Random thought
If you can't win without cheating, you're not actually that good at the game.
Or, in other words: It's hilarious to watch Randroids, Ronulans, Friedmanites and other such free marketeers argue that a system without regulation will naturally allow the best of the best to rise to the top. Um. No. Seriously, folks. Have you seen the halfwits produced by legacy admissions to the Ivy Leagues? I know, let's eliminate the NFL draft and just let players buy or bully their way onto the teams of their choice and see how great the game is then! And how about we let Paris Hilton just take over day-to-day operations at her family's hotel chain, and see how successful it is then!
Money, guns, physical bulk and other such unearned advantages grant a lot of power in an unregulated system. But merely being in posession of such things doesn't mean a given person is actually competent.
The theory, for instance, that people who are already rich should be the only ones allowed to make large-scale economic decisions because clearly they know how to manage money doesn't account for people who are rich only by accident of birth, gambling, theft or good investment advice.
The children of privilege, for instance, aren't any more inherently capable of brilliance just because of their genes. They may have many advantages--good nutrition, good schools, safe neighborhoods, etc.--that help them succeed in their early years where children in poverty cannot, but there's nothing physically there that makes them born money managers or molecular biologists or whatever. Children who are adopted into privileged families do just as well as those genetically linked to privileged parents. And someone who won $10 million in a lottery isn't automatically capable of understanding the intricacies of hedge funds and commodities futures.
True meritocracies--where the actually talented and intelligent have the greatest control--require gatekeeping. And that gatekeeping has to include regulations that make it difficult for people who have accidental power and an overdose of ego to muscle their way in and screw things up. It also has to include a level playing field for everyone, because the next Curie or Hawking may well come from the projects instead of gated communities. A system that deprives the poor of access to basic needs makes it impossible for us to find those people, and that makes all of us more poor for the lack. Punishing potentially brilliant poor children by bankrupting their parents isn't just rotten on a moral level, but deprives us all of the potential benefits of their talents. Dunno about you, but as a music lover, for instance, I would be incensed that a child with remarkable musical talent wasn't allowed to develop it simply because some asshat thought she deserved to suffer for the sins of her poor family. Call me selfish, but I want to see that child perform, and fuck if I'm going to let some short-sighted hoarder ruin that for me by refusing to let her have health care and education so that she may eventually give us her gifts.
Truth be told, the bellering of the uberlibertarians about guns and deregulation is really just the death throes of people who know very well that if our system were based on granting merit to people who actually earned it in a fair game, they'd lose. They know that physical might is losing out to mental agility. They know that being the biggest bully on the playground doesn't actually make them king of the hill anymore. They know that the jocks and preps are losing out to the geeks and freaks left and right. They know that nerds building electronics in their garages are making fortunes without having rich daddies or trust funds. They know that being a white, male Christian isn't as much of an automatic ticket to success as it used to be. They know very well that they might have to--gasp!--work for their success soon, instead of just sitting back and expecting it to come because they are the entitled princes of the universe with vast fortunes or big sticks.
They want the system to be deregulated, and success or failure to be a matter of wallet and/or muscle size because that's all they have going for them. They are, to a person, pathetic, lazy, untalented and incompetent, and are deathly afraid of that truth coming out, and people seeing them for the frauds they are.
H/t to idyllictorture for passing along the GQ Randroid link, which inspired this.
Or, in other words: It's hilarious to watch Randroids, Ronulans, Friedmanites and other such free marketeers argue that a system without regulation will naturally allow the best of the best to rise to the top. Um. No. Seriously, folks. Have you seen the halfwits produced by legacy admissions to the Ivy Leagues? I know, let's eliminate the NFL draft and just let players buy or bully their way onto the teams of their choice and see how great the game is then! And how about we let Paris Hilton just take over day-to-day operations at her family's hotel chain, and see how successful it is then!
Money, guns, physical bulk and other such unearned advantages grant a lot of power in an unregulated system. But merely being in posession of such things doesn't mean a given person is actually competent.
The theory, for instance, that people who are already rich should be the only ones allowed to make large-scale economic decisions because clearly they know how to manage money doesn't account for people who are rich only by accident of birth, gambling, theft or good investment advice.
The children of privilege, for instance, aren't any more inherently capable of brilliance just because of their genes. They may have many advantages--good nutrition, good schools, safe neighborhoods, etc.--that help them succeed in their early years where children in poverty cannot, but there's nothing physically there that makes them born money managers or molecular biologists or whatever. Children who are adopted into privileged families do just as well as those genetically linked to privileged parents. And someone who won $10 million in a lottery isn't automatically capable of understanding the intricacies of hedge funds and commodities futures.
True meritocracies--where the actually talented and intelligent have the greatest control--require gatekeeping. And that gatekeeping has to include regulations that make it difficult for people who have accidental power and an overdose of ego to muscle their way in and screw things up. It also has to include a level playing field for everyone, because the next Curie or Hawking may well come from the projects instead of gated communities. A system that deprives the poor of access to basic needs makes it impossible for us to find those people, and that makes all of us more poor for the lack. Punishing potentially brilliant poor children by bankrupting their parents isn't just rotten on a moral level, but deprives us all of the potential benefits of their talents. Dunno about you, but as a music lover, for instance, I would be incensed that a child with remarkable musical talent wasn't allowed to develop it simply because some asshat thought she deserved to suffer for the sins of her poor family. Call me selfish, but I want to see that child perform, and fuck if I'm going to let some short-sighted hoarder ruin that for me by refusing to let her have health care and education so that she may eventually give us her gifts.
Truth be told, the bellering of the uberlibertarians about guns and deregulation is really just the death throes of people who know very well that if our system were based on granting merit to people who actually earned it in a fair game, they'd lose. They know that physical might is losing out to mental agility. They know that being the biggest bully on the playground doesn't actually make them king of the hill anymore. They know that the jocks and preps are losing out to the geeks and freaks left and right. They know that nerds building electronics in their garages are making fortunes without having rich daddies or trust funds. They know that being a white, male Christian isn't as much of an automatic ticket to success as it used to be. They know very well that they might have to--gasp!--work for their success soon, instead of just sitting back and expecting it to come because they are the entitled princes of the universe with vast fortunes or big sticks.
They want the system to be deregulated, and success or failure to be a matter of wallet and/or muscle size because that's all they have going for them. They are, to a person, pathetic, lazy, untalented and incompetent, and are deathly afraid of that truth coming out, and people seeing them for the frauds they are.
H/t to idyllictorture for passing along the GQ Randroid link, which inspired this.