Live simply so that others may simply live

• Mahatma Gandhi

As this blog will attempt to eviscerate the ‘live simply’ mantra, it is fortunate that many people dispute whether Gandhi actually originated this famous tautology. Found on bumper stickers and tee shirts everywhere, the ‘live simply’ message is itself simple: make do with less material wealth and you will be happier and the poor people of the world will live better too. The movement fits nicely into radical environmentalist think as well, as every modern activity consumes energy, and that will ruin the planet. In reality, the ‘live simply’ movement is a left wing recipe for misery and death.

Lest anyone think the ‘live simply’ movement is confined to the Mother Jones crowd, rest assured that your tax dollars are supporting it as well. David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald, economists for the US National Bureau of Economic Research, published Happiness and the Human Development Index. Their paper, which is far from unique, seeks to correlate GDP growth with increased unhappiness, and conversely poverty with happiness. Such papers stem from a psychopathic belief that ordinary people are irrational and cannot decide what is best for them. Of course, people are perfectly free to set their own priorities for work.

Politicians are in on the ‘live simply’ game too. Hillary Clinton often refered to the 1980′s as the ‘decade of greed.’ Considering the obscene and probably illegal profits she earned in the 1980′s futures markets, she would know. Her eschewal of ‘greed,’ of course, does not apply to earning millions on book deals and speaking engagements. Instead, she and other limousine liberals are interested in the greed of others. ‘Greed’ was the justification for the massive Clinton tax increases. Our excesses, not those of Rep. Frank and Sen. Dodd, are the cause of the current recession. And, of course, we will all be happy with less, which is guaranteed by more taxes, regulation, and wealth redistribution.

If greed, read capitalism, is the source of such human misery, is there any upside? The US, until recently the crown jewel in the capitalist system, offers a track record: vaccines, modern agriculture, airplanes, the light bulb, the electric motor, computers, nuclear power, air conditioning, television, and the telephone. Indeed, nearly every worthwhile invention of the 20^th Century came from the unhappy United States. By comparison, jolly old Russia invented the Gulag. There is simply no greater force for human good than the US, and prosperity is the engine that drives it.

Further, what harm does a US family actually cause an impoverished Indonesian? Enter the environmentalists. The latest form of unhappy, evil ‘greed’ comes from carbon emissions. Despite the fact that even aggressive carbon caps will not measurably reduce temperatures, anyone who does not live in Hollywood who drives a SUV is a war criminal. Apart from the US model of capitalism, the main cause of modern prosperity is energy abundance. Until the exploitation of fossil fuel, the cost of a unit of energy increased with production, i.e. the more wood you wished to burn, the farther away you had to march to collect it. This put a cap on production and prosperity. With the industrial revolution, a unit of energy became quite stable in cost, even as consumption increased. Blips aside, the real price of gasoline has remained about the same for decades. The insidious nature of a carbon cap and trade regime is that it will return the US to an environment where energy costs increase with consumption. The result will be the decline of the US in favor of countries less bound by global warming hysteria.

A further trouble of ‘living simply’ is its inherent collectivism. Who is to decide what ‘simply’ means? A simple life in Cuba is abject poverty in the US. Rep. Waxman wants to return the US to energy consumption levels last found in the 19^th Century. Note to Rep. Waxman: the standard of living is now 10 times higher and life expectancy is nearly double. To the extent outlawing energy consumption returns the US to those standards, your program will be judged harshly.

US prosperity has clearly benefited the world, far more than any government program. Still the left reliably seeks to ‘spread the wealth around,’ and reduce prosperity in the name of equality, fighting ‘greed,’ or happiness. We can ‘live simply,’ but only if ‘simply’ means a short life of poverty and no hope.

2009 may be remembered as the year the traditional newspaper died. Nearly every daily is experiencing sharp distribution losses as well as advertisement revenue losses. Many papers have shut down or are threatening to shut down. As this blog pointed out, much of the papers’ troubles are self inflicted. Most dailies are woefully biased towards the left and rely on the AP feed to do most of their work. They have made themselves ripe for replacement by TV and internet news, which are both more timely, compelling, and diverse news sources. Still, the daily’s biggest nemesis is Craig Newmark, founder of CraigsList, the online version of classified ads.

The reason Speaker Pelosi wants to silence talk radio and subsidize dailies is that the dailies, are left wing cheerleaders. For example, in Denver, the recent Tea Parties drew more protestors than did the DNC’s Code Pink, Recreate 68, or Tent City, by a ratio of 10 to 1. Still the left wing Denver Post afforded the fringe left wing groups far more coverage and gravitas.

Enter Newmark, a San Francisco liberal who based his web site on collectivist principles, eschewing most profit sources like advertisements. Despite being one of the most popular web sites, CraigsList manicures its anti-statist image with peace signs and an intentionally unsophisticated user interface. Newmark lauds the inherent liberty in making CraigsList is the leading venue for call girls. In short, CraigsList is a distillation of the San Francisco ethic.

And yet Craig Newmark is a sword in the hand of capitalism. Even though the dailies have had a decade of warning, they were unprepared for the fact that the average classified is both cheaper and more effective on CraigsList. Dailies had for decades charged excessive rates for an inch or two of classified print, all the while relying on AP feeds to do their work for them. CraigsList has long challenged that monopolistic pricing model, but has only recently reached a critical mass to destroy the dailies’ cash cow.

Adam Smith economics suggests that any product priced above its true cost will eventually face competition and be replaced. Just as AT&T used to charge $.25 per minute for long distance, only to be replaced by cell phones, the daily classified has been replaced by the often free CraigsList.

Mr. Newmark must be chagrined that his web based love-in is actually the demise of the left’s most reliable mouthpiece. Enter Pelosi, who wants to subsidize the dailies, even though all of their services are available elsewhere. Indeed, Washington has favored the dailies for some time. The McCain Feingold anti-free speech act specifically carves out an exception for newspapers. To Washington, it can be illegal to distribute political speech by leaflet, billboard, or letter, but if the paper is thin and the ink smudgy, all is forgiven.

Just when the cause of capitalism and individual freedom seemed lost, one of the left’s own proves that it is impossible to keep the free market down for long. Government subsidized monopolies eventually fail, even at the hand of San Francisco liberals. That is something to warm the heart as the American model of freedom enters its darkest days.