consa's Blog

Michael Moore is reported to have said:

"If I were a capitalist, I would not give my employees health insurance with no deductible, which I do, including dental and paid pregnancy leave. That's not called capitalism, that's called being a Christian and someone who believes in democracy, so that everyone should get a fair slice of the pie."

I comment as follows:

Thanks to the economic order still prevailing in the USA, Moore was free to start a firm. He is free to hire whom he wants, and to compensate his employees as he sees fit. He is free to let his reading of Christianity guide the terms of employment he prefers to offer. He is free to implement, in his day to day business activities, his notion of fairness. But his values are not necessary consequences of democracy. Rather, to date democracy in the USA has protected his right to do things in the way he prefers.

The implications of Christianity for economic dealings and social relations are less than obvious. What fairness means in practice is less than obvious. Hence employers should enjoy substantial freedom to each go their own way. The problem begins when people like Moore wish to make their economic preferences mandatory for all, using the power of the state to coerce.

Compensating employees as Moore prefers costs a lot of money. So much so that in an Economy According to Moore, fewer people would be hired, fewer firms would be started, economies would grow more slowly, and less innovation would occur. The Economy According to Moore is not a hypothetical boogeyman, but a lived reality: that reality is called much of continental Europe. There, life is good if you have a permanent job, or are retired and getting a monthly check from the government. But tens of millions of Europeans cannot find work, or the only jobs they can find are low paid and fixed term. In much of Europe, economic growth has ceased. 20 and 30 somethings who can only get 6-12 month fixed contracts, or even any work at all, cannot marry. Those who cannot marry cannot responsibly have children. Thus the abysmally low birth rates among non-Moslem Europeans, a fact which betrays their deep pessimism about the future. (The Moslem underclass of Europe are willing to raise children on child allowances alone.)

Voters who broadly agree with Moore for narrowly self-interested reasons, have elected politicians who have enacted public policies that have made the cost of labour too dear. Old age pensions and public health care systems are too generous. This is the deep reality underlying the Great Depression that Greece and Cyprus are experiencing.

I do not wish to imply that we live in the best of possible worlds. But mandating the World According to Michael Moore will not necessarily move us to a better one.