• Mood: contemplative

There's no such thing as "social responsibility"

wbwolf, in his latest LJ entry, excoriates me because I don't buy the notion of "social responsibility". Put simply, he, as well as his leftist buddies, believe that people should consider not just their own needs, but the needs of everyone else - defined, of course, in the best leftist fashion - when making purchasing decisions.

This is a load of horse exhaust. To follow this is to inevitably tread the path of Communism, as marked by governmental control of the very basic choices that define one's life. After all, if others get to define one's needs in priority over one's own perceptions, then why shouldn't the benevolent government enforce those choices by regulation? The government is the best guarantor of the rights of all, to their way of thinking.

What escapes these folks is that governments have the Midas Muffler touch: everything they touch turns into a muffler. Governments are inevitably the least efficient providers of any service, and the biggest wasters of dollars ever imagined, because they simply have no competition to keep them in check.

Beware the term "social responsibility". It's a codeword for concepts that have been tried and failed.