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460756b
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I propose another explanation: The reason so many Americans have become alienated from government since the poll of 1964 is that government really has become more incompetent and really has become alienated from the public it is supposed to serve. Political cycles and political fashion have nothing to do with it. American government isn't what it used to be.
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Charles Murray |
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63eb856
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A new upper class that makes decisions affecting the lives of everyone else but increasingly doesn't know much about how everybody else lives is vulnerable to making mistakes. How vulnerable are you?
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Charles Murray |
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3b0fcb5
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Regardless of whether people have free will, human flourishing requires that they live in an environment in which they are treated as if they did.
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leadership
motivation
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Charles Murray |
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412df09
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the most lovable of exceptional American qualities (is) our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren't, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class.
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culture
humility
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Charles Murray |
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edd1884
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The percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010.
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work
motivation
welfare-state
unemployment
vocation
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Charles Murray |
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cf6d61e
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Nice and good are different. Being nice involves immediate actions and immediate consequences--you give water to the thirsty and comfort to the afflicted right here, right now. Being good involves living in the world so that you contribute to the welfare of your fellow human beings.
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Charles Murray |
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439c9df
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As I come to the end of my advice and send you off into the world, I have an alternative way for you to stay on the straight and narrow: periodically watch Groundhog Day. It was made long ago, in 1993, but it's still smart and funny, the chemistry between the stars (Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell) is terrific, and it has a happy ending. Groundhog Day is also a profound moral fable that deals with the most fundamental issues of virtue and h..
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Charles Murray |
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8c4a1d6
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Changing the new upper class by force majeure won't work and isn't a good idea in any case. The new upper class will change only if its members decide that it is in the interest of themselves and of their families to change. And possibly also because they decide it is in the interest of the country they love.
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Charles Murray |
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560ce6a
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I think that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world.... The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shatt..
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Charles Murray |
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6863d19
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Using which instead of that. That introduces essential clauses while which introduces nonessential clauses. Consider the sentence "Tools that have sharp edges can cause nasty cuts." If you remove the words "that have sharp edges," the sentence loses much of its meaning. The clause is essential. Now consider "Roses, which come in many colors, have thorns on their stems." You can remove "which come in many colors" and the meaning of the rest ..
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Charles Murray |
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541de6d
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To notice a difference is to have an opinion about it--unless one refuses to think. And that is my ultimate objection to nonjudgmentalism. We can refuse to voice our judgments, but we cannot keep from having them unless we refuse to think about what is before our eyes.
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Charles Murray |
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d1d4097
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Your career is likely to bear more resemblance to that of a writer than that of an athlete or painter. You should look ahead to your forties as the time when you will be at your peak of creativity, technical proficiency, and energy, and also have enough phronesis to realize your potential. The more your field depends on good judgment that comes only from experience, the longer you can expect to sustain a high level of performance into your ..
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Charles Murray |
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096189b
|
In The Price of Admission, journalist Daniel Golden documents the ways in which elite schools manage to find room for the children of alums, big donors, celebrities, athletes, the elite college's own faculty, and wealthy parents whose estates might eventually make their heirs into big donors.20
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Charles Murray |
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5e81fca
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Many curmudgeons believe that a malady afflicts many of today's twenty-somethings: their sense of entitlement. It is their impression that too many of you think doing routine office tasks is beneath you, and your supervisors are insufficiently sensitive to your needs. Curmudgeons are also likely to think that you have a higher opinion of your abilities than your performance warrants.
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Charles Murray |
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6de2968
|
A variant of the NIT puts it within our power to end poverty, provide for comfortable retirement and medical care for everyone, and--as a bonus that is probably more important than any of the immediate effects--revitalize American civil society.
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Charles Murray |
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369f5a8
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there's a lot to like about day-to-day life in the advanced welfare states of western Europe. They are great places to visit. But the view of life that has taken root in those same countries is problematic. It seems to go something like this: The purpose of life is to while away the time between birth and death as pleasantly as possible, and the purpose of government is to make it as easy as possible to while away the time as pleasantly as ..
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Charles Murray |
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db7dcf1
|
Burlington, Vermont, is an example of a certain kind of small city that David Brooks calls "Latte Towns," enclaves of affluent and well-educated people, sometimes in scenic locales such as Santa Fe or Aspen and sometimes in university towns such as Ann Arbor, Berkeley, or Chapel Hill. Of Burlington, Brooks writes: Burlington boasts a phenomenally busy public square. There are kite festivals and yoga festivals and eating festivals. There are..
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Charles Murray |
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a998db8
|
Traditions decay when the reality facing the new generation changes. The habit of thrift decays if there is no penalty for not saving. The work ethic decays if there is no penalty for not working. Neighborliness
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Charles Murray |
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f06bc95
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During the second half of the twentieth century, the welfare state confronted accelerating increases in the number of people who were not just poor, but who behaved in destructive ways that ensured they would remain poor, sometimes living off their fellow citizens, sometimes preying on them. As their numbers grew, they acquired a new name: the underclass. The
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Charles Murray |
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3b8a20b
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The libertarian solution is to prevent the government from redistributing money in the first place. Imagine for a moment that the $2 trillion that the US government spends on transfer payments were left instead in the hands of the people who started with it. If I could wave a magic wand, that would be my solution. It is a case I have made elsewhere.2 Leave the wealth where it originates, and watch how its many uses, individual and collabora..
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Charles Murray |
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294b296
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People are unequal in the abilities that lead to economic success in life. To the extent that inequality of wealth is grounded in the way people freely choose to conduct their lives, I do not find it troubling. People
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Charles Murray |
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43a0b9a
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Some people pursue happiness in ways that tend to be accompanied by large incomes, others in ways that tend to be accompanied by lower incomes. In a free society, these choices are made voluntarily, with psychic rewards balanced against monetary rewards. Income inequality is accordingly large. So what?
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Charles Murray |
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1fa9369
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Inequality of wealth grounded in unequal abilities is different. For most of us, the luck of the draw cuts several ways: one person is not handsome, but is smart; another is not as smart, but is industrious; and still another is not as industrious, but is charming. This kind of inequality of human capital is enriching, making life more interesting for everyone. But some portion of the population gets the short end of the stick on several di..
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Charles Murray |
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2c9de43
|
The argument starts by accepting that the American government will continue to spend a huge amount of money on income transfers. It then contends that we should take all of that money and give it back to the American people in cash grants. The
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Charles Murray |
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9952074
|
Henceforth, federal, state, and local governments shall make no law nor establish any program that transfers general tax revenues to some citizens and not to others, whether those transfers consist of money or in-kind benefits. All programs currently providing such benefits are to be terminated. The funds formerly allocated to them are to be used instead to provide every citizen with a Universal Basic Income beginning at age twenty-one and ..
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Charles Murray |
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942033e
|
The goal of an end to poverty is so noble that governments have successfully used the end to justify the means. The means have been high taxation of the productive members of society and arrays of bureaucracies that increasingly regulate the lives of us all. 1
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Charles Murray |
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d9d1d51
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He is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to promote, by every means in his power, the welfare of the whole society of his fellow citizens." That is Adam Smith talking, the apostle of laissez-faire."
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Charles Murray |
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bc4bace
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The entry of government into social insurance and then into a broader range of social interventions has caused incalculable human suffering. It has not produced a society in which fewer people are dependent than would otherwise have been the case. The welfare state has artificially, needlessly created a large dependent class. At the bottom is the underclass, stripped of dignity and autonomy, producing new generations socialized to their par..
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Charles Murray |
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e88ee22
|
I have been drawn to Milton Friedman's argument for a negative income tax (NIT) that entirely replaces the existing system of income transfers and social services. The quid pro quo would be that the government withdraw altogether from every other form of interference in the organization of social life. Under such a plan the Department of Health and Human Services would become a check-writing office, and the social service agencies, bureaus,..
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Charles Murray |
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6a7f4ac
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The main attraction of a generous NIT is that it could resolve an impasse. As matters stand, every element of limited government now faces a blanket objection: But what about poor people? An NIT could take poverty off the table by giving every adult an income above the poverty line. Doing so is probably the single most important step in getting the nation to think seriously about restoring limited government. The left has always claimed it ..
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Charles Murray |
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b2c9fc0
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Why is it a good thing to understand this movie so well? Because it will help you live a good life. Absorbing the deep meaning of the Nicomachean Ethics will also help you live a good life, but Groundhog Day will do it with a lot less effort. 35.
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Charles Murray |
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dd5e1e1
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That's the UBI. A cash grant, with a surtax, funded by eliminating the transfers that currently exist. I require that $3,000 be devoted to health care, but otherwise I will argue that many of the best effects of the UBI are fostered by the least direction: "Here's the money. Use it as you see fit. Your life is in your hands."
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Charles Murray |
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bda7a6f
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solutions are beyond the reach of the electoral process and legislative process.
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Charles Murray |
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ddfc649
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Discarding the welfare state in favor of a universal basic income is no longer something that would be economically feasible in America's future. It is economically feasible right now.
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Charles Murray |
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8332b61
|
In the decades ahead, a life well-lived will often have to be one that does not involve a job traditionally defined. A universal basic income will be an essential part of the transition to a world unlike any in the history of our species.
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Charles Murray |
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fdcb9f6
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The main vehicle for nineteenth-century socialization was the leading textbook used in elementary school. They were so widely used that sections in them became part of the national language. Theodore Roosevelt, scion of an elite New York family, schooled by private tutors, had been raised on the same textbooks as the children of Ohio farmers, Chicago tradesman, and New England fishermen. If you want to know what constituted being a good Ame..
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literature
education
heritage
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Charles Murray |
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e6b2819
|
An unavoidable side effect of ambition is to be gnawed by ambition anxiety about whether you're going to succeed. You're bound to feel it in your twenties and thirties. Put it away in your forties. By that time, you should have learned enough to recognize that fame and wealth are trivial--really, truly trivial--to a life well lived.
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Charles Murray |
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8faa2c5
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If I'm wrong, and you find yourself in an organization where sucking up is in fact a good way to get ahead, look for a new job. It's not a quality organization after all, no matter how glittering its public reputation may be. Life is too short to work there.
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Charles Murray |
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e6fe5b6
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family structure that produces the best outcomes for children, on average, are two biological parents who remain married. Divorced parents produce the next-best outcomes. Whether the parents remarry or remain single while the children are growing up makes little difference. Never-married women produce the worst outcomes. All of these statements apply after controlling for the family's socioeconomic status.14 I know of no other set of import..
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Charles Murray |
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7db84df
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There is more to life than work, and a life without ample space for family and friends is incomplete. But this much should not be controversial: Vocation--one's calling in life--plays a large role in defining the meaning of that life. For some, the nurturing of children is the vocation. For some, an avocation or a cause can become an all-absorbing source of satisfaction, with the job a means of paying the bills and nothing more. But for man..
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Charles Murray |
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f9a98ec
|
the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world.... The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but sof..
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Charles Murray |
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5455439
|
Since they are in fact academically gifted, it is fine to tell them that. Trying to hide their academic ability from them would be futile anyway. But they must also be told explicitly, forcefully, and repeatedly that their intellectual talent is a gift that they have done nothing to deserve. They are not superior human beings, but very, very lucky ones. They should feel humbled by their good luck.
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Charles Murray |
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35dbff9
|
For a discussion of the Founders' view that a successful republic required a high level of virtue in the people, see Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2012 (New York: Crown Forum, 2012), chap. 6. 6
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Charles Murray |
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a287c43
|
when the country began, the Founders were unanimously of the opinion that their creation could work in practice only because of qualities that already existed in the American people--their honesty, industriousness, religiosity, and morality, to name four that all of the Founders discussed in one way or another.5
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Charles Murray |