“Give back”? To whom? Why? [update 2]

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are asking American billionaires to “give back” the majority their billions .  To “give back” more than half. “ Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back,” says Buffett associate Charles Munger.  A duty.

This is clearly a moral cause, wouldn’t you say? A “duty,” indeed! A duty that makes no sense.

And give back? From whom was their vast wealth supposedly taken? The concept makes no sense at all.

So far 40 of the wealthiest Americans have signed the Giving Pledge, as it's known. As people who have an enormous respect for those who create enormous wealth, Yaron Brook and Don Watkins urge them in an Open Letter in the latest Forbes magazine to think again. 

The premise underlying the Giving Pledge is that so long as you were pursuing your own goals and well-being, what you were doing wasn't moral. Only by making the good of others your primary aim and sacrificing your wealth to meet their needs do your actions acquire ethical significance.
    Virtually everyone today shares that view--but what if it's wrong? What if your greatest moral achievement consists, not in giving away your wealth, but in having produced it? What if morality is really about guiding you in making the most of your own life--not commanding you to serve the needs of others? What if the most virtuous thing you can do in life is to pursue your own happiness?

It’s a point that’s made too rarely, but one that can’t be made too often: There is more virtue in producing wealth than there is in giving it away—not least because without production is a central requirement of human life, and without it neither happiness nor philanthropy (nor even human survival) are even possible; more virtue in pursuing your own happiness than placing yourself in the service of others—“but, according to the Giving Pledge, what makes you happy shouldn't be your primary concern.”

Is it better to give than to receive? It’s better to produce.

Buffett & Gates seem to think their wealth is something to be ashamed of. That them having wealth is a reason to apologise to those who haven’t. That giving their wealth away will make people think better of them, and them of themselves, but keeping it and producing more won’t.

It is no accident that the Giving Pledge is not a call for charity but a public pledge to give [say Brook & Watkins] … 
    The Pledge treats your wealth, not as a justly earned reward, but as a gift from society--one that came with plenty of strings attached…  
    But your wealth was not an undeserved gift. Every dollar in your bank account came from some individual who voluntarily gave it to you--who gave it to you in exchange for a product he judged to be more valuable than his dollar. You have no moral obligation to "give back," because you didn't take anything in the first place.

Businessmen like Warren Buffett & Bill Gates have nothing for which to apologise, and much of which to be very proud indeed.  Not because of their philanthropy, but because of their enormous productive ability—and the products they’ve made and invested in that make each of us happier and more productive.  That’s the biggest service these two walking engines of production could provide, and already are. About that, they should feel nothing but pride.

They are naturally entitled to do what they wish with the wealth they themselves have created, but to consider their enormous wealth as undeserved and its possession as some sort of sin that must be atoned for—and to encourage others to view it their own wealth that way too—is not something about which they  should feel pride. About that, they should be ashamed.

UPDATE: Like many other people, says philosopher and business-ethics lecturer Stephen Hicks, I am troubled when I hear the phrase “giving back.”

The usual scenario: A successful person makes a donation to a worthy cause but downplays any praise by saying “I’m only giving back.”
    The usual gentle rejoinder is to point out that the phrase assumes that the giver has taken something from others in the first place — he’s borrowed or stolen something and in “giving back” is merely restoring it to its rightful owners. That zero-sum assumption is usually untrue: most donors have earned what they have. So the phrase “giving back” contains within it an injustice: a false accusation.
    Yet there is more to it: the phrase also denies the benevolence of the giver. If you are only giving back what is rightfully someone else’s, then you do not deserve any special praise for your action. Your benevolence need not be acknowledged or honored.
    So the phrase really is a double injustice: it implies that you do not deserve what you have and it denies you any credit you deserve for your benevolent act. (Or to put it abstractly: It is the imputation of an undeserved negative and the denial of a deserved positive.)
    So far so bad.
    But it gets worse…

For which read on, where you will not only discover why this popular use of “giving back” is injustice compounded, where there might be legitimate uses of “giving back,” and also for some  insightful comments on the link between “giving back” and the fundamentally flawed ethics of so-called “social justice and of “stakeholder” theory.

UPDATE 2: Since I’m already getting emails indicating readers have misunderstood the point being made here, let me make clear again that folk are quite entitled to do whatever they wish with their money.

 

First of all, our discussion here is not what the law says they must do, but what morality says they should do—and, in particular, what two different schools of morality say about that: one focussed on duty and sin and the other focussed on causality and self-interest.

Second, I am not saying (read my lips, I am not saying) that people should not give their money away to causes which they deem worthy, and which they consider advance their own self-interested goals.

True enough, a billionaire may legitimately value a new yacht above the many uses many deserving charities might do with that money—and might legitimately value burning thousand dollar notes before giving it to an undeserving alleged charity like Sea Shepherd or Sue Bradford’s Kotare School.  But the reason many billionaires for many years have donated generously to build libraries, endow university chairs and fund teaching hospitals (and a myriad of other valuable charity works) is that, in George Reisman’s words, they are not “unthinking brutes incapable of understanding or appreciating the wider benefits resulting from such things as education and thus unwilling to support such activities voluntarily.”

In so doing, they do not give donations as alms—not because of some non-existent duty to “give back”—but because “they serve their own selfish values.” In donating to promote competent educational charities, for example, “they would provide to some significant extent both for the value they attach to living in a civilized society and to passing on such a society to their children…”

Bye-bye Bradford [update 3]

How disappointing it is to hear that Sue Bradford is leaving Parliament in October to go “back to the grassroots,” a decision that all New Zealand families should celebrate.

Disappointing?  Hell no. It’s worth celebrating! With both her and Cindy Kiro gone from power, your children are safer now than they were yesterday – unless of course they end up at her Kotare indoctrination centre, which I imagine is the sort of thing she means by “grass roots.” (Here’s part two of Trevor Loudon’s info on the place.)

So shall we try to say something nice about her now she’s going?

Nah.  Every single thing she’s done has been an attack on your freedom. There’s nothing to respect in that.

She joined the Green Party to further her own Maoist agenda, assisting in the “reverse  take-over” of the Greens by the Alliance party’s fellow travellers – the party was was “ripe for taking over” she said (read Phil U.’s account here at Update 3 of Bradford and Catherine Delahunty, fresh from Matt McCarten’s NLP) -- and New Zealand’s electorate was ripe for the Greenwash she and her comrades were able to peddle after that take over.

Her legacy is not just her anti-smacking attack on New Zealand’s parents, but the hijack of environmentalism by the ‘watermelon’ politicians of that party, and their cementing in of that ruse.

Sadly however, her resignation doesn’t denude the Greens of MPs since there’s another loser like her in the wings, a Mr David Clendon, who’s been feeding from the RMA trough all his career -- with a CV which has him morphing from “Resource Consultant” to lecturer in the RMA, ie., from parasite to brainwasher.

Choice, huh.  “What really motivated me” to stand for the luddites said the really unmotivating Clendon at the Greens conference last year, is "the ability the Greens have, and I think it's unique, to be able to identify complex problems and to see solutions." What’s unique about the Greens, of course, is nothing more than their combination of authoritarianism and  ludditery – with a a caucus composed almost entirely of the intellectual remnants of the Socialist Workers’ Party they’re little more than a bunch of  authoritarians with a marketing wing – a problem that Clendon’s CV would indicate won’t be changing with his induction.

So farewell then, Sue Bradford.  Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

And if you’re concerned that there’s no-one left in Parliament now to really despise, then don’t forget you’ve still got Keith Locke.  And Nick Smith.

UPDATE 1:  Farrar looks at the personal politics:

“It’s basically because she lost the co-leadership election to Metiria Turei. Things are obviously not that happy in the Green camp. More later. “

UPDATE 2: From Home Paddock:

Kathryn Ryan interviewed RadioNZ National’s  chief reporter Jane Patterson who said the decision was prompted by Bradford’s loss of the contest for co-leadership to Metiria Turei. The interview will be online here soon  is now online here.

UPDATE 3: “Now is the chance to get out the Green broom and sweep the Red dust out of the party,” says a Greens supporter over at the Frog Blog resignation thread.  He’s right, you know.

It was never just about smacking, you know [update 4]

The primary focus of the anti-smacking brigade is not smacking.  Once you understand that, you will understand their reaction to the weekend’s poll.  The primary focus of the anti-smacking brigade is not smacking, and it was never about child abuse. It was always about control.  They have used reasonable misgivings about smacking and widespread outrage at child abuse to advance an agenda of state control that has been enabled  by politicians too dim to realise they’re being used.

This morning’s cabinet meeting would be a good time for John Boy to realise that.

In case you hadn’t noticed, statists like Cindy Kiro and Sue Bradford want the state to be part of your family. The original intention of Sue Bradford’s private member’s bill: to ban smacking outright, was entirely consistent with her Marxist philosophy of state control in all facets of life – it was the Trojan Horse  by which she and Cindy hoped to get the state into the family. That’s the agenda here, a much wider one than the way you discipline your children – and an important one to realise when “compromise” is on the cards, as it will be again at this morning’s cabinet meeting.

You can see that wider agenda at work in 'Surveillance Cindy’s' plan for clipboard-wielding Stasis examining every family in the country against criteria set by Cindy Kiro and her children's commissariat.  Don’t raise your kids like Cindy tells you, and you’ll feel the wrath of the apparatchiks.

You can see  it in  Sue Bradford’s long-standing support for Stalinist Cindy’s scheme, and in her and Catherine Delahunty’s Marxist training school Kotare – what Delahunty describes in this speech outlining the Kotare School's aims as "a centre for radical and liberating education for social change."  (Part 2 is here.)

You can see it in Sue Bradford’s announcement in the wake of her anti-smacking amendment being passed that "This [was] very much the end of the beginning."

You can see it too in her utter disregard for the effect of the anti-smacking amendment on good parents, and in their lack of interest in those parents who are still killing their kids, which outrages happen each time without a word from primary sponsor of the amendment that was (it was alleged) intended to stop these violent assaults.

But this was never about smacking, not really.  It always has been about control – control not of bad parents but of good ones. The tragedy still is that only one side seems to understand that.

UPDATE 1: MacDoctor takes on the statistical “confusion” about the result exhibited by the control freaks.

UPDATE 2:  Danyl at Dim Post beautifully satirises some of the likely changes to the anti-smacking law, including :

• Alter font of Section 59 amendment from Courier12 to Times New Roman.
• Initiate second non-binding referendum to ask voters if they understood question in previous referendum.
• Key to address Families First meeting, stand at podium with shit-eating grin and demand to know who the fuck else they’re going to vote for.

UPDATE 3:  It’s worth remembering that it wasn’t just John Key who turned tail on his original opposition to Bradford’s Bill, and who emailers, commenters, Twitterers and Facebookers should now be pressuring to reconsider his first instincts.  What about all those National Party turncoats who stood up on the steps of Parliament in April 2007 swearing total opposition to the anti-smacking amendment, and then in May 2007 filed obediently into the lobbies to vote for it. I’m talking about National Socialist sell-outs Chester Borrows, Shane Ardern, Toe-rag Henare, Maurice Wimpianson and Judith ‘Don’t-Believe-A-Word-I-Say’ Collins.

Get onto them and tell them now to have the courage of whatever convictions they pretended to have back in April 2007.

mailto:chester.borrows@parliament.govt.nz
mailto:shane.ardern@parliament.govt.nz
mailto:tau.henare@parliament.govt.nz
mailto:m.williamson@ministers.govt.nz
mailto:j.collins@ministers.govt.nz

(And if you’re super-keen, then as a commenter advises send the buggers a letter. "MP name, parliament" is all that it needs. No stamp required. Emails are much much easier to delete than letters, which will all be delivered physically to the MP’s office.)

UPDATE 4:  Interesting that the Reds’ Red Alert blog hasn’t mentioned a thing on the referendum. Seems their beloved democracy gave them a good smacking on this occasion.

And interesting too that the Reds’ luminary, Braying Oddwords, chose to mention it on Saturday only with a photo of Larry Baldock punching the air in celebration and the caption “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words.”  (FWIW, I left the comment “You do spin well here, don’t you,” but Oddwords wasn’t interested in my comment and it never made the main page.

Protecting yourself from vandalism is good

A company endures sabotage, disruption and destruction of property and projects by a small group of goths and vandals.

The company pays a young numb nut to infiltrate the organisation and report on when protests and disruption were planned.

Who's in the right here? The vandals? Or those trying to protect themselves from destruction and disruption?

The Greens' Russel Norman is exactly wrong to be denouncing Solid Energy (the company) for infiltrating a spy into the Save Happy Valley environmental protest group (the vandals). Not just wrong, but downright hypocritical because as Trevor Loudon points out, Russel himself was weaned by Australia's Trotskyite DSP and its former incarnation the Socialist Workers Party, both "notorious in Australia for their relentless infiltration and manipulation of other organisations."

Read Trevor's lowdown on the tactics of the Trotskyites and Russel's involvement "for several years ... in an organisation that practised manipulation of other organisations as a matter of course": Is Russel Norman being hypocritical over "infiltration" allegation.

UPDATE 1: A surveillance state? Libertarianz spokesman Greg Balle makes the perfectly sensible point that this incident illustrates a key reason why State Owned Enterprises such as Solid Energy should all be privatised. Says Greg:

While Solid Energy remains an arm of the state, activities such as surveillance of citizens takes on a very sinister element, particularly as they have the might of the sate at their disposal to protect them against legal challenges to such dubious behaviour.

If the SOE's were private corporations they would not have the protection of Nanny State's skirts to hide behind and would be subject to the rigours of the free market of industrial espionage and information, as such they would be open to court action like any other private corportation. A Libertarianz government would privatise all SOE's, like Solid Energy, and return proceeds from the privatisation to taxpayers. Eliminating the rogue arms of the corpro-state indulging in spying, intimidation and monopolistic behaviour, would be a welcome benefit from the sale of these enterprises.

Makes perfect sense to me.

UPDATE 2: Trevor Loudon provides another instructive link indicating that The Greens' have more than just an emotional connection to this issue. Young Frances Mountier, who you've probably seen on your TV news leading the rabble opposing Solid Energy, is a graduate of Sue Bradford's Kotare School project (which has been mentioned here before). Explains Trevor:

The Kotare School is openly modelled on the Communist Party USA linked Highlander School in Tennessee, famous for training martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and many other prominent "civil rights" activists.

Kotare's Green Party trustees include MP Sue Bradford (Deputy Chair), Karen Davis (Treasurer) and Sue Berman. Gordon Jackman another trustee is the partner of Green party activist, Catherine Delahunty, who tutors at the school.

Several Kotare personnel, including Sue Bradford and Quentin Jukes have Workers Communist league backgrounds. The school teaches "social activism" based on the teachings of Brazilian Marxist, Paolo Friere. It has trained many prominent youth activists, including John Darroch from Auckland Radical Youth and Wellington Palestine Group activist Tali Williams.

According to Kotare's Spring 2006 newsletter

Kotare has a Youth Advisory group of people under 25 who have volunteered to give us feedback on how we are working generally and also specifically with younger people. We are meeting with them on November 11 and 12 to discuss our work. The advisory group members are Tali Williams from Wellington, Frances Mountier from Christchurch, John Darroch from South Auckland and Tui Armstrong from Whangarei. These young people have all participated in Kotare activities since the age of 15 and have active networks and great ideas!

So Frances Mountier has trained at a Green Party linked Marxist training school since the age of 15!

The phrase "brainwashed" comes to mind.

The real story here is that Solid Energy is fighting not just a bunch of irresponsible young protestors. It is also battling the Green Party, including several of its leaders and strategies learnt in Sue Bradford's Marxist training school.

One can hardly blame them for fighting back with a little bit of espionage.

No, one couldn't. I'd suggest that the Save Happy Valley Coalition are less interested in saving snails than they are in saving and promoting Marxism.

Smacking is not beating

It is insane that an MP promoting a Bill to ban smacking one's own children is completely unable to distinguish between smacking and beating, between smacking and violence. Insane, just insane.

Her Bill she said removes "an excuse for violence towards children," and it does it by criminalising those who, in her words, "beat, assault and hit their children." This is how she characterises smacking: as beating, assaulting and hitting children.

But smacking is not violence, smacking is not beating or assaulting children -- failing to distinguish between smacking and violence is a failure to distinguish at all -- and a failure too to understand that there are already laws on the books against beating, assaulting or inflicting violence against children, but those who do beat their children simply ignore them. A new law criminalising smacking is utterly unlikely to influence those parents who do inflict violence towards children; instead, it will criminalise parents who don't.

UPDATE 1: I was interested in this comment below: " Smacking is morally wrong, as is a ban on smacking." Some people won't understand that comment, so a link to this article might help, explaining the difference between persuasion and force. As the author Mark Skousen says, "persuasion instead of force is the sign of a civilized society." Read the piece to see just what he means. It's not quite what you think. ;^)

UPDATE 2: Given that Bradford is a Green MP, would anyone like to explain the connection between the environment, and having smacking banned?

UPDATE 3: You may choose to take it or leave it, but if you're struggling to answer the above question with anything other than "no idea," then the explanation is surely that she's not in the Green Party for the environmental politics. This, remember, is the woman who left Anderton's hard-left New Labour Party in 1990 because she saw a "definite move to the right."

Two blogs have some relevant background:
Writing at his Whoar blog last year in the midst of the Greens's co-leader's contest, Green member Phil U. warned of the left acquiring a "death grip" on the party. [Punctuation has been somewhat cleaned up to make it readable.]

I’d like to finish with what I think is a telling anecdote. I was present when Sue Bradford and Catherine Delahunty made their first appearance at a green party meeting, this after both being hounded out of the alliance part of the alliance by Jim Anderton -- it was at his feet they learnt their organisational ‘chops’(and it shows...) -- the left are very ‘top-down,’ bordering on control freaks.

The Green Party at that time was a very low-key affair, [with] meetings held in the low-roofed attic of a bookshop on K. Road. At this meeting, Bradford said to me out of the corner of her mouth (I had known her for some years) that “this party is ripe for taking over” -- and she wasn’t wrong.

Later in that same evening I approached the then-leader of the Auckland Greens (a lovely lady but lacking that political killer-will), and told her that “that woman over there is going to take your job." This duly came to pass.

And if Trevor Loudon is correct in his five-part exegesis of Bradford's history, the environment was the last thing on Bradford's mind for which she was "taking over" the Green Party: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

Her Green party bio states: There are three ways to make radical social and environmental change. 1) Working within the system; 2) throwing rocks at the system from outside; 3) building new organisations within the shell of the old system.

Which of those three ways do you think she is working on here with her anti-smacking Bill? She is intent on removing parents' hands from their own children; but she has no problem with governments getting their hands on children's minds, or even getting her hands on them herself -- as Catherine Delahunty, her co-trustee at the Kotare School -- "a centre for radical and liberating education for social change," she says -- makes clear enough in this speech outlining the Kotare School's aims. Part 2 is here.

RELATED: Politics-NZ, Politics-Greens, Smacking