I’ve read a great many dumb arguments in my time, but this insipid article by Barry Schwartz in The New Republic may just take the cake. Schwartz argues that we should raise the top income tax rate to 90% because having choices is just too hard for people.
Schwartz makes the argument that being rich leads to just too many choices, so we’d actually be doing the rich a favor by ensuring that they wouldn’t be rich anymore. First of all, Schwartz is not an economist, and it shows. He completely ignores even the most basic principles of economics for a bit of dimestore pseudoscience. We’ll leave the economic reasons why this plan is completely asinine aside for the moment. If you’ve taken Economic 101 and didn’t fall asleep, or if you even have the fainted clue about how an economy works, you shouldn’t need them explained to you.
What makes Schwartz’s argument so idiotic is that it’s not even philosophically tenable. Imagine if we applied his argument as a general principle. For instance, choosing a college is one of the most stressful and difficult choices a young person can make. It takes a lot of work, stress, tests, and visits to determine if a college is a good fit or not. So, if Schwartz is correct, we should shut down all but a handful of state schools. If you’re in Minnesota, you go to the U of M. No choices there, and no stress.
I suggest we start this plan by closing Swarthmore. Afterall, we wouldn’t want to diminish student’s quality of life by offering too many choices, wouldn’t we?
Of course, finding a job is nearly as stressful. There are weeks or even months of clipping newspaper ads, searching job sites, resumes and interviews. It’s incredibly stressful. So, let’s apply Schwartz’s logic and ensure that everyone has a small choice of only jobs that fit their talents. After all, more choices lead to a lower quality of life. And well, if it just so happens that Barry Schwartz’s choices don’t include being a professor of “Social Theory” and instead involve doing something constructive for society such as serving fries at McDonalds or becoming a skin diver for a septic cleaning service, so be it. Afterall, we dare not confuse people with choice.
Obviously Schwartz’s argument is a harebrained one, and it goes against even the most basic tenets of economics. People are more than capable of making rational choices for themselves — Schwartz’s arrogant ideology suggests that people are just too stupid to make enlightened decisions for themselves whether it is buying jam or choosing a retirement fund. Of course, common sense tells us that millions of people do it every day. Such an argument leads to the concept that the state should act as some kind of paternal guide making sure that people aren’t given too many decisions. Schwartz’s understanding of political science seems to be as vaporous as his understanding of economics as he seems to have forgotten that this approach has already been tried: see the Soviet Union.
Despite Schwartz’s pseudoscientific studies, real science teaches us that human beings are rational actors who are smart enough to act in their own self interest – if it were any other way, totalitarian countries would be outpacing free ones. As readers of this site already know, there’s a direct link to economic freedom and quality of life. Capitalism is based on the notion that people are able to chose for themselves. For that matter, so is democracy itself.
If the left wants to stand on the morally and intellectually bankrupt concept that the unwashed masses just can’t handle too many choices, they’re more than welcome to do so. However, for the people who handle the myriad choices involved in voting, I rather doubt they’ll be willing to choose for the party that justifies taking away the rights of the successful on the grounds that it’s what’s really good for them.
