The Road to Freedom Page 17

  CHAPTER THREE

  1See Jonathan Haidt, S. H. Keller, and M. G. Dias, “Affect, Culture, Morality, or Is It Wrong to Eat Your Dog?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, no. 4 (1993): 613–628.

  2Ben Kenward and Matilda Dahl, “Preschoolers distribute scarce resources according to the moral valence of recipients’ previous actions,” Developmental Psychology 47, no. 4 (July 2011): 1054–1064; PsycINFO, EBSCOhost, http://0-search.ebscohost.com.clark.up.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN =2011-10379-001&login.asp?custid=s8474154&site=ehost-live&scope=site

  3Rimma Teper, Michael Inzlicht, and Elizabeth Page-Gould, “Are we more moral than we think?: Exploring the role of affect in moral behavior and moral forecasting,” Psychological Science 22, no. 4 (2011): 553–558; PsycINFO, EBSCOhost, http://0-search.ebscohost.com.clark.up.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2011-07884-021&login.asp?custid=s8474154&site=ehost-live&scope=site. The fact that this test was performed in Canada might lead one to ask whether the results would be the same in other countries.

  4See, for example, Laura Seifert, “On H1N1: ‘We’re Prepared for the Worst,’” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/06/ftn/main5291052.shtml

  5A third definition commonly discussed in the social science literature is reciprocity or the belief that if I do something for you, you should do something for me in exchange.

  6Real Clear Politics Video, October 18, 2010, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/10/18/pelosi_need_to_address_fairness_of_ownership_and _equity_in_america.html

  7Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on International Tax Reform,” May 4, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-The-President-On-International-Tax-Policy-Reform/

  8Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), 128–149, http://www.vietnamica.net/op/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Free_To_Choose_Friedman.pdf

  9The higher percentage of rejected offers comes on the East Coast; the lower percentage on the West Coast. Hessel Oosterbeek, Randolph Sloof, and Gijs van de Kuilen, “Cultural Differences in Ultimatum Game Experiments: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis,” Experimental Economics 7, no. 2, 2004: 171–188, http://0-search.proquest.com.clark.up.edu/docview/222837285?accountid=14703

  10To all you experimentalists: I know this does not follow proper experimental protocols, the data are not i.i.d., etc. Keep your shirt on, I’m trying to write an interesting book here.

  11Actually, the big winner is our family dentist.

  12World Values Surveys Databank, “Fairness: One Secretary is Paid More,” World Values Survey, United States V115, 2006.

  13Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (Literary Classics of the United States, 2004), 57.

  14Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816. Abraham Lincoln said this in a speech in Connecticut in 1860: “I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.” At this, the crowd broke into thunderous applause. Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at New Haven, Connecticut,” March 6, 1860, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol.4, ed. Roy P. Basler (Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953), 24.

  15Venture capitalist Kip Hagopian deals eloquently with issues of luck in the case of progressive taxation. See Kip Hagopian, “The Inequity of the Progressive Income Tax,” Policy Review, no. 166 (April 1, 2011), http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/72291

  16Mark Perry, “Income Mobility in the Dynamic U.S. Economy,” The Enterprise Blog, March 29, 2011, http://blog.american.com/2011/03/income-mobility-in-the-dynamic-u-s-economy/

  17Daniel P. McMurrer and Isabel C. Sawhill, “Economic Mobility in the United States,” Urban Institute, October 1, 1996, http://www.urban.org/publications/406722.html

  18Isabel V. Sawhill and Mark Condon, “Is U.S. Income Inequality Really Growing?: Sorting Out the Fairness Question,” Policy Bites (Urban Institute, 1992).

  19Richard V. Burkhauser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, and Stephen E. Rhody, “Labor Earnings Mobility in the United States and Germany During the Growth Years of the 1980s,” mimeo, Syracuse University, 1996.

  20Charles Murray, Losing Ground (Basic Books, 1984).

  21Jeffrey Stonecash, “Inequality and the American Public,” Campbell Public Affairs Institute, Maxwell Poll on Civic Engagement and Inequality, Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 2005.

  22James Allan Davis, Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden, “Cumulative Codebook,” General Social Survey (1972–2008) (National Opinion Research Center, 2008).

  23The World Values Survey asked respondents to answer these questions on a 1–10 scale, where a response of 1 signified “in the long run, hard work usually brings a better life,” while 10 meant, “hard work doesn´t generally bring success—it’s more a matter of luck and connections.” Americans were more than twice as likely to give an answer of 1 or 2 than the French were. World Values Surveys Databank, “Hard Work Brings Success,” World Values Survey, United States, 2006.

  24Mark Baisley, “Towards More South Park Conservatives,” townhall.com, July 17, 2011, http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/markbaisley/2011/07/17/towards_more_south_park_conservatives/page/full/

  25If a liberal and a conservative are exactly identical in income, education, sex, family situation, and race, the liberal will still be 20 percentage points less likely than the conservative to say that hard work leads to success among the disadvantaged. Campbell Public Affairs Institute, Maxwell Poll on Civic Engagement and Inequality [dataset], 2005, Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. These results are based on a probit model in which the beliefs about the importance of hard work are regressed on political views, as well as a vector of demographics. The marginal coefficients are estimated at the mean values of the regressors.

  26Joyce Bryant, “Immigration in the United States,” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 2001, http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/3/99.03.01.x.html

  27Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at New Haven, Connecticut,” March 6, 1860, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4, ed. Roy P. Basler (Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953), 24. Further, Lincoln believed, “The hired laborer of yesterday, labors on his own account to-day; and will hire others to labor for him tomorrow.” See Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment on Free Labor,” September 17, 1859, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, ed. Roy P. Basler (Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953), 462.

  28“Subjective Class Identification,” General Social Survey, Dataset: General Social Survey, 1972–2006, http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/GSS+Website/Browse+GSS+Variables/Mnemonic+Index/

  29The increase inequality referenced here is based on Gini coefficients. The Gini coefficient for the United States grew from 0.401 in 1972 to 0.462 in 2002. “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009,” U.S. Census Bureau, September 2010, http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf

  30“Subjective Class Identification,” General Social Survey, Dataset: General Social Survey, 1972–2006, http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/GSS+Website/Browse+GSS+Variables/Mnemonic+Index/

  31Karlyn Bowman, “What Do Americans Think About Taxes?” Tax Notes, April 6, 2009, pp. 99–105.

  32Mads Meier Jæger, “‘A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever’?: Returns to Physical Attractiveness over the Life Course,” Social Forces 89, no. 3 (March 2011): 983–1003.

  33Alberto Alesina and George-Marios Angeletos, “Fairness and Redistribution,” American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (2005): 960–980.

  34James Pethokoukis, “5 reasons why income inequality is a myth—and Occupy Wall Street is wrong,” The Enterprise blog, October 18, 2011, http://blog.american.com/2011/10/5-reasons-why-income-inequality-is-a-myth-and-occ
upy-wall-street-is-wrong/; Robert J. Gordon, “Misperceptions about the Magnitude and Timing of Changes in American Income Inequality,” NBER working paper 15351, September 2009, http://www.nber.org/papers/w15351.pdf?new_window=1. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis economists found that when controlling for key factors, the median household income for almost all household types increased between 44 percent and 62 percent from 1976 to 2006. They observed that the studies that showed much smaller increases in median household income got those results because they didn’t control for key factors such as household size or demographic changes over time. Terry J. Fitzgerald, “Where Has All the Income Gone?” The Region, September 2008, http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/08-09/income.pdf

  35Richard Burkhauser, “Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data,” Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming.

  36Congressional Budget Office, “Trends in the Distribution of Income Between 1979 and 2007,” October 2011, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf. The data extend only until 2007. We do not have evidence to suggest that the pattern has changed since that time.

  37Arthur M. Okun, Equality and Efficiency (Brookings Institution, 1975), 47.

  38Kipling, Rudyard (1919). “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” (poem). http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1Luke 10: 29–37.

  2Dan Gilgoff, “New budget campaign asks ‘What would Jesus cut?’” CNN.com Belief Blog, February 28, 2011, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/28/new-budget-campaign-asks-what-would-jesus-cut/

  3Marco Rubio, address on the proper role of government, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, August 23, 2011, http://rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2011/8/icymi-senator-rubio-at-the-reagan-library

  4Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), chapter 1.

  5M. Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (Academy Chicago Publishers, 1985), 42; see also Mabe C. Buer, Health, Wealth, and Population in the Early Days of the Industrial Revolution, 1760–1815 (George Routledge and Sons, 1926), 30.

  6George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century, 42.

  7Michael Novak, Three in One: Essays on Democratic Capitalism 1976–2000, ed. Edward W. Younkins (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2001), 57.

  8U.S. Census Bureau, Income data historical tables, “Table P-1. Total CPS Population and Per Capita Income,” http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people

  9Angus Maddison, “Statistics on World Population and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD,” http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm. Material progress is tied to technological advances in society, and technological progress has skyrocketed over the last two centuries. The average annual rate of such progress before 1800 was less than 0.05 percent. The rate today is thirty times higher. See Clark, A Farewell to Alms.

  10Maddison, “Statistics on World Population and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD.”

  11World Bank World Development Indicators, “Life Expectancy at Birth, total (years),” http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN

  12U.S. Census Bureau. “Series H 664-668. Percent Illiterate in the Population, by Race and Nativity: 1870 to 1969.” Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970,” http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab.html

  13Steckel, “A History of the Standard of Living in the United States.” EH.net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples, July 21, 2002, http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/steckel.standard.living.us

  14“Massachusetts Acts to Save Country’s First Public High School,” New York Times, April 28, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/education/28boston.html; Kern Alexander and David M. Alexander, American Public School Law, 6th ed. (Thomson West, 2005).

  15In Gregory Clark’s words, “[T]he biggest beneficiary of the Industrial Revolution so far has been the unskilled. There have been benefits aplenty for the typically wealthy owners of land or capital, and for the educated. But industrialized economies saved their best gifts for the poorest.” Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Chapter 1.

  16Maxim Pinkovskiy and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, “Parametric Estimations of the world distribution of income,” NBER Working Paper 15433, http://www.nber.org/papers/w15433.pdf

  17Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (Simon & Schuster, 1982).

  18World Bank, “Country Brief: China,” http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/CHINAEXTN/0,menuPK:318960~pagePK:141132~piPK:141107~theSitePK:318950,00.html; Arthur C. Brooks, “Don’t Live Simply,” AEI Articles and Commentary, September 15, 2008, http://www.aei.org/article/28626

  19World Bank, “Dramatic Decline in Global Poverty, but Progress Uneven,” April 23, 2004, http://go.worldbank.org/84RMEOWD20

  20World Bank World Development Indicators and Global Development Finance, “GNI Per Capita, Atlas Method (current US$),” http://www.databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do

  21Ibid.

  22Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (Basic Books, 2000).

  23Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

  24George Ayittey, a professor of economics at American University and a native of Ghana, has described the continent’s challenges: “The problem that happened after independence was that our leaders rejected the market system as a Western institution and tried to destroy it and they also rejected democracy. This is why the continent started its road to ruination.” Renee Montagne and George Ayittey, “Expert: Africa Needs More than Foreign Aid,” National Public Radio, July 6, 2005, http://npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyID=4731168

  25William R. Easterly, “Why Bill Gates Hates My Book,” Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2008.

  26“Worst of the Worst 2011: The World’s Most Repressive Societies,” Freedom House Special Report. http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/101.pdf

  27In 2010 GDP terms. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ks.html; in GDP per capita terms, it is forty-fifth.

  28North Korea’s GDP per capita in 2010 is estimated at $1,800, while South Korea’s is $30,000 at Purchasing Power Parity.

  29James Gwartney, Joshua Hall, and Robert Lawson, Economic Freedom of the World 2010 Annual Report, Fraser Institute, http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications /economic-freedom-of-the-world-2010.pdf

  30Economists Hugo Faria and Hugo Montesinos test the causal link between the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) Index and economic growth. They use instrumental variables to isolate the exogenous sources of variation in the relationship. They report the existence of a strong, positive, statistically significant and economically consequential impact of EFW on growth and average income. Hugo Faria and Hugo Montesinos, “Does economic freedom cause prosperity? An IV approach,” Public Choice 141, no.1/2 (2009): 103–127.

  31U.S. Census Bureau income data, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/inequality/index.html.

  32W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, “You Are What You Spend,” New York Times, February 10, 2008.

  33Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, “Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What Is Poverty in the United States Today?” Backgrounder, no. 2575, July 18, 2011, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/07/What-is-Poverty

  34Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975).

  35Whole Foods CEO John Mackey eloquently links economic enrichment and altruism: “Resting everything on self-interest is relying on a very incomplete theory of human nature. . . . People do things for lots of reasons. A false dichotomy is often set up between self-interest, or selfishness, and altruism
. To me it is a false dichotomy, because we’re obviously both. We are self-interested, but we’re not just self-interested. We also care about other people. We usually care a great deal about the well being of our families. We usually care about our communities and the larger society that we live in. We can also care about the well being of animals and our larger environment. We have ideals that motivate us to try to make the world a better place. By a strict definition, they would seem to contradict self-interest, unless you get back into the circular argument that everything you care about and want to do is self-interest.” John Mackey, “Defending the Morality of Capitalism,” June 24, 2011, http://www2.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jmackey/category/conscious-capitalism/

  36Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books, 2006).

  37Charitable contributions from American individuals, corporations, and foundations were an estimated $290.89 billion in 2010, up from a revised estimate of $280.30 billion for 2009. The 2010 estimate represents growth of 3.8 percent in current dollars and 2.1 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, June 20, 2011, http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/news/2011/06/pr-GUSA.aspx; International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook Database, April 2011 Edition, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/01/weodata/index.aspx

  38Brooks, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.

  39Ibid.

  40Ibid. All these results come from analysis of the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey and other publicly available, non-partisan data sources. A large difference persists even after correcting for income differences and other demographics like age and education.

  411996 and 2002 General Social Survey, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.

  42Lawrence T. White, Raivo Valk, and Abdessamad Dialmy, “What Is the Meaning of ‘on Time’? The Sociocultural Nature of Punctuality,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 42, no. 3 (April 2011): 482–493.