The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe:
“A scenario that is beloved of ethicists, public policy experts, and management consultants asks you to imagine yourself on a lifeboat.
“Built into such scenarios are powerful assumptions with life-or-death consequences, so as we work through the lifeboat scenario try to make those assumptions explicit. Here we go:
“You were flying over the Pacific, but bad weather knocked out the plane’s communications. To avoid the storm, the pilot then diverted from the plane’s scheduled route. A terrible hour or so later he lost control and crashed the plane into the ocean. You and some others survived and managed to climb into an inflatable lifeboat.
“You take stock of your situation. There are ten of you in a boat designed for four people, with enough food and water for two days. Nobody knows where you are, you don’t know where you are, and your phones were lost or destroyed in the crash.
“What do you do? …” [Read more here.]
Last week’s column: Should We Thank Coffee for Modern Civilization?.
In America much of the impetus to the welfare state came from New England’s socialist elites. It must be asked: why the hugely weighted focus on the lifeboat ethics of the failure of blacks and other poor? Why not a focus on empowering them instead? On bringing them to equality and joining in the general prosperity? Was it really equality they wanted for them? How would those professionals advocating the welfare state feel about having everything that gave their life taken from them, being given a dive to live in and a monthly check? Socialism defined itself in relation to failure. As has been noted, to make charity a cardinal virtue creates a need for situations in which one can practice that virtue. Fortunately the silent majority of blacks and other disenfranchised poor avoided the welfare trap and quietly struggled to build decent and productive lives for themselves.
Reply
Correction: “everything that gave their life MEANING taken from them…”
Reply