, to acknowledge all achievements, especially our own.

Here are four facts on which you should reflect.

Fact one: Achievements are what human life is all about. Unlike other animals, we humans need to create the means for our physical survival as well as our spiritual well-being. We need to figure out how to acquire food, build shelters, cure illnesses, build cities, travel to the Moon, and create everything that deserves the label “civilization.”

Take a moment to look around you. Everything that is supportive of your life and your flourishing is an achievement of human beings.

Fact two: Achievements are the pursuit of your own individual goals and dreams. Our achievements are many and varied, whether nurturing a child to maturity or a business to profitability; whether writing a song, poem, business plan, or dissertation; whether laying the bricks to a building or designing the building or arranging for its financing. Your achievements as an individual not only allow you to survive, put food on the table, and enjoy the amenities of life: They also give you spiritual fuel. They are manifestations of the fact that you are capable of meeting the challenges of life and are worthy of the happiness that achievement brings you.

Take a moment to reflect on your own achievements and take pride in them. Perhaps reaffirm the current and future goals you wish to achieve.

Fact three: Achievements come first and foremost from your own individual virtues; indeed, your greatest achievement is the creation of your own moral character. To achieve your goals you must exercise rationality to understand the world around you. You must exercise independent judgment, using your own mind and not relying simply on the opinions of others to guide your thinking and action. You must exercise integrity, never acting against your own judgment just because others disagree with you. You must practice honesty, first and foremost with yourself, and never pretend that the real world is something other than what it is. Your evasion of reality will not change it.

Take a moment to reflect on the virtues that have allowed you to achieve the things you value. Where you find yourself wanting, plan the steps to reform your own moral character.

Fact four: Achievements require a supportive culture that you must help create. Culture permeates everything, and you’re often as unaware of it as you are of the air you breathe. A culture is constituted in the values, priorities, assumptions, and expectations that influence you through family and friends, institutions, media, entertainment, politics, and much more. Culture for better or worse molds the moral character and goals of many. America’s culture used to celebrate achievement. Today it encourages infantile whining and excuse making. It marks as a “virtue” the degree to which moral weaklings take offense at real or imagined slights. It blames individual failure through individual irresponsibility on the success of those who take responsibility for their own lives.

Take a moment whenever you see an achievement to praise it to your fellows. And point out to those who spew resentment against achievement that it is beneath their dignity and potential as human beings.

Endless potential

The Moon landing inspired millions in the past. And even with the anti-achievement sickness in our culture there is much that still inspires. The communications and information revolution is just the start. Entrepreneurial achievers are pioneering private space ventures, 3-D printing, robotics, nanotechnology, bio-tech, genetics, and life-extension technology, which promise exponential expansion in the future.

The potential for human achievement is endless, but only if we truly value achievement and appreciate that the achievements we create in our modern world are manifestations of the moral virtues we each create in our character.

And thus we should celebrate Human Achievement Day!

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Hudgins is a senior scholar and director of advocacy for The Atlas Society.

Explore:

Edward Hudgins, Apollo 11 on Human Achievement Day. July 20, 2005.

Edward Hudgins, How anti-individualist fallacies prevent us from curing death. April 22, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “Book Review: Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler.” ISkeptic,

April 24, 2013.

Charles Murray, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. 2003.

The Davy Crockett "Republic" speech from "The Alamo" movie. John Wayne said it so well!

'Republic'. I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. Some words give you a feeling. 'Republic' is one of those words that makes me tight in the throat - the same tightness a man gets when his baby takes his first step or his first baby shaves and makes his first sound like a man. Some words can give you a feeling that make your heart warm. 'Republic' is one of those words.

I argue, of course, that belief in a creator is not necessary to justify individual rights. Our theist Founders like Jefferson understood "creator" in a very different way than many Christians today. But the point here is not to get bogged down in religious debates. Indeed, the Founders created the United States as a secular nation--current conservative Christian contentions to the contrary--because they had witnessed centuries of repression, torture, and wars that killed millions in the name of religion. We should fight the Obamas of the world based on the Founders' understanding of the purpose of government as the protection of individual liberty rather than the direction of our individual lives.

What America Will We Give to the Future?

By Edward Hudgins

June 30, 2015 -- Will future generations look back on our current July 4th festivities and lament that we didn’t grasp that the republic was gone?

Or will they celebrate that we were energized to restore the republic?

Liberty that empowers

Our country was established in 1776 on the premise that we all are endowed “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The Constitution created a government of limited and enumerated powers, checks and balances, and federalism to protect individual liberty not only from threats foreign and domestic but also from the greatest threat to liberty of all: government itself.

The result: America went from a rural backwater to the richest and most innovative country the world had ever known. This was because individuals were free to pursue their own dreams and to make their own lives through their own productive efforts.

Political liberty was spiritually liberating, opening minds to the fact that they could flourish, that material poverty and personal impotence need not be their lot. Millions of immigrants came to these shores seeking that liberty. They both partook of and contributed to the culture of self-ownership, empowerment, and personal responsibility.

Even up until a few decades ago, most supporters of the welfare state still held that individuals should generally run their own lives, that property rights and free markets should be protected by government. They simply believed—mistakenly—that government would need to step in to provide a safety net for unfortunates who might fall through the economic cracks or to rein in businesses that get too big and threaten competition.

Powerful elites

Today, the elites who dominate the Democrat Party, media, and academia believe government should be all-powerful and that they, the elite, should direct our lives. While some give lip service to empowerment, they in fact believe that most individuals are incapable of running their own lives. This is not idle rhetoric. It is a description of what motivates these elites. And it points to the dark place they are leading us.

As the scope and power of government grows, every aspect of our lives and our every choice become a matter of political conflict—what we eat, how we educate our children, what we can plant in our gardens, and when our children can run a lemonade stand. Political power and pull rather than productive achievement become the coin of the realm, determining who gets what. The result is the ugly, crony system of today.

Power to the individual

But there is pushback because the American spirit is still alive.

Today it is not only Tea Party activists who are skeptical about government. Political independents and many young people have seen the promises that government can radically improve our lives coming to naught.

Within the GOP there is now a civil war. Libertarian and limited government Republicans, who want to roll back government, are exerting their influence. They are challenging establishment Republicans, who want to keep the welfare state, just tweaking it to make it more efficient, and extreme social conservatives who give priority to actually limiting personal liberty.

In recent decades we’ve see the rise of new entrepreneurs who created the information and communications revolution and are now sparking revolutions in other areas as well—robotics, nanotechnology, genetics, 3-D printing and manufacturing, life extension, and much more. These individualists understand the power of human reason to change the world for the better. They love and take pride in their work. And they want to be free to pursue their own dreams and to make their own lives through their own productive efforts.

They manifest the best of the American spirit. They represent hope. They offer a political opportunity for those who want to restore the republic that is necessary if these entrepreneurs are to continue to achieve in the future.

A powerful vision

In the past, the liberty in America offered millions the opportunity to win for themselves prosperous and fulfilling lives. The country offered a powerful vision of hope for all of a world as it can be and should be.

Today, we still have the opportunity to reclaim for ourselves that liberty, which will secure the thanks of future generations, if only we seize the moral high ground and fight for the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness set down in the Declaration.
------

Hudgins is a senior scholar and director of advocacy at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

*William Thomas and Edward Hudgins, “The Volcker Rule and the Two Americas.” December 18, 2013.

*David Mayer, “Completing the American Revolution.” June 23, 2010.

*Edward Hudgins, “Let's Declare the Fourth of July a Tax-Free Day!” July 4, 2007.

*Edward Hudgins, “What Unites America? Unity in Individualism!” June 30, 2004.

*William Thomas, “What Are Rights?”
*Edward Hudgins, “What Is An American?” July 3, 1998.

Thanks MSK, Brant!

I originally majored in physics and astronomy so I find these discussions very interesting. Since space-time breaks down at the singularity we project when we run the Big Bang (not Bank!) backwards--similar to the breakdown occurring in black holes, we can't really say what happens. Hawking speculates that maybe asking what came before hte Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole on the surface of our sphere? The question doesn't make sense.

But none of these uncertainties should deter us from acting to expand our knowledge, our capacities, and our lives!

In a Woody Allen movie we see his character as a child refusing to do his homework or something of the sort because the universe is expanding and will be winding down in billions of years. He mother protests that “Brooklyn is not expanding!” Woody was making fun of this sort of childishness.

Arguments about whether the universe is doomed to heat death, whether there is a context for the Second Law of Thermodynamics or whatever is of interest in advanced physics discussions. (I attended a lecture some years ago by Freeman Dyson on the prospects for sentient life continuing based on a Big Crunch, a slowing to a near halt expansion, and acceleration.)

What is important is our prospects now and in the near future and, if the technologies can be developed, extending our capacities and our lives to the greatest extent that we can. How long? I don’t know. Neither does anyone else. But to not try is to guarantee failure.

Ayn Rand liked to say that an era has a leitmotif. But the age of Enlightenment has been replaced by the age of envy. I would say that the optimism and idealism of the past has been replaced by the pessimism and cynicism.

So in addition to the technological, life-enhancing breakthroughs that come out of the Google/Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, we have the possibility for a restoration of the hope and promise both of today and tomorrow, for a world as it can be and should be!

Pardon me for not laying down and dying just yet!

If I were writing a technical piece rather than a movie review I'd point out limits to the Turing Test. In the movie they actually going beyond the Turing Test with the Mary in a black and white room thought experiment. Deeper than what the Turing Test can tell us is whether an entity has volition and self-awareness, which as implications for experiencing "qualia." And as I'm sure you know, the concept of volition is one that is not simple to formulate for humans. I can give the Objectivist definition but that still leaves a lot of issues open.

What Carly Fiorina Brings to the GOP Agenda

by Edward Hudgins

May 5, 2015 -- Carly Fiorina is the latest longshot to join the Republican presidential primary field. But whatever her prospects may be, she brings two important issues to the campaign that ought to be at the top the GOP agenda.

Fiorina as the anti-Hillary

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, worked her way up through politics. She rose as an adjunct to her husband, Arkansas governor and later U.S. president Bill. She pushed Hillarycare, which failed. She was elected Senator from New York 2000, and became President Obama’s first secretary of state as a consolation prize when he beat her in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. She’s busied herself with the foundation she and Bill formed, sucking up money from big donors and foreign governments seeking influence through the political duo.

Fiorina opposing cronyism

But as a major contrast with Hillary—and many politicians in both major parties—the centerpiece of Fiorina’s campaign is her opposition the current crony system. In a crony system, individuals and interest groups use political connections to secure special government privileges, regulations that cripple their competitors, or loans, handouts, and bailouts from taxpayers. Hillary Clinton is the crony politician poster child. One report recently found that 181 companies that donated to her foundation lobbied the State Department while she was there. By contrast, in a true free market, entrepreneurs and enterprises prosper by offering goods and services to voluntary customers without government help.

Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard

Be that as it may, Fiorina was seen by many in Silicon Valley as the anti-Steve Jobs, a polarizing rather than an inspiring CEO. Indeed, one can imagine that, if Jobs had chosen to run for public office, whatever his policy positions, he would have been universally acknowledged as a top value creator who revolutionized the economy.

The Silicon Valley political opportunity

However one judges Fiorina’s HP years, all of us who understand that prosperity depends on both exponential technical innovation and free markets should appreciate the opportunity that her campaign offers us to frame the discussion about the country’s direction.

The presidential campaign ahead

• Edward Hudgins, ”Google, Entrepreneurs, and Living 500 Years.” March 12, 2015.
• David Kelley. “Hank Rearden and his Dependents (Makers vs. Takers).”
• Atlas Shrugged Themes: Producers vs. Looters.

Good links, thanks! I originally had the mom slaps son story in the piece but cut it for length. I'm getting dumped on by some for not calling everyone in Baltimore facilitators and by others for being too hard on the thugs. So I must be doing something right!

Baltimore Riots as Criminal Culture Writ Large
http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2015/04/30/baltimore-riots-criminal-culture-writ-large
By Edward Hudgins

The rioting in Baltimore represents criminal culture writ large. It is what happens every day on a smaller scale in poor minority communities: theft, vandalism, and violence.

The flames in Baltimore hideously illuminate the fact that the culture of the welfare state creates the criminals and rioters that plague this city in my native state.

The cycle of poverty and violence

The ostensive cause of the riots was outrage at the death of Freddie Gray, a young black drug dealer with a long rap sheet, whose spine was injured when he was arrested.

Let me be clear that whatever the outcome of the investigation into this particular case, police overreaction is a real problem nationwide. And yes, most of those in Baltimore who protested excessive police force were peaceful. And also many responsible black community leaders were in the streets urging those bent on destruction to stop. Especially heartbreaking were Pastor Donte Hickman’s efforts to stop the violence as the senior and community center that his group was constructing burned to the ground. And yes, poverty and a lack of economic opportunities create frustration and a sense of impotence. And yes, the failed schools do not prepare young people for jobs. And yes, these factors contribute to inner-city crime.

The rioting was followed by anguished politicians, community leaders, and citizens coming together to declare that such violence does not represent the community and must stop now, and that the underlying causes must be dealt with.

But we see on a smaller scale such sad scenes of crime and violence all the time in Baltimore and other cities across the country. A child is killed in the cross-fire of a drive-by shooting. The killing is followed by candlelight vigils as politicians, community leaders, and citizens come together to declare that such violence does not represent the community and must stop now, and that the underlying causes must be dealt with. Yet little changes.

Thugs riot in Baltimore

The rioters no doubt were frustrated, but so were the peaceful protestors and other citizens who did not burn and steal.

Most of the looters have the values and souls of thugs and criminals. It seems obvious that they had no moral inhibitions when they saw the opportunity—and perhaps when local politicos decided to “give them space” to destroy—to combine mindless destruction with targeted looting; liquor and hair-care products were much sought-after items. These rioters were not addressing the problems of the community. They themselves are the problems of the community.

Thugs

The rioters were mainly from the same neighborhoods as those who abhorred the riots. They were not an army of outside vandals—though outside agitators egged them on. They were the sons, daughters, siblings, parents, and friends of those who say they want peace. They live under the same roofs. And this is the case not only for those rioters but for the criminals who plague Baltimore and other major cities in this country. Since Martin Luther King’s inspiring “I have a dream” speech in 1963, nearly 400,000 blacks nationwide have been murdered by other blacks, not by police.

Baltimore politicos in denial

But most local politicos refuse to acknowledge this fact or its implications. That’s why we saw the bizarre controversy surrounding even calling those rioting thugs “thugs.” Baltimore City Council President Jack Young apologized for using the “T” word and instead said the rioters were “misguided,” adding, “We are all Baltimoreans.” Really? No wonder the population has dropped from 900,000 in 1970 to only 622,000 today. If the rioters are Baltimoreans, no decent person would want to be one.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a black woman, initially called the rioters thugs but also apologized, saying,

Mayor in denial

“We don’t have thugs in Baltimore.” No thugs? Perhaps she missed the 211 murders in Baltimore last year, or over 4,000 violent crimes and 24,000 property crimes. Just “misguided” but well-meaning Baltimoreans, no doubt. But hey, the number of murders in Baltimore has dropped in recent years and it now has only the third highest murder rate in the country after Detroit and New Orleans. I guess that’s progress.

Trapped in failed welfare state policies

This refusal to call a thug a thug is an attempt to evade another reality: the material and moral failure of welfare state paternalism.

For decades—in the case of Baltimore, since 1967—Democrats have run major cities and have carried out the welfare state agenda. They redistribute taxpayer money, taken from the most productive enterprises and individuals, to “the poor,” thus posing as wonderful benefactors. Their government employees, who provide them with votes, administer onerous regulations on businesses and entrepreneurs, all the while providing substandard services to the citizens.

And their public employee union allies, especially in the failed schools that are often as dangerous as prisons, block any possibility of reforms. Local economies stagnate. Productive enterprises and individuals flee the city for the suburbs, creating hardships that the same politicians then can promise to solve with more of the same failed policies. And so the cycle has gone on for decades.

The welfare state teaches sloth and crime

The welfare system teaches those trapped in it that they are entitled to a living; that they need not work for it; that others owe them; that their economic plight is not their fault; that any misery they experience is because others are selfish and malicious. The system creates envy and resentment. If you don’t have it, it’s because others do. So either redistribute it yourself with a gun to a merchant’s head or as part of a mob breaking store windows, or let the government mob grab it for you.

The welfare state creates the thugs because its redistribution premises are themselves criminal!

The welfare state assumes that entire classes of people are too weak and stupid to take care of themselves without government assistance. But it is the welfare system that destroys moral character and creates weakness and stupidity. The strong and the wise would not need it.

The real revolution: individual responsibility

As the flames of Baltimore’s buildings burnt out in the riots in 1968, the welfare state was offered as the solution. It has failed miserably and morally, in Baltimore and across the country.

Those in Baltimore who are honestly anguished by the destruction the rioters have wrought and by the plight in the inner city, there and everywhere, must recognize that same stale solutions will fail again.

A real moral revolution is needed that focuses on facilitating in the individual the morality of personal responsibility and autonomy, of true self-empowerment, of a desire to be left free to achieve and to take pride from achievements. Only then will the ashes of burning cities be relegated to the ash-heap of history.
------
Hudgins is a senior scholar and director of advocacy at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

· Edward Hudgins, “Martin Luther King's Dream and Today's Racial Nightmare.” August 27, 2013.

· William Thomas, “How Racist Are We?” Summer, 2010.
· Edward Hudgins, “Thoughts on Racial Thinking.” January 17, 2009.

How Anti-Individualist Fallacies Prevent Us From Curing Death
By Edward Hudgins

April 22, 2015 -- Excited about Silicon Valley entrepreneurs investing billions of dollars to extend life and even “cure” death?

It's amazing that such technologically challenging goals have gone from sci-fi fantasies to fantastic possibilities. But the biggest obstacles to life extension could be cultural: the anti-individualist fallacies arrayed against this goal.

Peter Thiel

Is Kass so limited in imagination or ignorant of our world that he doesn’t appreciate the great, long-term projects that could engage us as individuals seriously and meaningfully for centuries to come? (I personally would love to have the

Mars Society's meaningful project

centuries needed to work on terraforming Mars, making it a new habitat for humanity!)

Time Again to Celebrate Human Achievement!
By Edward Hudgins

March 27, 2015 -- It is again Human Achievement Hour! On March 28, celebrate all that the modern world offers us as a result of the efforts of the human mind!

Our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute came up with this idea to crystalize the efforts and sentiments of many other groups and individuals opposing the morally ugly trend of marking what is called “Earth Hour.” This is the call for everyone turn off their lights between 8:30 and 9:30 pm local time to “protect the planet.”

So during Human Achievement Hour, reflect on humans as the source and object of all that is of value. Reflect on the fact that you are reading this message on some marvelous device that did not exist even a few decades ago, a device that allows you instant access to an almost unlimited amount of information and gives you the capacity to communicate with almost anyone anywhere in the world at any time. What an achievement! Reflect on the new applications of technologies that are doing everything from helping us better educate ourselves, to curing our diseases, to expanding the lengths of our lives. Oh yes, and our technologies allow us to eliminate real—as opposed to imagined—environmental problems: ones that actually can harm us.