Matt Yglesias pulls out his new hobby horse: rich people have more choices than poor people, charter schools increase choices for poor people (even if they don’t work!), and for this reason we should, I take it, undertake all the union-smashing ideas beloved of the reform movement.
This is a weird argument for anyone to make. It’s a particularly weird argument for a liberal to make. I made this case awhile back on this here blog, and I think my argument still stands. The Cliff Notes version: “rich people have more choices than poor people” is another way of saying “we live under capitalism.” Rich people are always going to have more choices because that’s the point of money. It is indeed the job of government to provide for certain material needs that the poor cannot procure for themselves. And the government should do the best job it possibly can. But government shouldn’t be in the business of artificially providing choice under the bizarre notion that just having choice is a virtue in and of itself, and it really shouldn’t be in the business of providing choices that can’t be proven to work.
Talking about choice as if it is a benefit regardless of the objective reality of whether the choices are beneficial is bizarre. And the idea that tax dollars should pay for that choice, in that absence of evidence as to why, is just a bridge too far. This seems like simple sense to me.
why should government subsidize choices that don’t work?Post + Comments (210)