A Full Decade

Ten years ago today I pressed click and posted my first blog. I’ve been writing the blog for a full decade now. This is number 1198—so in another week we’ll hit a full 2000. Thank you or reading whatever portion of those you’ve read.

Not every post makes it obvious what this blog’s purpose is. It is to share the concepts of the Spherical Model by discussing things related to the three spheres: political (freedom), economic (prosperity), and social (civilization).

I’m on a personal crusade to change the vocabulary from the right-left model to this more accurate three-dimensional model. It makes moot any discussions about whether some fringe group is right-wing or left-wing extremist; if they go against the northern hemisphere principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization, then they are southern hemisphere, leading to tyranny, poverty, and savagery. Degrees (distance south) may differ. Lateral direction toward chaotic tyranny or statist tyranny may differ. But if they’re southern hemisphere, that’s bad.

The Spherical Model is a way to move from “What party is proposing this?” toward “Does this idea/policy follow the principles that lead north?”

We’re not talking earth-north and south; we’re talking about the directions on the Spherical Model. (For a full description of the model, see the resources below.)

The Political, Economic, and Social Spheres of the Spherical Model

The three spheres each have some questions or principles you can consider, to determine whether a policy will lead north or south.

Political Sphere: Questions to Ask

1.     Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government? 

2.     Does the policy infringe in any way on our God-given rights, including but not limited to those enumerated in the Bill of Rights?

3.     Is the idea being debated a proper role of government, some aspect of protection (including defense, protection from interstate crime, enabling international and interstate commerce, standardized weights and measures and currency, the judiciary that guarantees the protective laws), as enumerated in the Constitution?

Economic Sphere: Question to Ask

·       Who decides what will be done with the fruits of your labors? Someone always makes these basic economic decisions. Should it be the person who did the work to make the profit (north), or should it be some far distant wielder of power (south)? If you go north, you find prosperity; if you go south, you reach poverty.

Social Sphere: Principles of Civilization

1.     Not all religious societies are civilized (according to my definition, which differs from the archaeological definition), but every civilized society is a religious society. This absolutely does not mean state-sponsored religion or lack of religious freedom; in fact, the opposite is true. Freedom of religion is essential, and the flourishing of religion in general must be encouraged.

2.     The family is the basic unit of civilized society. Whatever threatens the family threatens civilization. So preserving and protecting the family is paramount in laws and social expectations in a civilized society.

 

Example

The three spheres interrelate. But it's probably easiest to see things in the political sphere, so let’s take a look at those three political sphere questions and apply them, for example, to the national $15 minimum wage, being proposed right now. 

With question one, do you have the right to force your neighbor to pay a particular wage to his employees? You can suggest. You can use peer pressure. But you don’t have that right. Nor does he have the right to impose that on you. So we, the people, do not have that power to grant to the government.

And the second question, do you have a God-given right to make an exchange with your neighbor for goods and services? Yes, assuming the exchange does not break a duly legal law (written by the legislature, signed into law, and not breaking the overriding law of the Constitution, which supports our natural rights). Do you have the right to prevent such a free exchange between your neighbor and someone else? No. Even when you think your interference is for someone’s own good? No. Nor does he have the right to prevent you from making an exchange of your choice. The exchange is a representation of the work you have done—the wealth you have created. Money is just an easy way of exchanging that representation of your spent life. To interfere with a free exchange is to interfere with your life, your liberty, and your property. 

And the third question, does the government protect your life, liberty, and/or property by either limiting or forcing an exchange against the will of the participants? No, it interferes or limits those things. Government's job is to protect those things, not infringe on them.

Here’s something we say here often:

Whenever government attempts something beyond the proper role of government (protection of life, liberty, and property), it causes unintended consequences—usually exactly opposite to the stated goals of the interference.

So, if the goal of a minimum wage is to prevent people from being taken advantage of and give them a minimum living amount in exchange for their work, let’s see if it does that.

A business exists to create wealth. It does this by providing goods and services that others are willing to pay for. The price is set by the market—by the customers’ willingness to pay. If the cost is too high, the customer won’t pay it. If the cost is too low, there may be too much buying and the supply won’t keep up. So the business owner isn't setting the price; the market is.

If the market sets a particular price for, say, a sandwich at a fast-food restaurant, and the revenue brings in enough for the business to pay a worker $8.50 an hour, but not $15.00 and hour, what happens when the minimum wage is imposed? The business cannot afford to pay the workers that. The alternative is to let go any workers who cannot bring in the needed revenue to meet their $15.00/hour pay and hope the remaining employees can work even harder than they've been doing. In other words, entry-level workers, who are building up their skills, are not legal to hire. They can’t gain the experience needed to get a $15.00/hour job. Instead, they get no pay. They are worse off.

The law has not only made it illegal for a business to pay less than $15.00 and hour; it has made it illegal for a worker to work for less than $15.00 an hour even when it’s to his advantage to do so.

If you’re looking at fairness as the goal, do you think it’s fair to enforce a $15.00/hour minimum on a small town in the Midwest—where that’s about the median income and can get you a decent home—and also in Los Angeles where it might buy your groceries but wouldn’t begin to make a dent in the rent on a one-bedroom apartment? Such a law actually imposes unfairness.

You can see how the political and economic spheres are interconnected here. We know what the northern prosperity zone would look like: healthy, prosperous economy, with each worker benefiting from his own labors, and having the opportunities to meet his financial needs and build up wealth. There would be no guarantees of the success of every single person, but there would be better opportunities than in any other system in any country at any time in history.

Maybe you can also picture how the economic sphere ties into the social sphere: wherever there are needs that a person cannot meet with their own efforts, caring people step in to fill the need. If it’s an economic need, they do that by charitable giving, or philanthropy.

However, when government takes from one person to give to another, the government isn’t charitable or generous. It is simply thieving. That’s a southern hemisphere policy, and it makes for tyranny, poverty, and savagery. An honest look at data bears that out.

While the Spherical Model is new—and still obscure a decade later—the principles are what our founders tried to design our US Constitution to adhere to. What I believe we’d find, if we had an honest look at the historical data, is that every time the principles are met, we get the desired outcomes of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. But mostly we have experienced people in power insisting they’re “helping” us by limiting our freedom, limiting our use of the fruits of our labors, and leading us away from a thriving civilization—and then saying they’re there to solve those problems for us if we just turn over power to them.

I’m hoping the Spherical Model gives us a better way to think about ideas, and a better way to talk about them.

 

Resources

If you’d like a better look at the Spherical Model concept, here are some resources:

The long version is at the website SphericalModel.com. This contains an introduction and four longish articles:

 

·         The Political World Is Round

·         The Economic World: Free Enterprise vs. Controlled Economy

·         Civilized vs. Savage

o   The Family Is the Basic Unit of Civilization

 

The short version is available in print form in this blog:

 

·         The Political Sphere Is Round. December 29, 2014

·         Spherical Model Review, December 31, 2015 

·         What the Spherical Model Is All About, December 31, 2020. 

 

Since the concept is three dimensional, maybe you’ll understand it better visually, with this very low-tech video of me explaining it in under ten minutes:

 

 

Sowell Food for Thought

Another Uncommon Knowledge interview with economist Thomas Sowell came out this week, coinciding with the updated version of his book Discrimination and Disparities. There’s always wisdom that comes from listening to this octogenarian (I hope he lives at least another 20 years). Some of the stories I’ve heard before. I’ve read his biography. But some of it is new, or clarifying because of current data. He’s big on finding evidence from the data.

Thomas Sowell, on Uncommon Knowledge
screen shot from here

He has added a new chapter to the book, and here’s an example quoted from that:

The poverty rate among black married couples has been less than 10% every year since 1994. As far back as 1969 young black males whose homes included newspapers, magazines, and library cards had similar incomes to those of their white counterparts. Academic outcomes show a pattern of disparities similar to the pattern of disparities in the amount of time devoted to schoolwork. Apparently, lifestyle choices have consequences.

Host Peter Robinson asks him about that:

PR: So this is the constrained vision once again. Welfare state, that’s government; we don’t rely on that. Affirmative action, government; we don’t rely on that. We rely on hard work. We rely on the institution of marriage. That’s correct?

TS: Yes. In other words, these things— I don’t think it’s the marriage as such or the library cards as such; it’s that there are lifestyle choices that have been made. And the comparison I made was between—if you look at the poverty rate among blacks, it was at 22%, and among whites it was 11%, but among black married couples, it was 7.5%. So they not only do better than blacks as a whole; they do better than whites as a whole. So it’s lifestyle choices.

That’s not something we hear in the news, or from mainstream opinion commentary.

new edition, with new chapter

Thomas Sowell talks some about minimum wages. That was a particular interest of his, back when he was working on his PhD, and was still a Marxist, but was academically committed to empirical data (which, of course, is what led him in the opposite direction of Marxism so many decades ago). When he tried to get data from one department of government to another, he couldn’t. There was a sense that people’s jobs—in the government—were at stake if evidence showed, as some believed, that higher minimum wages led to greater unemployment.

Of that experience he quips:

I worked in the US Department of Labor, and I began to realize—well, a number of things—that the government is not simply the personification of the general will, like Rousseau or others would say. The government institutions have their own institutional interests.

His own life example about the minimum wage was as a 16-year-old high school dropout, when he got a job as a Western Union messenger, delivering telegrams on a bicycle. The minimum wage for the job, as set by the US Fair Labor Standards in 1938 was 40¢/hour. But by 1948, when he got the job, he started at the bottom, getting paid 60¢/hour—the going rate to get the workers, rendering the minimum wage irrelevant.

But then “compassionate” government stepped in to “help” by raising the minimum wage. The result is that 20 years later a black kid (or for that matter a white kid) can’t get a job.

Sowell and Robinson spend some time discussing the difference between the “constrained vision” and the “unconstrained vision,” from an earlier book, A Conflict of Visions. Constrained means that you pay attention to reality. Unconstrained means there’s an assumption that good things happen all by themselves, but if bad things happen there’s some institution to blame—even maybe civilization itself. 

So, when there’s disparity, there’s one side that looks for data and evidence to compare one approach to another (the constrained side). And then there’s the side that assumes there’s racism or some other social ill at fault (the unconstrained side).

Most of the time, in our country today, disparities are not racially caused. He talks about another possible effect contributing to poverty:

TS: Wherever you look around the country, around the world, you find people that live up in the mountains poor and backwards. Even in the richest country, including the United States. I believe the poorest county in the United States was in a mountain community which was almost 100% white.

PR: Somewhere in Appalachia? West Virginia? Southern Ohio?

TS: Yeah. And men in that county had a life expectancy ten years less than men in a county in Virginia.

PR: And the unconstrained vision says, “Lets fix that. Surely we can pass a law that would improve that.” And the constrained vision says, “Well, now, wait a moment. If people who live in isolated pockets in mountains are poor and backwards all around the world, and we see this pattern over, and over, and over again, maybe there’s something very deeply rooted in reality about that that is hard for us to get at.” Correct?

TS: Yes.

Robinson reminds him of a recent column in which he challenged Nicholas Kristoff, a New York Times writer who thinks whites should pay reparations for the legacy of slavery.

PR: Kristoff had ascribed the gaps between African Americans and whites in America—gaps in wealth, gaps in educational achievement, the usual gaps—to, and this is a quotation from Kristoff: “to the lingering effects of slavery.” And here’s Tom Sowell:

“If we wanted to be serious about evidence, we might compare where blacks stood 100 years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state. In other words, we could compare hard evidence on the legacy of slavery with hard evidence on the legacy of liberals.”

And so there it is. Life is hard; you use the word hard. You use the word serious. You use evidence. Tom Sowell is a man of the constrained vision through and through and through. Correct?

TS: Yes. Part of a vanishing breed, I might add.

There are a couple of times in the conversation that charter schools come up. They’re educating better than children in privileged areas are being educated. And they’re not getting the cream of the crop; they’re allowing students in by lottery, without even looking at they’re academic history. But they do have high expectations, and they don’t tolerate nonsense.

Near the end they cover charter schools in more detail. Robinson points out that Democrats—and he can’t remain nonpartisan about it—prevent quality education for those that need it. And Dr. Sowell agrees:

TS: That really is one of the moral outrages, that for many kids who come from a very poor background, and whose parents might not have had much education, a decent education is the one thing they have to have to have a better life.

And these schools have been absolutely spectacular. The charter schools. The successful ones. Now there are some that weren’t, but— For example, a few years ago on the New York statewide math test, there was an elementary school, grade 4 I believe, in Harlem, whose students passed those tests at a higher rate than any 4^th grade kids anywhere in the state of New York. I mean, we’re talking Scarsdale, Radcliffe, places like that. The Success Academy schools as a whole, their students pass both the math and the English statewide tests at a higher rate than any school district in the entire state of New York.

The vast majority of the kids in the Success Academy schools are either black or Hispanic. If you look at the five highest scoring school districts in the state, in terms of the percentage of students who pass the math or the English tests, their average family income ranges from four times that of the kids in the Success Academy schools to more than nine times the family income of the kids in the Success Academy schools. And yet, the Mayor of New York is doing his darndest to put a stop to the expansion of these schools in general, but his special ire is aimed at the Success Academy schools. And this is happening all across the country.

PR: Because they make the teachers unions look bad, in the public schools? What’s the political motivation? Why would Mayor de Blasio have it out for the charter schools such as Success Academy?

TS: Well, the teachers unions are the major reason. And we talk about the money they contribute, the votes they contribute. What’s happening, again, not just in New York, but other parts of the country, including California, is there’s all kinds of chicanery to prevent the charter schools from expanding. That’s why you have tens of thousands on the waiting list. It’s not that the charter schools aren’t willing to expand, but every conceivable obstacle is put in their way. Because, if you let that go at the natural pace, it would be very hard for public schools to compete.

There it is again: something about that government institution having its own institutional interests—apart, and probably in conflict with the stated goal.

What’s missing is a search for—or even a valuing of—evidence, or truth. The current rise of socialism’s popularity is an example—51% approval from those in the 18-29 demographic, according to a recent Gallup poll. How can that be?

TS: Yes. Socialism is a great idea; that does not mean it’s a great reality. One of the things that disturbs me tremendously is about this enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders and socialism at a time when people are literally starving in Venezuela, an oil rich country. And they’re breaking into the grocery stores to try to get food. And they’re fleeing to neighboring countries, most of which are not all that prosperous themselves, but at least you don’t starve to death in them. And none of that makes a bit of difference. I don’t think most of the people that are out there cheering for Bernie Sanders have given a thought to Venezuela.

PR: To the evidence.

TS: That’s right. To the evidence, yeah.

So that’s one theme for this conversation: get the evidence, so you know what you’re talking about.

And this is another common Sowell theme:

TS: In the government you have surrogate decision makers, and they cannot possibly know as much as the individuals whose person decisions have been preempted.

The third would be about lifestyle choices:

PR: Tom Sowell’s view is, get an education, stay married, and do your job, roughly?

TS: Yeah.

It sounds like what we’ve been saying here for years. If Thomas Sowell agrees with us, I think that means we’re on the right track.

What a Minimum Wage Should Be

Yesterday, economist Walter Williams wrote about the minimum wage. As usual, he explains things very clearly.

Walter Williams
photo from here

This is how he describes the current situation for a cashier-job worker:

The average wage for a cashier is around $10 an hour, about $21,000 a year. That's no great shakes, but it's an honest job for full- or part-time workers and retirees wanting to earn some extra cash. In anticipation of a $15-an-hour wage becoming federal law, many firms are beginning the automation process to economize on their labor usage.

He didn’t mention, but he could have, that two $21,000/year jobs put a household well out of poverty.

What those who favor a $15/hour minimum wage picture is a single parent trying to rent a place for herself and a couple of kids in an urban area. That’s not going to happen at $15 an hour either.

One recent study reported this data point for San Francisco and a couple of other cities:

Average rent on a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is $4,650, $1,000+ more than the number two city (New York) and $2,000 more than the rest of the biggest cities in the country.

If we do the math, then it takes $55,800 a year just for rent. Forget about food, clothing, entertainment, medical care (insurance for which, alone, is beyond what a $15/hour worker could pay, thanks to Obamacare). So, we still have to feel pretty sorry for any $15/hour worker.

The thing is, most minimum-wage workers are not mothers trying to manage an entire household on their income. In those few cases, we do have a safety net of social services to help out—and we can suppose that minimum wage is temporary, because with experience and hard work come raises, promotions, and better opportunities.

Williams points out the obvious:

Why would anybody work for $21,000 a year if he had a higher-paying alternative? Obviously, the $21,000-a-year job is his best known opportunity.

He does this in the context of what is really compassionate. Because raising the minimum wage has consequences. He names three likely outcomes for business owners forced to raise pay to a level above what the worker is worth to the business.

·         The business raises the pay without getting more output from the workers, so profit margins drop to below survival rates, and the business closes—including all the $15/hour workers.

·         The business invests capital in technology that can do the work of minimum-wage workers, such as self-serve kiosks in many fast food chains; the business might get enough return on the investment to stay in business, but those $15/hour jobs are permanently lost.

·         The business can raise its prices to compensate for the higher labor costs, which puts them in a losing position once shoppers compare prices to a business that kept prices low with technology; eventually the business closes, and all jobs are lost.

      

photo from here

Williams looked at San Francisco, which has been implementing its “compassionate” $15/hour policy for a while now. He quotes a study:

A recent study by Michael Luca of Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca of Mathematica Policy Research calculated that for every $1 hike in the minimum hourly wage, there is a 14 percent increase in the likelihood that a restaurant rated 3 1/2 stars on Yelp will go out of business.

This was looking at actual restaurants in the Bay Area that had closed between this past September and January. Even some of the better restaurants have fallen prey. A restaurant needs a 3-5% profit to keep going. The minimum wage hike dropped one example restaurant from 8.5% in 2012 to 1.5% in 2015.

So, is outlawing all jobs that bring in less than $15 of worth to a business actually compassionate to entry-level workers?

Let’s repeat this Spherical Model point:

Whenever government attempts something beyond the proper role of government (protection of life, liberty, and property), it causes unintended consequences—usually exactly opposite to the stated goals of the interference.

The minimum wage issue is maybe a quintessential example. But, then, there are so many examples around these days.

I’ve written about the minimum wage a number of other times. So, let’s make this a “best of” on the minimum wage:

·         Beware Government with Good Intentions, May 11, 2011 

·         Outlawing Entry Level Jobs, July 27, 2015 

·         Unfair Egalitarianism, July 9, 2015 

·         Predictions, January 5, 2015 

As I’ve said before, employment is an agreement between two people: employer and worker. If the arrangement is agreeable to both, what business does government have inserting itself between them?

 

An unpaid internship, for example, is an agreement that looks economically disastrous for the worker—but if that worker gets some experience out of it that she values, both business and worker are benefitting. And government ought to just get out of the way.

Outlawing Entry Level Jobs

Socialists love minimum wage laws. It will lift millions of Americans out of poverty, off welfare, and into the buying public, they say.

protests for $15 minimum in Seattle

But they are starting with several false assumptions:

·         Employers are greedy, and that is the only reason they don’t pay workers more out of their evil profits.

·         People earning minimum wage can expect to remain on minimum wage indefinitely.

·         People earning minimum wage are heads of households, finding it impossible to pay for their family’s rent, food, and everything from that wage.

·         Raising the minimum wage can lift people out of poverty.

Except, all of the assumptions are wrong.

Employers set wages based on the market value of the work—how much the worker brings in to the company, and how easy it is for the employer to find workers willing to do the work. When work is worth more, the employer either pays more, or finds it difficult to get and keep decent employees.

Minimum wage workers can almost always expect a raise within six month, or at most a year, based on their being a good employee and gaining experience. It’s hard to imagine anyone expecting to work hard, either part or full time, for minimum wage year after year, expecting never to get a raise. You’d leave, with the experience under your belt, and go get a better job.

People earning minimum wage are generally getting their first job, or their first job in a long time (such as mothers re-entering the work force after being a stay-at-home mom). They likely prefer part-time work. They are likely to be teenagers getting their first job, at a time when they have little experience to offer an employer, and still live with their parents, or possibly with roommates. They likely don’t have a high school diploma, although they may be a high school or college student.

A full 81% of minimum wage workers are not heads of households. If someone is earning minimum wage and trying to support a family, they have bigger problems than any minimum wage job can solve. And they probably already get aid for housing and food. Forcing employers to pay them—and all other unqualified workers—more than they are worth doesn’t solve their lack of earning capacity.

There’s an easy logic problem you can go through with pro-minimum wage people—if you could get them to participate in logic. When they were asking for $8 (which wasn’t that long ago, and still the case in most parts of the country), you would say, “Why not $10?” And they’d probably say, “Great idea.” And then you say, “Why not $15?” which is what they’re saying now, so presumably they’d say that was only fair. So then you say, “Why not $20?” Good chance they’ll say, “Even better.” And then you raise the stakes “Why not $50, or $100?” Then they get irritated and condescending, because everybody knows that’s too high. So you ask why it’s too high, and you probably get, “Because those jobs aren’t worth it,” compared to more skilled workers that don’t even make that much. Or, “No one’s going to pay that much for a burger server,” or floor sweeper, or busboy, or dishwasher—whatever the low-skilled job may be.

There’s a point at which pretty much anyone knows, intuitively, that the low-skilled work isn’t worth the high wage. The problem is that they don’t recognize any current entry-level wage as fair and adequate—because they don’t like to think about the value of the work being offered.

What is the best way to earn above minimum wage? Get experience and skills that make you worth more to your employer than minimum wage. How do you get experience and skills? Training and education, for a start, but also work experience. Even with training, an employer is likely to want an experienced worker if he has to pay a higher wage.

Without government interference, wages could be a matter of the free market. We think “full employment” now is 4-5%, but that is because the minimum wage prevents hiring workers at lower rates, so those worth less than minimum remain unemployed. If lowering unemployment were the goal, it could be lowered under 2%—and consist pretty much of those temporarily between jobs—if the market were actually free.

But wouldn’t it be wrong to pay someone even less than minimum? Wouldn’t that be practically indentured servitude? That’s the argument. But, say you’re a 15-year-old trying to get a little spending money, to maybe save up for college, or an eventual car or other purchases? Is it better to get paid $5 an hour while gaining experience, which might lead to higher wages later—or to make nothing and gain no experience?

Minimum wages—ruled unconstitutional until the late 1930s under FDR—are literally outlawing any jobs worth less to an employer than the government-set minimum.

It is a maxim here at the Spherical Model, that any time government tries to do something beyond the limited powers granted in the Constitution, there will be negative unintended consequences, and they will usually be exactly opposite of the intended purpose of the government interference.

So how is this playing out?

Seattle, which is in process of implementing a $15/hour minimum wage, is finding there are unintended consequences (which of course they were warned about by free-market economists).

Head-of-household minimum wage workers didn’t find that $15 was enough to actually pull them out of poverty. While they were making less, they received government subsidized housing and food aid. Higher wages put them at risk of no longer qualifying for help. So they started asking their bosses for fewer hours, to avoid a drop in living standard.

So it hasn’t been good for those actually receiving the increased wage. And it hasn’t been an improvement for employers or customers either. Restaurants have closed at higher than normal rates. Some employers have claimed that wages made up more than 50% of operating costs; the higher required minimum meant no profit, no reason to stay in business.

Some restaurants have increased prices by 15%, trying to pass along the minimum wage increase to customers. But there’s a natural effect to higher prices: fewer customers. They’ve also found that customers pass along the higher costs by paying lower tips. It has turned out that dishwashers have come out better than table servers.

Self-serve kiosk at Jack-in-the-Box

There are more restaurants using automated ordering, so they can get by with fewer employees. That might be a reasonable response—but it means fewer jobs. Government can’t just impose a price find that the law of supply and demand won’t be in play.

One thing is certain: if you don’t get your first job, and the experience that comes with it, you don’t get your second job. If you haven’t magically built up your skill and experience to be worth $15 the first time you get hired, the government is saying it is against the law for you to work.

Employment is an agreement between two people: employer and worker. If the arrangement is agreeable to both, what business does government have inserting itself between them? While we watch Seattle, and LA, and other places, experiment with the higher minimum wage, how about we have another area where minimum wages are eliminated? Let’s see, over a decade or two, which place is better at lifting millions out of poverty.

Predictions

It’s the time of year for making predictions. I don’t happen to be good at that sort of thing. I don’t know who will be running for president. I don’t know what edict the president is going to make next, claiming such executive orders are within his constitutional authority. I don’t know how various judges are going to vote on redefining marriage.

So I’m going to do something easier: an if/then exercise. We know, based on principle, that anything the government takes on, for whatever “good intentions,” will cause harm—and most likely will create the exact opposite of the stated goal. I can safely predict that, if an idea is actually a good one but is outside the proper role of government, then government will make things worse rather than better. If an idea is worth doing, then the free market is much more likely to bring about the desired ends.

So here’s the list.

 

Families would benefit from giving dads (in addition to moms) parental leave upon the birth of a new baby.

Government Way: Makes a law requiring all employers to provide paid parental leave for at least one month for any dad whose wife/partner has just given birth.

Result: Businesses hesitate to hire married men whose wives are in child-bearing years. Businesses remove other benefits from employees, in order to pay for this new requirement without going in the red. Businesses will hesitate to promote or increase pay for any man who is likely to (or has taken) paid family leave. Businesses will reflect failure to reach goals during time off in performance reviews.

Many European countries do offer lengthy paid parental leave to fathers and mothers. It looks so civilized. But several things play out in those countries: high unemployment, lack of advancement for employees, and shockingly low birth rates.

Free Market Way: Businesses who want to attract and maintain the best employees consider whether offering parental leave would help. They will consider what works best for the employer and the employee. They may come up with a variety of alternatives, which might include varying lengths of parental leave, or combining work at home with work at the office during new baby times.

Result: The employer can actually offer caring for the individual employee, instead of simply being coerced to follow a one-size-fits-all government plan. The employer feels supported by the employer and is more likely to respond with hard effort to meet the employer’s goals. The employer and employee agree on the importance of family, and families are likely to be stronger—and larger. 

Employees Should Be Paid a Living Wage

Government Way: Makes a law requiring businesses to pay at least a minimum wage—for example, $10 an hour—for every employee, regardless of the value the worker brings to the business.

Result: Businesses will only hire employees who can and do contribute the minimum wage cost (which is actually high for the employer, with taxes, benefits such as health care, and management costs). Anyone who has too little experience or ability will remain unemployed. Young people who do not need a living wage, but need some income and experience, will lack previously available opportunities. Young, inexperienced, and part-time workers will be most hurt. Businesses will be less likely to risk starting businesses in areas where low-experience workers are plentiful—so unemployment will be particularly high in places where the most vulnerable live. The costs to produce goods are higher, so the cost to purchase is higher, nullifying the higher minimum wage being earned by the lowest skilled employees. So, if they have income, it doesn’t go as far.

Free Market Way: Businesses make individual agreements with individual workers, based on the work the employer wants done and the worker’s abilities. No employer is forced to pay more than the work is worth. No employee is forced to do work for less than he agrees to be paid.

Result: Businesses attract the best workers by willingly paying them what they’re worth. Less experienced workers start out working at a lower wage, but as they gain experience, their pay increases. Employers are willing to take a chance on less experienced workers, because the cost of employment is lower. Unemployment decreases—possibly down to near zero, which is prevented by current minimum wage laws. Inexperienced workers have a starting place from which they can move up. There is more flexibility for employers and employees. Costs to produce goods are more in line with what the market will bear, without artificially high costs, so money earned goes further. 

Everyone Ought to Receive Affordable Health Care

Government Way: Implements a complex and unworkable scheme to force all people to buy health insurance prescribed by government, regardless of what individuals want and need and can afford. Many unwanted details are hidden within the law—i.e., higher taxes on home sales, health clinics in schools that work against parental desires or permission, pressure to force states to set up exchanges to enable the boondoggle. It is insisted this is not a tax when being forced through Congress; it is held up as a tax, in order to pretend it is constitutional, when brought before the Supreme Court.

Result: While this is ineptly named the Affordable Care Act, it is more expensive for almost all Americans, essentially just as many remain uninsured as previously, and many who previously had health insurance and doctors they liked are deprived of those options. Health insurance is mistaken for care, and both health insurance and health care are made less affordable.

Free Market Way: It is recognized that separation from free market has led to higher prices. So free market alternatives begin to appear: health care savings accounts, health care cooperatives, lower prices for direct cash payments, major medical-only insurance, insurance across state lines and portable when changing employers. Low interest payment plans might be allowed, depending on credit histories and other factors. Hospitals coordinate with charities to help those with overwhelming costs.

Result: Individual needs are met with individual options. Competition and connection between patient and payment increase attention to cost, keeping costs naturally lower, and—as happens in free markets—innovation leads to greater services at lower costs

The list could go on. If you want a clean environment, keep government out of it, or you’ll get a dirtier environment. If you want a colorblind society, stop letting government favor certain races. If you want a good education for every child, get government out of the business of controlling education from afar.

There are specific roles for government, always related to protecting life, liberty, and property. Government has been so inept in so many things, we may not trust them even with the essentials, but there is a proper role for government. However, anything beyond that proper role and government will create negative consequences, regardless of possibly positive intentions.

So I predict greater freedom, prosperity, and civilization wherever government is limited to its proper role. I predict movement toward tyranny, poverty, and savagery whenever government steps in to “fix” some perceived problem. Every time.

North and South Comparison

In the Spherical Model, north on the sphere is good—where we want to be—and south is bad. But throughout history, countries that maintain freedom, prosperity, and civilization have been the exception.

I believe it is a part of our nature to want the northern good—ultimate good. But many people don’t see the possibility, and just try to get some sort of tolerable in the southern hemisphere. Evidence shows the southern hemisphere methods don’t lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization; they lead to various levels of tyranny, poverty, and savagery. But rather than looking upward for better methods, the people just keep re-trying what doesn’t work, apparently thinking a little tweaking to bad policy will suddenly result in their envisioned perfect world. It won’t and can’t happen.

If you look at many of the stated goals, you’ll find counterfeits of the actual northern hemisphere. I wrote a two-part post [here and here] on southern hemisphere counterfeits. Many have to do with misunderstanding what a right is.

Today I thought it might be useful to list the comparisons side by side.  

Southern Hemisphere Version	Northern Hemisphere Version
Everyone deserves equality, so the government forcibly takes from those who have earned more than they need and gives to those who earn very little.	Everyone deserves equal opportunity, so laws protect a person’s right to what he earns, and all are permitted to choose their legal means of earning wealth.
Everyone needs food and shelter, and everyone should give charitably to those who can’t afford it, so government takes from those who have plenty and pays for the food and shelter of the less fortunate.	Everyone needs food and shelter, and everyone should give charitably to those who can’t afford to provide for themselves, so people who have enough and to spare freely give charitably to those who would otherwise go without.
Everyone deserves medical care, so government forces everyone to buy health insurance that the government determines is best, at the cost the government requires, regardless of specific individual needs or preferences, or ability to pay.	Everyone deserves to be able to seek medical care, and for those unable to provide payment for themselves, philanthropy can offer aid. Free market helps provide better service at better prices, which is good for everyone.
Gun violence is bad, so people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns, or ownership should be strictly controlled by government. Law enforcement personnel should be depended on in all circumstances to protect against outlaw violence.	Gun violence is bad, and cannot be completely prevented by law enforcement, so people retain the God-given right to defend themselves—as long as they are sane and law abiding. Otherwise the unarmed innocent are at the mercy of the armed perpetrators of violence.
Marriage is a statement that people are in a sexual relationship and live together at this time, and therefore deserve tax advantages and other privileges expected by any married persons. Banning anyone from marriage is bigotry and anyone with such beliefs should be prosecuted and/or ostracized.	Marriage is a permanent and exclusive commitment between a man and a woman, forming the basis for a family, and is to be protected and encouraged, since it is the basic unit of civilization—the best way to safely raise children, educate them, prepare them for productive adult life, and inculcate in them the principles of civilization. Redefining marriage as anything else damages the family.
Religion is allowed for those who think they need it, but they shouldn’t expect public policy to support religion in general, nor should they be allowed to express their religion in public places, such as on public property or in the workplace.	A religious population is essential for a free and prosperous civilization. People get their rights from God, and govern themselves in accordance with God’s laws. Religious freedom, therefore, is essential for civilization, and should be encouraged in public policy, so that the free exercise thereof shall not be infringed.
Government knows best what information it needs in order to protect everyone, so it should have free rein to gather data and use it as it sees fit; no one should have the expectation of privacy in today’s world.	People should feel secure in their persons and papers, without any illegal searches or seizures. Law enforcement officers must have legal warrants for searches, and no data not pertinent to a pending case should be retained if gathered inadvertently.
Everyone deserves to have a job that pays a living wage, so government can force employers to pay what the government deems necessary, regardless of the business’s ability to profit under those requirements. The government knows best what a minimum wage should be, and assumes all employees are in need of a wage to support themselves free of family or other help that have traditionally been provided for young workers gaining skills.	Everyone is free to exchange their work for pay as they see fit, according to their skills and value to an employer, and the employer is free to exchange pay for work, as it values the contribution of that employee. This reduces unemployment and offers employment that gives experience that may lead to better opportunities in the future for a worker who shows his worth.
Government may favor people of various races, ethnicities, or genders, because government knows best how to make up for perceived past generational disadvantages. People not meeting quotas put forth by government should be punished and labeled as bigots until they conform, and may be labeled bigots even after they conform.	People should be valued according to the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin or some other characteristic.

 We could go on. Maybe we will another day. Most of the southern hemisphere examples above relate to the statist side of tyranny (southeast quadrant), rather than the chaos side, since that relates more closely to government policy. Maybe another day we’ll do a chaos comparison with civilization.

What we do know is that, no matter how the southern hemisphere argues about people deserving this or that, as the government decides, real freedom, prosperity, and civilization can only be obtained by living the principles of the northern hemisphere.