Author: Michael LaBossiere

While the United States has the best health care money can buy, many Americans cannot afford it. Many Americans are underinsured or not insured and even the insured might face denial of coverage. Americans, as their response to the execution of a health care CEO, are aware of this. Most politicians, with the exception of people like Bernie Sanders, have put their faith in the fact that people forget quickly and have done nothing to address this problem.

A lack of insurance puts the health of the uninsured at risk and health care institutions suffer financially. Medical bankruptcy also occurs at an alarming rate.  Because of these problems, there have been proposals to extend Medicare to all Americans.

On the positive side, this would provide everyone with health insurance. This would benefit those without insurance and would also help the finances of healthcare institutions. As the system already exists, it would mostly be a matter of scale. This would come with serious challenges, but they are obviously not insurmountable. While there are clear advantages to expanding Medicare, a rational assessment requires looking beyond the positive aspects and, as much as possible, without the filters of ideology.

An obvious concern is the cost of such an expansion. Those who already pay for insurance would not suffer any financial impact from the switch, unless the cost of Medicare was significantly higher than what they are paying now.  As the cost could have negative impacts on the economy and individuals, it needs to be assessed rationally.

A second concern is the impact on the health insurance industry. While some might be tempted to think that only the CEOs would suffer, the insurance industry is made up of a range of people who depend on their jobs to survive. Switching to Medicare for all would eliminate the private health insurance industry and put people out of work directly and indirectly. Somewhat ironically, those on the right who oppose Medicare expansion usually see firing workers as a positive thing while those on the left express concern for workers. One possibility is that former insurance workers could be retrained and hired to work for Medicare, assuming that it is not swept away in the current zeal to destroy government agencies and programs that protect and benefit non-billionaires.

 It is also worth considering other economic aspects. While it should not be assumed that this cost will be too high relative to the benefits, this cost needs to be considered. Again, while it is appealing to think that eliminating private insurance would only harm evil CEOs, the effects on others should be considered. But given the tremendous harm Americans suffer from the current system; its replacement would certainly do more good than harm.

A third concern is fraud. While fraud does occur with private health insurance, Medicare is sometimes a cash cow for fraudsters. In 2014 about 10% of Medicare’s total budget was lost to fraud. Expanding Medicare to everyone would turn the cash cow into a cash herd. Fraud could and should be addressed even if Medicare is not expanded, but the cost of fraud must be included in the calculations used to assess the merits of expanding Medicare. While the right advances the narrative that it is poor people who defraud the government, the evidence is that it is the wealthy. This does make intuitive sense: if the poor were as good at committing fraud as the right claims, they would no longer be poor. But even with the inevitable fraud, an expansion of Medicare would be superior to the existing system, which siphons money from Americans into the accounts of CEOs.

A fourth concern is usually advanced by conservatives, namely that the elimination of the for-profit motivation will ruin the quality of health care with socialism. One reply is to note that health care will remain for-profit: Medicare for all does not nationalize health care institutions, just the insurance industry. And the motivation provided by the for-profit approach is to profit more, and that typically involves worse rather than better medical care.

That said, it could be argued that with one entity paying all the bills costs will increase and quality will decrease—but what is needed is evidence for these claims. If they are true, then this would be a problem that could be addressed. The rest of the world

Early immigration laws, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924, were intended to “to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” That is, they were openly racist and aimed at limiting the immigration of non-whites. Immigration was revised in 1952 and then again in 1965. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act changed the quota system and removed many of the racial barriers that had marked immigration since the 1920s.

As social norms changed after the 1960s, open racism became largely unacceptable, and most racists switched to coded language and dog whistles. Openly justifying immigration policy based on race became and remains problematic. As such, the narrative changed from preserving the homogeneity of the United States against the threat of non-whites to the narrative of protecting American jobs and protecting Americans from crimes. After 9/11 a new narrative was added, that of protecting Americans from terrorists.

The election and re-election of Donald Trump saw a return of the classic racist narrative. While the mainstream narrative is still focused on crime and economics, white nationalists openly express their fears they will be replaced by non-whites. Sometimes this is dressed up as concerns about culture, but often the white nationalists are honest in their racism. Mainstream politicians, at least for now, still use coded language and dog whistles. Although the code is much more open and the dog whistles much louder. While those ignorant of history might mistake this as something new in American politics, it is a return to its roots. Some would even argue that the core of these polices has always been racist, but the racism has been obscured.

It could be objected that while racism might have been a factor in the past, it does not influence current immigration and border policy. After all, some might contend, those pushing for stronger border control and tighter restrictions on immigration claim their goals are to reduce crime and to protect the American economy. Put simply, the argument is that they are not racists.  They are trying to address crime and the economic threat of migrants. It is just a coincidence that these policies target people who are not white. For this to be true, there would either need to be real problems that would be best addressed by these policies or those supporting the policies would at least need to believe this. As it is difficult to determine what people believe, I will focus on what is real.

While the narrative of the criminal migrant is an American myth, it does not match reality. Migrants are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to be victims of crimes relative to people born in the United States. But migrants do commit some crimes. As such, it can be argued that reducing the number of migrants would reduce the number of crimes and thus these policies are warranted. This would be an odd approach since it would also justify any way of reducing the size of the population based on reducing the number of crimes. Interestingly, this principle would justify public policies supporting birth control and abortion as having fewer people would entail fewer crimes. It could also justify population control in the form of legal restrictions on the number of children: if people have fewer children, then there will be less crime. My point is, obviously, not to argue for population control but to contend that restricting migration to reduce crime makes no more sense than imposing family size limits to reduce crime. While both approaches would reduce crime, they are not an effective or sensible way to address crime. It would be more effective to use social resources to directly address the causes of crimes.

The idea that migrants will steal jobs is a classic myth, but also generally unfounded. Overall, migrants are beneficial to the economy. It is true that migration is not entirely beneficial and there are negative economic consequences. However, the biggest threat American workers face is obviously not being replaced by migrants. It is far more likely that their jobs will be lost to automation, offshoring or changes in the economy. For example, coal workers have suffered not because of migrants taking their jobs, but because natural gas and renewable sources of energy are making coal increasingly obsolete. Ironically, efforts made to help the economy by restricting migration would be more likely to cause economic harm.

Given that the crime and economic arguments used to justify migration and border policy fail, there are few explanations left. One is that those making these arguments believe them, which entails they either have secret information or refusing to accept reality. A second explanation is that these arguments are covers for their real reasons. While speculating about motivations is problematic, the most plausible explanation is that they desire to continue the old racist policies. After all, if they had a good alternative argument backed by facts, then they would simply use that and there would be no need to lie.

While it can be argued that “toxic masculinity” is useful, I still feel a bit uncomfortable about the phrase. While it would be natural to accuse me of fearing an attack on my maleness, my concern is a pragmatic one about the consequences of the term. Which, from a utilitarian standpoint, also makes it a moral one.

As a man, I am familiar with how some other men react to the phrase “toxic masculinity.” The reaction of toxic males is as one would expect, they are outraged that their misdeeds and moral flaws are being challenged. However, non-toxic males can also react negatively to the phrase, typically because they feel it is applied unfairly to all men. While some radicals think all men are evil), this is not how the term is commonly used. After all, if masculinity itself was seen as evil, it would be pointless to talk about toxic masculinity. Doing so would be analogous to speaking of toxic toxins. As such, defenders of the phrase “toxic masculinity” can say it is like saying “contaminated spinach” as this doesn’t claim that all spinach is contaminated. Likewise, saying “toxic masculinity” is not claiming that all masculinity is toxic, just the toxic variety.

This is appealing and when someone uses the phrase in this manner, one can sort out their intent. That said, the use of the phrase can still upset non-toxic men and getting into the nuances of intention often fails to persuade them. After all, when people feel attacked, they rarely pause for a philosophical analysis. As such, using the phrase can have the negative consequence of alienating and upsetting men who do think that men should behave virtuously. It can also cause some men to double down on their toxicity. As such, there is a pragmatic problem with the phrase.

One reply to this would be to argue that only snowflakes and bad men would be angered by it. The snowflakes should “man up” and it is fine that the bad men are angry. They are, after all, criticized for being evil and evil people hate that. While this does have some appeal, it is worth considering how non-toxic (or “curable”) men might feel about the phrase and whether another approach might be better.

Consider, if you will, if the term “toxic” was used to refer to various groups who have members who behave badly and have vices (which would be everybody). To illustrate, consider the phrases “toxic blackness”, “toxic homosexuality”, “toxic transgenderism”, “toxic feminism” and so on. If someone did a YouTube video about “toxic blackness” or “toxic homosexuality” while insisting that they were only concerned about blacks or homosexuals who behaved badly and not in attacking blacks or homosexuals in general, they would be met with skepticism. Even if the person was completely sincere and carefully argued that their concern was with the toxic members of these groups, then they would probably still be doubted.

The obvious reply would be to argue that “toxic blackness”, “toxic homosexuality” and such differ from “toxic masculinity.” While such a case can be made, it does seem reasonable to consider that just as many would find “toxic blackness” and “toxic homosexuality” offensive, many non-toxic men might think “toxic masculinity” is offensive.

From a pragmatic standpoint, the main concern is whether the phrase “toxic masculinity” creates more harm than good in terms of persuading men to behave better.  If it does create more harm, then another approach should be considered in its place.

While toxic masculinity faced some criticism, it seems to have emerged victorious. While the term is not used as often as it was, I am still somewhat uncomfortable with it. This discomfort is not because I am a man. Unlike more fragile “men”, I am not threatened by criticism. I can distinguish between criticisms of bad behavior by men and the rare attacks on men simply for being men. My slight discomfort arises two sources. The first is based in ethics and the second arises from pragmatic considerations. I will look at the first in this essay and the second in the following essay.

While this oversimplifies matters, my ethical view includes an acceptance of universal principles. One implication is that if something is wrong to do, then it is wrong for anyone to do. I am aware of the principle of relevant difference: that a difference in the application of ethics can be justified by a difference that warrants this.

For example, some argue that while it is wrong for members of one ethnicity to “put on the face” of another, there are exceptions. One illustration is that is seen as acceptable for Michael Che to “go undercover” as a white female liberal, but the idea of Colin Jost going undercover as a black girl is seen as utterly unacceptable. The moral justification for this rests on the relevant differences between a black man putting on “white face” and a white man putting on “black face.” These differences are connected to the history of racism and power differences. Naturally, people disagree about whether these differences are relevant. In such cases of relevant differences between ethnicities, it makes sense to reference ethnicity when discussing ethics. The same sort of reasoning applies to sex or gender issues.

For example, some argue that male comedians would be sexist if they used the same type of humor as female comedians who do routines about the failures and defects of men. In such cases, the ethics of a joke would thus depend on the gender or sex of the person telling it and the target of the joke. Using these examples, it would thus make sense to talk about toxic white comedy or toxic male comedy because the whiteness or maleness of the comic would be essential to the wrongness of the comedy. But what about toxic masculinity, considered in terms of moral misdeeds and moral vices?

For toxic masculinity what matters is the ethics of the behavior and its consequences rather than on whether the actions are done by men. To illustrate, the moral concern about sexual harassment is with its wrongness and not the gender or sex of the harasser. After all, while most sexual harassment is done by men, it is not restricted to us and its wrongness does not stem from the gender pf the perpetrator. It is equally wrong for a female to engage in sexual harassment. To focus on toxic masculinity would seem to imply that the vices and moral misdeeds are wrong because they are the misdeeds and vices of males, which would seem to be an error.

One reasonable counter is to argue that while the general misdeeds and vices that make up the evils of toxic masculinity are not limited to males, focusing on males make sense because males are the main offenders. Doing so, one might argue, does not exclude focusing on similar misdeeds by females.  It is just that there are less toxically masculine females to worry about.

Another reasonable counter is that the vices and misdeeds of males that are grouped under the label of “toxic masculinity” are male in character because of the masculinity part. That is, they are vices and misdeeds that arise from a concept of maleness, and it is appropriate to use the term. This has considerable appeal and could counter my initial concern. As such, my next essay will focus on pragmatic concerns.

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent crisis of masculinity reminded me of an earlier round in the endless culture war over gender roles.  In the not-so-distant past, the marketing departments of some major corporations decided that pretending to value positive masculinity would increase profits. Gillette attempted this with the Best Men Can Be themed advertisement. The name was based on Gillette’s classic advertising line, “the best a man can get.” This campaign did ignite a response, but not what the marketing department wanted. To be fair, the marketing department probably thought no decent person could get mad at a mild endorsement of minimal male decency. And they were right.  

As would be expected, people like Piers Morgan and James Wood responded harshly. In the case of Morgan, he accused Gillette of virtue signaling, fueling the “global assault on masculinity” and called for us to “let boys be damn boys” and to “let men be damn men.” Woods claimed Gillette was jumping on the “men are horrible” bandwagon and said he was done with buying Gillette products. Other men were not upset, noting  its message appeared to be “Don’t be a jerk. Don’t raise a jerk. Call out other men being for jerks.” And some pointed out Gillette was just trying to sell more razors. While I will not attempt to see it through the eyes of those who hate it, I will address the philosophical aspects of virtue based advertising.

While some loathed the content of the advertisement, it is advancing a set of values, advocating certain behavior and encouraging men to serve as role-models by acting on those values. It is, of course, doing this to sell razors and shaving cream. From a moral standpoint, this raises two questions. The first is whether the values are morally good. The second is whether motivation is relevant.

Since I generally follow Aristotle’s virtue theory, I think that people should be the best they can be. Intuitively, this is morally commendable. That men should be the best they can be seems to be morally obvious and the burden of proof would rest on those who would deny it. The real dispute is over what it means to be the best.

Each society and subgroup have its own notion of the best man, and the easy approach is to go with what they say. The obvious problem with is approach is that moral relativism collapses into subjectivism, and it then collapses into moral nihilism. So “morally best” would end up referring to nothing. This puts an end to moral discussion, so one must accept moral objectivity for the discussion to progress.

While the response to from Morgan and Woods would suggest the values it advances are wicked, this is not true. The values endorsed seem to be classic virtues, such as respect and courage. For example, one man rushes to stop a group of boys who are attacking another boy, which is a virtuous act. As another example, a man is shown talking another out of harassing a woman, which is also a virtuous act. To treat others with respect and to protect those who need protection certain is what good men should do, hence it is odd to condemn the ad. But perhaps the critics did not take issue with these values, but with another aspect of the ad.

While the ad ends with displays of virtuous behavior, it begins by showing men and boys behaving badly, such as talking over a woman at a business meeting and laughing at sexual harassment in a sitcom. It does make sense that the likes of Morgan and Woods would be angry at this. They see it as an attack on men aimed at showing that all men are terrible. The problem with this interpretation is the ad does not say that all men are horrible. As noted above, the second part of the ad presents men acting ethically. As such, the ad simply says the obvious: some men are awful, some are good. Its message is also quite benign: don’t be awful, be the best you can be. There seems to be nothing here to take issue with, unless one thinks that behavior such as bullying and sexual harassment are morally commendable. In that case, the problem lies with those who think this and not with the ad.

Some might object to being preached at by a company trying to sell goods or services by virtue signaling. This is a reasonable objection, and people are free to not watch the ads or complain about this technique. However, the motivation of the company is irrelevant to the correctness (or incorrectness) of the claims and values in the ad. To think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem, that the motivation of someone making a claim makes the claim false. Even if Gillette was cynically trying to sell more razors and shaving cream and did not give a damn about men being their best, the claims and values presented in the ad stand or fall on their own. Naturally, it is reasonable to condemn or praise the folks at Gillette based on their motives, but that is another ethical issue distinct from whether some men behave badly and whether being the best men means acting in the ways presented in the ad.  I agree that if Gillette or another corporation is cynically exploiting values it does not endorse, then that is morally dubious behavior—but, once again, this is not relevant to whether the claims and values expressed are right or not.

There have been a series of violent incidents and acts of vandalism aimed at Tesla facilities, dealerships, vehicles and charging stations. The most likely motivation is anger at Elon Musk. Musk has aligned himself with the far-right and his DOGE has proven both unpopular and harmful. For example, DOGE’s attack on USAID will result in illness and death.  This raises the ethical issue of whether this “war” on Musk is morally justified.

 The obvious moral case against these attacks is that while they are aimed at Musk, they will also hurt other people. While people do buy Tesla vehicles because they agree with Musk, there are many Tesla owners who disagree with him. Anecdotally, most of the Tesla owners I know are wealthy liberals who bought them back when Tesla was presenting itself as a green company. And even if a Tesla owner backs Musk, this would not warrant damaging their vehicle to harm Musk, especially since it will hurt the owner rather than Musk. Going after charging stations will also mainly hurt innocent Tesla owners and attacking dealerships and facilities will harm their owners and the people who are employed there. As these attacks will do considerable collateral damage to innocent people, this sort of war on Musk is morally problematic. An obvious reply to this is to run with the analogy to war.

Even a just war will involve collateral damage to innocents and noncombatants and the same arguments used in favor of just war could be applied to this situation. While it is regrettable that innocent people and people other than Musk and his supporters will be harmed, this is the only viable means to impose consequences on Musk for his actions and the harm he and DOGE have been doing to America and the world. Those who believe in the rule of law will make the obvious and sensible reply that the use of extralegal violence is wrong. Instead, they would argue, legal remedies should be sought to preserve the rule of law and minimize violence and harm to property.

While this reply has merit, it suffers from a serious flaw. Trump has given Musk broad powers and Musk has used this to damage and dismantle the agencies and institutions that would keep him and Musk in check. While lawsuits have been brought against Musk, Trump controls the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court. He can also pardon Musk for any federal offenses. Trump also controls congress, albeit by a thin margin. As such, Musk can operate with impunity and is unlikely to face any meaningful consequences for any illegal acts and harm that he does. While Trump controls much of the state, the parts he does not control are being targeted for destruction. Within the parts that Trump controls, the machinery of the state will serve as Musk’s shield and sword: it will protect him and allow him to harm his foes. While lawyers are heroically bringing lawsuits, Musk’s power is effectively unchecked, and he is likely to have nothing to fear from legal means to oppose him.

As the state is dismantled and gutted, Musk will be able to operate in a lawless zone. In Lockean and Hobbesian terms, he is operating in the state of nature: he can do what he wants and the only means to oppose him is the use of force. People already seem to understand this; they know that Musk will be able to keep inflicting terrible damage and the best that can be done within the system is to bring lawsuits and hope that someday there will be a favorable ruling that Musk will be willing to obey.  Ironically, as Musk dismantles the machinery of the state that protects the rest of us from people like him, he also dismantles his protection. When people realize that they have no legal means to address the harm being done by Musk, some people will turn to violence, just as happened with the execution of the health insurance CEO. This is the state of nature situation in which disputes must, as Hobbes said, be settled with the sword.

It is unlikely that anyone will be able to execute Musk, as he has his own private security force. Some of Musk’s private security were deputized by the US Marshall’s Service and this gives him ownership of his own small police force. He will also be protected by the “normal” police.

There is no independent prison system where Musk could be locked up for his alleged crimes or an independent judiciary that could impose fines on him. As such, the only recourse seems to be inflicting financial harm by targeting Musk’s companies. This does provide Musk with a set of hostages since hurting Musk’s companies also hurts the employees, contractors, stockholders and customers. As such, there is the moral question of whether the harm caused to these people to harm Musk would be morally acceptable. As noted above, this can be taken as falling under the ethics of just war and it can be argued that collateral damage to innocents can be justified as part of a moral conflict against an enemy who cannot be held accountable by other means. Naturally, it could be objected that the conflict with Musk is not just or argued that people must stick with legal remedies even as Musk and Trump gut the system that would allow such remedies.

When politicians shut down the federal government, some federal workers are ordered to work without pay. To illustrate, TSA and Coast Guard personnel are often ordered to keep working even when their pay is frozen. This raises the moral question of whether it is ethical to compel federal workers to work without pay. The ethics of the matter are distinct from the legality of unpaid labor. That is a matter for the courts to sort out based on what they think the laws say.

A sensible starting point is to note that federal workers should expect politicians to shut down the government and freeze their pay. Since the workers accepted the jobs, they seem to have consented to work without pay. This would appear to make it ethical to force them to work without pay. This assumes the workers signed the contracts without being under duress and knowing they would be required to work without pay under certain conditions. If the workers were not properly informed or the contracts were accepted under duress, then they would have no moral obligation to obey such a forced or fraudulent agreement. That said, there is still a concern about what people can ethically agree to.

Philosophers have, of course, considered whether there are limits to what people can agree to. For example, it has been argued that a person cannot freely agree to become a slave. As such, it is worth considering whether a person can agree to do normal paid labor for free because of a government shut down.

One way to approach is to consider that people do agree to work for free. A good example is volunteer work: this unpaid labor is not only acceptable, but often praiseworthy. As such, it would be absurd to claim it is wrong for people to agree to work for free. But what if someone is compelled to work for free? That is, what if they cannot quit and are forced to work for free? This would seem to be something that a person cannot ethically agree to. They are, in effect, agreeing to a form of slavery in which they must work but are not paid and cannot quit. Even if they were paid, it would still be a form of slavery. A key aspect of slavery is not working without compensation, but the lack of freedom. Not being compensated simply makes it worse. As such, federal workers should be free to quit immediately and without any consequences. Otherwise, the state would be claiming a right to enslave citizens, which is morally wicked.

It might be argued that those who entered into long-term agreements with the state, such as a term of service, are obligated to stay in the job and quitting because they are not getting paid would be wrong. While this has some appeal, this would mean accepting that a person can, morally, be locked into working without compensation even when doing so would be harmful. This expects too much of people. Naturally, it could be countered that if they freely entered into a long-term agreement that included the possibility of working without pay, then they are obligated to stick to that agreement—even if they are harmed. After all, a contract is a contract.

While this does seem sensible, it also seems sensible to argue that such agreements should not include the possibility that there will be no pay. That is, it is immoral for this to be included in agreements of this sort, even if people agree to accept the terms. As such, federal workers should always be paid for their work or allowed to terminate their agreements with no harmful consequences being imposed. After all, no one has the right to expect people to labor for free and to demand this would be immoral.

In the previous essay I proposed adding inheritance rules to the standard Monopoly game. The aim was to provide a context for discussing the tension between inheritance and fairness by using the classic board game. Out of curiosity, I also posted my proposed rules on Facebook. Not surprisingly, people got the point of the rules and there were criticisms of my analogy. One reasonable criticism was that while Monopoly is a zero-sum game, the economy is not. This does raise the question of the impact of making a non-zero-sum version of monopoly with the inheritance rules in play.

One response to the zero-sum criticism is to note that Monopoly does reflect zero-sum aspects of the real economy. The classic game is about owning properties and major business and these are zero-sum in the actual world. If, for example, I own a vast tract of land, that means less land for other people. While we can make more usable land by draining swamps and building islands, there is a finite amount of land on earth. The same generally holds true of businesses. There is a finite limit to the number of viable businesses and the success of a business in an area limits the success of others. As such, for the zero-sum parts of the economy, Monopoly is not a terrible model.

The easy and obvious counter to this is to argue that there is no zero-sum economy or that there is a significant non-zero-sum part of the economy that negates the unfairness of the inheritance system. My Monopoly analogy, the criticism would go, fails and inheritance is fair. But what if Monopoly could be made into a non-zero-sum game?

In the real economy, the idea is that the sum grows over time. The same can be applied to monopoly. A way to simulate this is to add in the Board Expansion rule variant to the inheritance rules (unlimited money, houses, and hotels can also be added by printing them as needed). To play this variant, you will need several Monopoly sets.

 

Board Expansion Rules for Monopoly Inheritance!

 

Rule 1: Prior to the start of the next game in the series of games, place another Monopoly board with its Go square adjacent to the Just Visiting square of the prior board. Repeat until the players decide to stop playing. Play begins in the Go square on the board from the first game.

 

Rule 2: Once a player’s piece has completed moving completely around a board (from Go back to Go), they must exit the board and move to the next board. A board is exited via the Just Visiting square and entered via the Go square. Once a piece has completely moved around the final board in the set, the piece must be moved back to the prior board and so on until the original board is reached. The process begins anew and continues into the game ends. The board a piece is on is treated as the game board for that piece.

 

Alternative Rule: Instead of being forced to leave a board after moving completely around it (from Go to go), a player can elect to stay on a board if they wish. This rule allows players a chance to escape the original game’s board.

 

This variant allows for a non-zero-sum game, limited only by the number of Monopoly boards on hand. While this allows the players who do not have the luck of inheritance a better chance, the player who gets the inheritance still has a massive advantage. While there will be a new board with property available to all players each game, the player who has inherited from the previous game will be in a much better position than the other players to acquire the new property. The main effect of the expanding game would seem to be that the heir player will have ever more property at the end of each game and thus the next heir will have an even greater advantage over the non-heirs. While the game is not zero-sum, those that lack inheritance will almost certainly still lose.

Griftocracy is rule by griftocrats.  A griftocrat is a grifter who has secured public office and uses it to grift. What follows is a discussion of the qualities of the griftocrat. This is not an attempt to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for being a griftocrat, but a general overview.

A griftocrat’s focus is on self-enrichment, but a griftocrat might also aim at enriching their family or others. As most politicians use their offices to increase their wealth, it might be wondered if all politicians are griftocrats, the true griftocrat is defined by their means and their goal. As would be suspected, griftocrats use deception such as scams and cons to enrich themselves. To use a non-political example to illustrate the distinction, both the honest real estate agent and the real estate grifter aim at profit. The difference is that an honest real estate agent does not use deception to achieve this end, while the real estate grifter profits from scams, cons and deception. An honest real estate agent will profit from selling you a house; the real estate grifter will profit from selling you the Brooklyn Bridge. Likewise, while most politicians profit from their office, they generally do not use scams and cons. They do use unethical practices such as insider trading and peddling their influence, but these are different from grifting. Naturally, one could see all politicians as engaging in scams, but it is worth distinguishing the griftocrat from other politicians. For example, the “honest” politician delivers when they offer a pay to play; the griftocrat does not deliver; they are running scams and cons.

The griftocrat is often ignorant of what they should know to do their job, but ignorance is not a requirement. Since the griftocrat is engaged in scams and cons, they have little reason to bother with the knowledge and skills needed to do their jobs properly. After all, they can con and lie their way instead.

The griftocrat is also marked by a lack of values (aside from self-interest). This is an obvious point sas they are, by definition, liars, cons and cheats.  They have no meaningful commitment to advancing policies or an ideology except insofar as policies and ideologies aid their grifting. Both conservative and liberal ideologies and polices afford opportunities for the griftocrat, although conservative ideology is more grift friendly. Reducing regulations and shrinking government, when done strategically, makes it easier for the griftocrat to grift. After all, being in charge of or eliminating the part of government that protect people from grifts makes it so much easier to grift.  That said, increased regulation and bloated bureaucracies also provide opportunities for certain types of grifting. The griftocrat is, of course, only concerned with their grift. As such, they tend to be ideologically fluid and easily shift between parties and political groups. They, after all, have no  ideological commitment.

Griftocrats oppose critics and truth seekers, such as honest journalists, scientists and academics. The griftocrat’s cons, lies and scams are endangered by the truth, so they will attack, restrict, dismiss and discredit all those who value truth. This is exemplified by griftocrat attacks on non-allied news sources, on universities, and on science. This is commonly done by griftocrats masquerading as conservatives. They can claim the news, academics and scientists are liberals and use well-established attacks on these targets. Griftocrafts masquerading as liberals also attack those who would expose their lies and scams, but griftocrats posing as leftists will tend to go after conservative institutions, though they do sometimes attack liberal institutions and individuals that pose a challenge to their specific grifting.  Liberal politicians seem to favor non-grifting strategies, such as insider trading.

Grifters usually lack competence outside of their grifting skills; skilled people usually have neither the desire nor the need to grift. The griftocrat tends to be wary of the competent, since they are a danger to their grifting. Griftocrats lack integrity and professionalism and see people with those traits as a danger since they will oppose and expose grifting. As such, a griftocrat will keep an eye on the competent and will do their best to ensure that those with integrity and professionalism are kept in the dark or removed.

Conservative griftocrats can try to rid themselves of such threats by appealing to the notion of small government. All griftocrats will accuse those with integrity and professionalism of bias and weave conspiracy theories, such as the idea of a deep state. As would be expected, griftocrats expect loyalty, but do not offer loyalty in return and are shocked when those they betray turn against them. They are also often shocked when the incompetent and unprincipled people they choose turn out to be incompetent and unprincipled. The griftocrat is thus trapped in a paradox: they want competent people with virtues such as loyalty and integrity to serve them, but their grifting can only thrive in the presence of incompetent or unprincipled people. To get around this, griftocrats often rely on family members; for family loyalty is the most basic form of loyalty and grifters often see certain family members as “worthy” of being in on the grift. But families of grifters often find that a grifter’s only true loyalty is to themselves.

While a griftocrat would seem to be anathema to anyone values, ideology or policy, there are those who a griftocrat as useful. Since a griftocrat lacks principles and ideology of their own, they can be used as tools to advance ideologies, values and policies. For example, a griftocrat might not be committed to white nationalism, but they might find it advantageous to appeal to those who are. The white nationalist can recognize that the griftocrat is not truly one of them but use the griftocrat to advance white nationalism. Those who do want certain policies can find the griftocrat a useful tool. If the policy assists the grifting, the griftocrat is happy to support it.

In general, conservatives find griftocrats more useful, since they share with the griftocrat a focus on profit and the griftocrat will usually favor weakening regulations, oversight and certain aspects of law enforcement to make their grifting easier. The main difference is the conservatives are generally not interested in being pure grifters and they often have an ideology and principles. To illustrate, a CEO will  want weakened oversight and regulation so they can cut costs and increase profits but the griftocrat wants weakened oversight and regulation so they can con people out of more money.

This is not to say that liberals cannot exploit griftocrats as well; but liberals are usually hostile what is most useful to advancing grifting and liberals are often critical of too much focus on profit. That said, while grifting from the left has a higher degree of difficulty, there are those who pull it off.

While a griftocrat can be useful to some, they are a significant danger to a country. After all, they are focused on self-enrichment and are happy to do so at the expense of the public good. Their tendency to be ignorant and incompetent also presents a danger. Even when not acting from malice, they can do damage out of ignorance and by accident. As such, anyone who cares for the good of their country should not support a griftocrat, even if they think they can use the grifter to their own advantage. I hope that more Americans learn this lesson before the country is grifted to destruction.

 

The estate tax in the United States allows a person to gift or donate up to $13.9 million tax free (be sure to check the latest tax law). The catch is, of course, that they must die. The Republicans have long called the estate tax the “death tax” and argue against it. But they also pitch the narrative of a free market, and most Americans praise fair competition and equality of opportunity. So, Americans like inheritance and fair competition. But these are at odds with each other: allowing significant inheritance conflicts with fair competition and equality of opportunity. While it is easy enough to argue for this point, it makes more sense to make people feel the unfairness inherent to inheritance. This can be done by playing my special version of Monopoly.

Almost everyone is familiar with Monopoly. For those who are not, the rules can be found here. The gist of the game is that you win by driving all the other players into bankruptcy. In normal play, the outcome of one game does not affect the next: the game has an equal opportunity start, since everyone begins with the same resources, in the same place and with a chance to win based entirely on ability and luck. My proposed variation adds in inheritance rules to make it more like the real world. This variation requires playing multiple games of Monopoly.

 

Monopoly Inheritance!

 

Rule 1:  The first game in the series is played normally using the standard rules.

 

Rule 2: Upon the conclusion of a game in the series, the winning player records what they possess at the end. This includes money, property, houses, and hotels.

 

Rule Three: At the start of the second and later games in the series, one player is randomly selected to receive the game possessions of the winning player from the previous game. The receiving player is the heir, and the possessions make up their inheritance. The other players start normally. The game is otherwise played using the normal rules, with the exceptions noted in these rules. The series ends when no one wants to play it anymore.

 

Inheritance Variations

Players can experiment with these variations to make the game more “realistic” or “fairer.” The rules need to be set prior to play.

 

Fractional Inheritance: The heir receives a percentage of the possessions of the previous winner (75%, 50% or 25% are suggested). Property is selected by drawing the property cards randomly. Round up fractions up.

 

Multiple Heirs: If there are at least three players, then two players are randomly selected to be heirs, dividing the possessions of the winner between them. This can be a 50-50 split or a 75-25 split at the discretion of all the players.

 

While a player who is not the heir could win the game, the heir has an incredible advantage. Anyone playing by these rules who is not the heir will see how unfair the game is. This should help people feel how inheritance of significant wealth is inconsistent with having a fair and competitive economic system.

From a philosophical standpoint, the first game could be considered a state-of-nature game (of the sort envisioned by Locke) in which everything is initially available to all, and property has yet to be divided up.

The players in the second (and subsequent) game take on the role of the next generation. Since birth is random and inheritance is not merited by effort, the heir is selected at random rather than being the previous winner.

As with any analogy that compares something simple to something vastly more complicated, this analogy will break down quickly. To illustrate, the real-world features multiple heirs, there is no equal start for everyone else, there is not just one game with one winner and so on through all the millions of differences. My point is, of course, not that this game variant is a perfect model of inheritance in the United States. Rather, my goal is to get people who are fine with the inheritance system as it stands to play this variant and see if they still feel that inheritance is a fair addition to the game. And then to think about whether it is fair in the real economy. The question that I want to pose is this: would you play Monopoly by these rules? Why or why not?

As always, I am open to arguments against my view. Perhaps allowing and encouraging massive disparities in inheritance is fair and makes for competitive economic system that improves the general welfare.