Hero Of The Hurricane Wal Mart - Road to the Middle Class

OUT OF THE miasma of blame and media bias in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, one American institution is emerging from the cloud of ruins like a firefighter emerging from the ruin of the World Trade Center: Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart was first with a monetary contribution to disaster aid. Wal-Mart had pre-positioned goods like generators and Pop-Tarts (!) at its distribution centers. Wal-Mart announced it would open mini-Wal-Marts in the disaster area to distribute vital food and supplies to disaster victims. And Wal-Mart already has nearly all of its stores in the disaster area back in business.

Even the left has taken notice, but only to slap Wal-Mart with the usual canards. In The Nation Liza Featherstone compliments Wal-Mart for their response:

Thank goodness, then, for Wal-Mart, which immediately sent 1,900 truckloads of water and other emergency supplies to the afflicted. The company has also contributed $17 million to the hurricane relief effort, and more than $3 million in merchandise.

Then she slips in the shiv:

A company capable of operating in such a coordinated, humane way should do so not just in a disaster but every day. There is no reason Wal-Mart could not operate in an equally streamlined, well-organized manner to make sure that labor laws (on overtime, child labor, discrimination) are followed. There is no reason its impressive resources could not be marshaled to remedy the daily, ongoing disaster that so many of its workers face: low wages and inadequate healthcare.

Then she goes too far.

According to the conservative wingnuts at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the superiority of Wal-Mart�s Katrina response shows that the private sector is simply more effective than the government. Well, yes, oddly enough, when you starve a government by draining its resources and electing officials who don�t believe in it, nothing seems to work.

Er, what exactly do you mean by people who �don�t believe� in government? You mean �belief� like in religion? And what exactly do you mean about a government starved for resources? Which government did you have in mind, exactly?

The commentary of economics professor Thomas Sowell is perhaps a little more reliable.

[The] question is what set of incentives has the better track record for getting the job done -- and especially getting the job done promptly when time can be the difference between life and death.
The country does not have one dime more resources available when those resources are channeled through government. The resources are just handled less effectively by government and dispensed in an indiscriminate way that encourages people to continue locating in the known path of predictable disasters.

What we saw after Hurrican Katrina is that individuals and corporations were able to act, and did act, much faster than governments at all levels. That ought to teach us a lesson, even the faithful believers in government at The Nation.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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