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How To Feel Morally Superior – Part 2

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Last week, I provided several suggestions for ways that you could feel morally superior at no cost to yourself.  The basic plan was to select a cause, lobby the government to promote that cause at someone else’s expense, and then sit back and feel morally superior. 

Just in case last week’s suggestions did not connect with you, here are a few more you might want to consider:

Raise the minimum wage – If you don’t like the idea of unskilled workers making low wages, then you could promote the government’s raising the minimum wage.  This will make you feel as though you are helping the “working poor”, even as the increased minimum wage renders many of them unemployable, since they cannot produce enough to be worth the amount they would have to be paid.  Of course, what they really need is to develop better skills so they can earn more money, and one of the best ways to achieve that is to allow an employer to pay a very low wage while providing training.  However, employers cannot afford to pay both the minimum wage and the cost of training for low skilled workers who are not very productive, so raising the minimum wage also prevents employers from providing training that would improve their situation.  You might find it interesting that the minimum wage originally was promoted by unions in the north who wanted protection against competition from lower-skilled blacks who were migrating from the south.  But you don’t need to worry about that; the important thing is that your intentions are good.

Promote light rail – If you have nostalgic dreams of the good old days when people were confined to traveling along trolley routes, you could lobby the government to build light rail (trolley) projects.  These are projects that dig up streets and insert rails to create routes for what are essentially very expensive buses that are confined to the paths of those rails.  The projects are much more expensive than buses, take up roadway space just like buses, and cannot change their routes as can buses.  They also have been found to be very dangerous and to create stray electrical current problems.  In other words, they are a huge, expensive boondoggle at taxpayer expense – just the sort of thing that should make you feel superior to those lowly peons who just want their gasoline taxes to be spent to build and maintain roads and bridges so they can drive their cars where they want to go. 

Promote “Everyone is entitled to”… -- If you are concerned about people who are poor, or homeless, or uneducated, or sick, or who have other problems, you can promote the idea that everyone is entitled to money, or housing, or an education, or health care or something else.  This will cause the government to tax your neighbors to support your project.  It will reduce everyone’s ability to take care of themselves and will restrict people to the government program you have promoted -- driving out charities, mutual aid societies, and other voluntary, free market solutions.  As more people sign up for those programs, there will be long waits to receive the services, and the costs will go up and eventually will become unsustainable.  But again, you don’t need to worry about that – just feel good about yourself, because you care!

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