- Mar 13, 2006
- 9,221
- 2,655
- Faith
- Agnostic
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, well have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college arent causes of middle-class status, theyre markers for possessing the kinds of traits self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesnt produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
Reynolds Law thus strikes at the heart of progressivism as a political ideology. Progressivism cant deliver on its central promise. In fact, its guaranteed to make things worse in exactly that respect. Its not that it sacrifices some degree of one good (liberty or prosperity, say) to achieve a greater degree of another (equality). That suggests that the choice between conservatism and progressivism is a matter of tradeoffs, balances, and maybe even taste. Reynolds Law implies that progressivism sacrifices some (actually considerable) degrees of liberty and prosperity to move us away from equality by undermining the characters and thus behavior patterns of those they promise to help.
Reynolds’ Law « The View from Alexandria