About 2,400 years after Socrates died, I took my first course in Philosophy. We were studying his life and thoughts through Plato’s works. Which were really Greek to me. But the professor had a nice way of summing up what the gadfly of Athens was all about. “He went about the city challenging the most basic assumptions of the people he met,” the nondescript professor said (it was community college for Army people). “And he did it using a kind of verbal Judo — getting them thinking one thing and then using the weight of their own arguments to throw them to the ground.”
The idea of verbal Judo has stayed with me. Just taking the weight of an argument, and pushing it to its logical extremes, to show its internal flaws.
So why on God’s earth does this piece of personal trivia become important enough to write down at 5:02 a.m. on a Thursday morning? You got me. But if you’ll join me after the flip, I’ll explain what got me thinking about this old, old lesson from my rather inauspicious days as a student.
My entire adult life, I’ve been bombarded by a couple of messages. We all have. I don’t even know that I’d call the messages “conservative” ideas at this point. Because a whole lot of Democrats seem to subscribe to them as well. Or at least concede their truth. The two particular messages that have come into focus for me recently are: 1) Growth is good for the economy; and 2) Cutting taxes are good for the economy.
That “growth” is a positive development for our economy, both universally and locally, is almost unquestioned. The very statistics we use to measure our success talk about growth. GDP growth. Housing starts. Jobs created. More trade. More production. More sales. More is almost always equated with better in the news we are fed.
I was reminded of how good growth is when I met a suburban mom yesterday. She had four kids, she was proud to tell me, shortly after unloading three-quarters of her offspring from her SUV. It was just the pride in her voice that made me cringe. But I don’t suppose it should have. Because growth is good. Have a bizillion kids. So long as you can afford enough SUVs to get them to McDonalds a couple of times a week.
Growth is the model on which we have based everything. It is the lifeblood of capitalism. More people. More products. More jobs. More resources put into production. More profit. And smile at just how good the world has turned out.
So I got to thinking, very late at night, when sleep would not come, what would Socrates say to the woman and her brood, if he were able to lead her to a discussion about growth and our economy? And it seems to me that the answer is fairly simple. If growth is good, what will happen to your system when it runs out of room for growth? There are limits to this world that even idiots ought to be able to see coming on the near horizon. There is a limit to the population of human beings, beyond which we will lack the capacity to provide food and water. There is a limit to the natural resources on which we have built the system that feeds us today. There is a limit on the number of homes we need to build. There are physical limits everywhere on this planet. That we are fast brushing up against, giving us the uneasy feeling that we are in a crowded market.
I would have to posit that the very word “growth” needs to be replaced with “sustainability.” Our wealth can no longer be measured by how much we can own or produce or consume. Our wealth must be measured by how well we can take care of each individual in a sustainable way. The policy implications of adopting this attitudinal shift would be mind-boggling. And I’m sure that Socrates would ultimately take sustainability advocates like myself, and throw our ass on the mat. But it is certainly time that we push this idea of growth to the other side of the ring.
And since it was the middle of the night, when I began to think these thoughts, and I was not yet tired, I kept on thinking. I’ve been reminded of Ronald Reagan in recent days. That good old tax-cutting, Commie fighting son of a gun. Mostly it is the tax cuts that reminded me of the man. I’ve been hearing about the estate tax repeal that was again within a whisker of passage by the Senate. And as a lawyer who has done his fair share of working-class estate planning, I can assure you that this tax is absolutely no threat to anyone you know, unless you’ve been flying around on your buddy’s private jet recently.
But it is not just the estate tax. Taxes — all taxes — are now synonymous with bad. Democrats do not even fight the idea much anymore. They might make the appropriate vote from time to time. But who in their right mind would ever defend taxes. Because it is just conventional wisdom that taxes are bad for business. And certainly, they are unpopular with the tax payer. So who is really out there fighting for tax increases. At best, maybe you get a voice in the wilderness who says something about letting a tax cut expire. Or who, gasp, might suggest that we return taxes to a level where they were, gasp, actually bringing in nearly enough money to pay for the spending that our government was undertaking.
It is just man-on-the-street wisdom, right? You can’t get elected talking about taxes. Unless you are talking about cutting them.
So what would Socrates say to the man on the street, about this wisdom? I dunno for sure. But I’m thinking he might point out the total bankruptcy of this notion in the long run.
You live in a country where viable politicians must pursue one of these tax policies: 1) I’ll cut taxes, 2) I’ll maintain current tax levels, or 3) I’ll never raise taxes. Unless something changes in the political climate of your country, you live in a system where the government will eventually go bankrupt. Because some politicians will get elected to cut taxes. And some will get elected to maintain tax levels. But none will ever get elected to raise taxes. And this will ultimately lead to no revenue.
If tax cutting is good, why have any taxes at all? When, if ever, would we stop cutting taxes? And how will we finance our government once taxes are gone?
Questions, questions. Always questions. Never answers. Well, at least they don’t make people who ask questions drink hemlock anymore. In fact, I’m more than certain there would have been a few Schiavo freaks outside Socrates window, screaming at him to stop the madness as he deprived the state its right to execute him. But that will have to wait for another sleepless night.