Some new additions to the Encyclopedia of Political Nonsense. After a few more I’ll give the Encyclopedia its own page.

Greed. The standard leftist term of disparagement for the drive, common to all living organisms, to thrive, i.e., to survive, increase its security, reduce its discomforts and risks, and provide for its offspring. For humans, thriving means securing as many of the things they value as possible. Leftists hold the term in contempt because they labor under one or both of two common fallacies, the Organic Fallacy or the Fallacy of Value.

The Organic Fallacy is the empirically false belief that individual humans are merely components of a superior, collective entity, “society” or “the People” (see entry below) having goals and interests of its own which transcend those of mere individuals and to which the latter must defer. A “greedy” person is thus one who is negligent in his pursuit of the overriding interests of “society” and preoccupied instead with his own inferior interests and with maximizing his personal welfare.

The Fallacy of Value is the belief that certain goods or states of affairs are “good in themselves,” or “intrinsically good.” Often the two fallacies are combined, with the “intrinsically good” being identified with the transcendental “interests of society” mentioned above. The ideologue who relies on these fallacies assumes, of course, that he, unlike the venal persons whose “greed” he condemns, is blessed with a properly functioning valuation faculty which permits him to correctly perceive intrinsic value, or to grasp the true interests of “the People.”

But the Fallacy of Value, like the Organic Fallacy, is empirically false. There is only one way to establish the value of anything, and that is by observing what some person will give up to obtain it. The value of a thing cannot be ascertained except in relation to a valuer — it cannot be determined by observing the thing alone, by any method — not by weighing and measuring, not by microscopic or chemical analysis. Only when some person proves willing to make some investment of time, effort, or other goods in order to obtain the good in question can a value be assigned to that good. And whatever value is thus assigned will be known only for that valuer; another person may value the same thing differently, or indeed, not at all.

All living organisms strive to maximize their own welfare. Very often the welfare of a particular individual is bound up with the welfare of other particular individuals whom the first individual values — mates, offspring, other kinfolk, friends — and the agent thus devotes some portion of his time, efforts, and other resources to enhancing the welfare of those valued others. The leftist condemns this because the agent is not devoting his efforts and resources to advancing the welfare of the leftist and his comrades and clients, which demand he justifies via the two Fallacies.

“Greed theories” are often advanced by the Left as explanations for undesirable market behavior, such as the constant increases in the costs of health care since WWII (increases double or triple the inflation rate annually), which are blamed on “greedy, profiteering” drug companies, insurance companies, et al, and the 2008 financial collapse, blamed on “greedy, profiteering” bankers and investment houses. Empirically, industry profits cannot come close to accounting for these phenomena, which are virtually always due to government interference in the relevant markets. But lefties dare not acknowledge that explanation, since they depend on such government interference to deliver the free lunches they demand. So they offer greed theories as red herrings.

Profit. Usually used by leftists as an expletive, to refer to an immoral motive for action. In its ordinary meaning “profit” refers to the gains from trade. In every exchange in a free economy (a “free economy” being one in which any two or more persons are free to exchange any goods they legitimately hold, on any mutually agreeable terms, without interference from third parties), each trader will seek to exchange some good he holds for another he values more than the good he holds. The person with whom he makes the trade, of course, will value the two items in the opposite direction. For example, if I pay a bookseller $10 for a book, it is because I value the book more than the $10. The bookseller, on the other hand, prefers to have the $10 than the book. Hence we both gain from the trade. The gain in value we both realize from that exchange is our profit. Both the bookseller and I, of course, will seek the largest possible profit from every trade, because that will leave us with more resources with which to acquire other goods we value, via future trades. The greater our profits, the more we thrive. The leftist condemns the quest for profits because he believes that others have duties which override their own thriving. See entry under “Greed.”

Tags: health care, political nonsense

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