The Outstater
Phony Altruism and an Apple Plethora
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”— Rudyard Kipling, 1919
WE ARE TOYING with the idea for a new personal advice column. It would allow only one question, “Do you think this is something government should do?” And, given the popular mood, the answer would invariably be “no.”
A test query comes from a friend who wonders whether Indiana and other states should be giving surplus apples to the poor. He attaches a clipping telling how proud West Virginia is that it saved tons of apples this year by giving them to charity. The National Public Radio reporter was inspired to new heights of drama, smarm and twaddle:
“There was a bumper crop of apples this year across the country, and now processors have too many to handle. With an oversupplied market, growers are now faced with an economic dilemma. Should they pay the labor to pick their apples or simply leave them to rot?”
A no-brainer, you say. Not so fast.
First, the apples, as is the case with your lunch today, are not free. Some virtucrat bought $10 million worth of them with your money from a dozen lucky West Virginia growers. The apples now are being distributed to charities from South Carolina to Michigan and all the way west to the Navajo Nation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is so happy with the publicity that it approved an additional $100 million of your money to relieve the apple surplus in other states including, one fears, Indiana.
Second, there are doubts about the charitable impact. In America the designated “poor” are not necessarily hungry. The Navaho Nation has a gross domestic product of at least $12 billion. And sending apples to Michigan ranks right up there in stupidity with coals to Newcastle.
But ignore the waste and phony altruism; they are givens. What is being fed here is not apples but a dishonest and false narrative, i.e., that government has something proactive to do with wealth. The crisis assumes that no private-sector entrepreneur would have figured out a way to assign value to excess apples.
Look, an eighth grade dropout knows more about handling an agricultural surplus than the USDA. John Simplot, after leaving home at age 14 worked on an Idaho farm where he developed a low-cost method for feeding hogs with waste potatoes. When the market fell, hog producers began giving away their piglets. Simplot snatched them up and when the market recovered he sold at a profit and bought into a potato-processing business.
There, Simplot developed a method of freezing the favored Idaho Russet potato, which otherwise could not be shipped nationwide. Eventually he would supply more than half of all french fries eaten at McDonald’s. And in retirement by the early 1980s, Simplot was providing the startup capital for Micron Technology, developer of the 64k memory chip. That is what launched the era of global technology and innovation now rivaling the Industrial Revolution.
Clearly, when an official claims to be doing good by giving away other people’s property ($110 million in the case of the apples) there are questions to be asked. Ryan Cummins, third generation owner of a family business and a former Marine artillery officer, is stalwart enough to ask them.
Cummins for many years conducted an impromptu class on wealth creation as a member of the Terre Haute Common Council. The class was called into session each year at budget time when members of the city’s powerful police and firefighters unions presented their wage and benefit demands. They would bring their families to the council chambers carrying signs reading “Don’t starve our Kids,” or to that effect.
Cummins would begin by expressing his sincere hope that the union members got the raise they were expecting. First, though, they needed to answer a question to get his vote, a question he asks his own employees when they want a raise: What will you be doing next year, given your same responsibilities, that you aren’t doing this year at your current salary?
About then, Cummins would be asked to sit down and shut up.
His point, though, was made. It is a point undisputed in modern economic literature and early 20h century poetry: If you want more money (or apples) you will have to make yourself more useful and more productive — that or find a government agent who doesn’t know the difference. And conversely, if you have money and it is used to pay taxes rather than encourage the productive and the useful then you and your society eventually will be broke.
Next question. — tcl
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