| | Just as a follow up for those interested here are some quotes from his website that I thought were quite good. He seems to be questioning Altruistic Moral Standards in Socalism through the use of simple economic reasoning and applying it to raising children.
How should we feel about taxes that redistribute income?
Ask how parents feel about children who forcibly "redistribute" other children's toys.
Cayley (his daughter) relies on me for moral guidance. Sure, I could explain to her how trade makes our family richer. But nine-year-olds are quite self-centered enough; it's their concern for others that needs gentle encouragement. So instead of telling Cayley how great it is for our family to save money at the car dealer's, I talk to her about the difference between right and wrong.
She knows a lot about right and wrong already. She is an active trader in the schoolyard markets for decals, trading cards, and milk bottle caps. Sometimes Cayley wants to trade with her classmate Melissa but Melissa prefers to deal with Jennifer, from the other fourth-grade classroom. Cayley knows how disappointing that can be, but she also knows she can't force Melissa to trade with her. More important, she knows it would be wrong to try.
Cayley is too morally advanced even to imagine asking her teacher to intervene and prohibit Melissa from trading with "foreigners." Only a very unpalatable child would attempt such a tactic.
Buchanan sees the U.S. Congress as the great national teacher, maintaining order on the schoolyard, making sure that all the children play the way the teachers' special pets -- or special industries -- want them to play. My daughter thinks that stinks. She's right.
That's a conscious echo of Wal-Mart's own well-advertised policies. Signs posted in every aisle boast of the store's efforts not to carry imported goods. Wal-Mart does not always succeed, admit the signs; sometimes they're very eager to carry an item that's not easily available except from abroad. But when Wal-Mart can, it prefers to "buy American - - so you can too."
By the time Cayley was old enough to read those signs, she was old enough to know that people who want you to care about the race or religion or sex or national origin of your trading partners are bad people.
Even Wal-Mart managers are likely to have learned that truth in childhood. Adults who want to believe otherwise must resort to extremes of sophistry that are not accessible to elementary schoolers.
Joe that article you found has helped locate a wonderful cache.
Thanks,
~E.
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