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August 25, 2005
Smuggling in a former American birthright
Somewhat related to the question of consensual sex between adults is the idea of consensual financial transactions between adults. What I'm unable to fully understand (in the philosophical sense) is why the former should be freely legal, but the latter is subject to government regulation. I'm not talking solely about direct exchange of money for sex. Prostitution is only one form of criminal financial transactions. There are many others. The so-called "underground economy" is growing by leaps and bounds. As to why, an article in Barron's provides a few clues: Growth of the underground economy is partly a result of corporate downsizing, which has forced many former employees to go out on their own. I'm wondering whether the rapid growth of this burgeoning underground economy might be directly correlated directly with the rise in completely insane government regulations with which normal Americans are unable to comply. Am I alone in considering it absurd that the federal government -- while it might let me have sex with my gardener in my bedroom -- nonetheless wants to force me to verify his identity if I pay him to cut my grass, become a revenue agent for the federal government, and send me to prison if I don't? Lest anyone think I'm engaged in hyperbole, take a look at an ordinary accountant's description of what I must do if I pay the guy for gardening: If you do hire someone who will receive more than $1,100 this year, and you insist on doing the paperwork yourself, here are a few things you should do:And don't expect to get a job as head of Homeland Security, either. Furthermore, as the accountant also points out, the requirements aren't limited to nannies: The so called "nanny tax" does not only apply to babysitters. It applies to any household or domestic employee. To quote the IRS Regulations Section 31.3306(c)(2)-1(a)(2),This stuff is so crazy that few people (except anally retentive nuts and people running for office) comply with it, but the point is, Americans are no longer free to engage in arms-length employment transactions. I don't think they like it, and I think it is an unacknowledged reason for the popularity of -- what should I call them? -- undocumented workers? illegal aliens? While the standard argument is that illegals work for less money, or perform the sort of work Americans don't want to do, I think there's more to it than that. I was thinking this over the other day as I contemplated two things: my own yard work, and a lawsuit a friend is facing because he made the mistake of hiring an American with a strange psychiatric disability of which the employer was unaware (and which causes the employee to deliberately make mistakes on the job). This same friend also employs aliens (supposedly legal) through a "temporary" agency, and of course he's never had any trouble with them. The psychiatrically challenged American, though, not only "knows her rights," she feels a sense of extravagant entitlement, which in her mind, gives her the right to be incompetent and the right not to be fired for being incompetent. The legal system, of course, works with her to enforce these "rights." In Mexico, if you're walking down the sidewalk and (as happened to me once) a six-foot-deep ditch appears in front of you without any warning signs or guardrails, and you fall in, the attitude will be "you should have looked where you're going." You won't be able to sue anyone, as you'll get nothing. Nada. Who wouldn't prefer to hire a person who comes from such a culture? Anyway, as I contemplated yard work, I realized that the hourly wages had nothing to do with it. Let's assume that the going wage for hacking out brambles and pulling up weeds is $15.00 per hour. If you hire an American, it's not an arms-length transaction. You have special duties to take care of his taxes and all that other fussy legal stuff. And what if he gets hurt and sues you? It isn't worth the risk, and the potential hassles are endless. The hourly rate is in my view a secondary, not a primary, factor. Seen this way, I think that illegal aliens represent something much more important and compelling than a source of "cheap labor." They're a glimpse of that American freedom which was once our birthright. In this country, there was a time when you could just agree with someone that in return for doing a certain thing, you'd pay him. And if he did the work, you could pay him, and that was that. That's the way it was when I was a kid, and with aliens, it's still that way. Under the present system, of course, they're considered to be "stealing jobs from U.S. citizens." But has anyone stopped to ask why there wasn't an "underground economy" in the days of American freedom? (It used to be a term generally reserved to describe private transactions in the Soviet Union.) NOTE: Lest readers misunderstand me, I do not advocate open borders. Not by a long shot. I think the border should be closed ASAP, because illegal immigration is out of control. My point is that I think over-regulation is fueling the demand for these aliens, and I'm not sure that more draconian penalties against ordinary Americans will be the best way to help the economy.
It doesn't take a degree in economics to see that the more things become criminalized, the more "crime" there will be! posted by Eric on 08.25.05 at 08:20 PM
Comments
It doesn't take a degree in economics to see that the more things become criminalized, the more "crime" there will be! A handy fact for prosecutors. Who among us couldn't be put in prison for something, such as the nebulous villanry of "obstruction of justice"? John · August 26, 2005 05:41 PM "....The only power the government has is to crack down on crimes. When they're aren't enough criminals, one makes them...." (*Floyd Ferris + Eugene Lawson = ?) Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · August 27, 2005 08:22 PM |
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"Somewhat related to the question of consensual sex between adults is the idea of consensual financial transactions between adults. What I'm unable to fully understand (in the philosophical sense) is why the former should be freely legal, but the latter is subject to government regulation."
The reason for that is that the Left, i.e., the lower left quadrant of my spectrum, tend to believe that 1) economics is the most important factor and economic equality the most important goal, and that 2) that which is most important should be most controlled by the government. Therefore, ever since the New Deal began, piles upon piles of regulations and taxation of every kind of economic activity, production, distribution, wages, prices, profits, etc., etc., some with the ultimate aim of bringing about as much economic equality as possible, some purely for the range-of-the-moment benefit of specialized groups with political pull, amounting to a volume of laws longer than Atlas Shrugged and the Bible combined. There are so many thousands of regulations that not even President Reagan could get them repealed.
By contrast, most of these same Marxists, New Deal pragmatists, etc., are Naturalists who see sex as "no big deal" and not much worth regulating or not regulating, so they are content to leave it alone, unless, as frequently happens now, they need to strike a compromise with Jehovanists (moral collectivists) in the other party in order to get concessions on economics, in which case, they then support or accept whatever "obscenity" laws, "sodomy" laws, etc., are demanded. There are, by the nature of things fewer laws prohibiting sex even in the most Jehovanistic society -- fewer in number, not less intrusive -- than there can be economic regulations, so, in terms of the number alone, it is easier to repeal those. But the morality of Jehovanism makes it difficult for any politician publicly to advocate a repeal of such laws without being accused of being "for legalizing dirt!" by his opponents. So those laws remained on the books and were sporadically enforced in many states until the courts finally struck them down.
So, in a nutshell:
Economic regulations, taxes, and subsidies are hard to repeal because there are just so many thousands of them and so many politically-connected economic interest groups that profit financially from them.
Prohibitions against sex are fewer in number but also are hard to repeal because to even propose to repeal any one of them is to be seen as unleashing the Devil upon "our children".