Woolworth's' Waitresses

Before I continue, what of the double possessive? I don't think it is legal, but I think it is right.

Anyway, Lee Harris pens a piece in TCS today that I think we might all agree with. He discusses the Nixon-McGovern race, but it reminded me of Reagan's vision of America, not as a land of the rich but a land "where everyone could get rich"

In modern politics, I don't see a clear delineation of the fundamental wrongness and unpopularity of wealth redistribution.

Harris listens to the waitresses disapprobation at McGovern's plan to limit inheritance, even though none will likely create an estate that will qualify:

The waitresses at Woolworth's disliked McGovern's welfare state politics because it was threatening to take away one of life's most important imaginary pleasures -- that of imagining yourself rich. Everyone who is not rich can instantly understand the world of pleasure that the impoverished hero of The Fiddler on the Roof gets from singing the song: "If I were a rich man…." What bliss it is to pretend you are wealthy! -- far far more fun, I would imagine, than actually being it."

There is a cost to being able to imagine yourself striking it rich, and that is for others to actually strike it rich. In a world where all was brought down to the same level, from which no one could ever escape, even the dream of being a rich man would eventually die out, and along with it, the motive power that has produced the enormous wealth of the West: the fervent belief of the poor that they can become rich -- not by stealing from the rich, but from making a pile for themselves. What else, do you think, has released all the energy of capitalism, except the overheated imagination of men who had to make their own fortune in order to have any at all?

Not economic irrationality, but admirable ethical consistency lay behind my waitresses' Red State attitude to the proposed inheritance tax. They did not ask others to give up a right that they would not give up themselves, if they were ever in the position to exercise it. Why? Because they would have regarded it as sheer hypocrisy to prevent people from doing what they knew damn well that they would do themselves, if they were ever given the chance.

The whole piece is great!

Politics Posted by jk at September 23, 2005 11:27 AM