Why Do People Work?

The editorial policy of the Wall Street Journal is resolutely pro-business which makes all of the sense in the world. The WSJ hasn’t had the problems that other news organs have. It is a business newspaper. People subscribe to the WSJ because there is a direct relationship between the intelligence they glean from it and making money. Thinking that they’re “pro-rich” or “pro-Republican” is a misconception or, at worst, a ceding of the criticism sometimes made that the Democratic Party is anti-business.

In a recent editorial the editors of the Wall Street Journal take a predictably pro-business stance regarding extending the moratorium on evictions that was put in place in reaction to COVID-19 last year:

The eviction moratorium was perhaps justifiable amid the early lockdowns that threw millions out of work, but it’s now a cautionary tale of how bad policies distort behavior and are difficult to end. The original Cares Act moratorium that only applied to federally subsidized housing expired last July, but the Trump Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed its version in September. The moratorium applied to all rental housing and tenants who earned less than $99,000 ($198,000 for couples) who claimed they lost income because of the pandemic. Landlords who evicted non-paying tenants could go to jail.

Congress extended the ban in December for a month, but then the Biden Administration extended it three times through Saturday despite rulings from several judges that the CDC had exceeded its authority. Last month Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the liberals in maintaining a stay on a lower-court injunction reversing the ban.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote that he agreed the CDC acted unlawfully but allowed the moratorium to continue so rental assistance appropriated by Congress could have more time to be distributed. But he said a “clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31.”

Cue the political panic.

and I think that editors are completely right when they note:

The moral imperative now is to let landlords collect rent so they can stay in business and avoid bankruptcies that would lead to cascading damage throughout the rental housing market.

It is not just there that the damage would be done. Unless you believe that large companies and slumlords are better landlords. Those are the ones that would survive the debacle.

From my vantage point those who supported the moratorium last year ceded the moral high ground when they neglected to to impose a real estate tax moratorium and an interest payment moratorium at the same time. Failing to do so effectively created a subsidy for renters, state and local governments, banks, and large companies that rent property at the expense of small landlords. Just how serious a gap is that? According to the National Association of Realtors, it’s a pretty substantial one. Not only are the majority of properties owned by small operators, their largest expenses tend to be their mortgage payments and their property taxes.

I understand the impulse that leads representatives to want to help their constituents out. What I don’t understand is picking one group of constituents over another.

But there is another impulse that I truly don’t understand and it is rearing its head with some regularity these days. Not only does it inform the discussion of the moratorium on foreclosures but the multiple spending bill making their way through the Congress, and the discussion of a universal basic income and that is that it is the role of the federal government to ensure that every human want is satisfied by the government, not just for the poor but for people who can only be described as the middle class, maybe even the upper middle class. Characterizing these things as “human infrastructure” is a sales technique rather than a definition. Literally everything that anybody might want can be termed that way not just child or elder care and education but food, clothing, transport, rent (or mortgage payment), and so on. That’s precisely what you’re talking about when you talk about ever-extending eviction moratoria and student loan jubilees.

And that gets me to the title of this post. Why do people work? The reality, even if you think it terribly unfair, that most people work because they must to support themselves and their families. Relatively few people work for self-expression, fulfillment, or job gratification. I think that most people see those as luxuries that are beyond their grasp.

It should also be noted that giving people things takes something important from them: they are unlikely to believe they earned them. It robs them of self-esteem. That most will just take the money and run does not negate that. And as Sam Clemens said the difference between a man and a dog is that if you feed a dog and make him prosperous he won’t bite you.