the Evil Line

Charles Murray has a plan, which he is humble enough to call The Plan: scrap welfare and social security and just give everyone ten thousand dollars a year.

The chief defect of the welfare state from this perspective is not that it is ineffectual in making good on its promises (though it is), nor even that it often exacerbates the very problems it is supposed to solve (though it does). The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life.

The Economist wastes an opportunity to review this idea and instead blathers about public intellectuals in the United States and Europe.