Rarely, if ever, do I link to The Wall Street Journal, on
the premise that the overwhelming majority of you have already seen
it, so why point to what’s been in front of your face?  But rules
are made to be broken, so this morning I give you two WSJ links.

They have in common that they undergird the raison d’etre of
this blog:  To increase the revenues and profits of law firms.
  (Had you missed that?—sorry, sometimes it helps to state
the obvious).  More importantly, this is a "have no fear" post:
  Damn the Politically Correct Police, and stake your claim to superior
financial results, unconflicted by duelling considerations (within, of
course, the limits of law, ethics, and simple humanity).

The
first WSJ
link is to Alan Murray’s brisk and refreshing reminder about what’s
wrong with corporations garbing themselves in the robes of "social
responsibility:"

"What harm is there in companies taking more responsibility
for social and environmental problems? Plenty, if you adhere to the
theories of Adam Smith…"

Still have a soft spot in your heart (or head?) for global corporations
voluntarily going "beyond compliance"—taking steps
viewed in the wisdom of NGO’s as beneficial to society albeit not required
by law or regulations? Then I invite you to look at the 20th-Century’s
track record of creating wealth and alleviating poverty: Was it the
indubitably well-intentioned socialist or heavy-handed paternalist
"capitalist" countries that raised
their citizens highest, or was it the more rough and tumble American
model? And if that seems old news, look at what China has accomplished
in the short years of the 21st-Century, by betraying communist principles
(economically, if not yet politically), as opposed to, say, the previous
50 years being more or less true to communist principles.

But relatively unfettered capitalism can be hard,
can it not, particularly on those at the bottom of the ladder?  Hasn’t
the MSM lately been full of articles undermining the American Dream’s
notion of upward mobility based on drive and determination?  It’s
hard for the least fortunate to get a leg up!  Well, as they
say, it depends on what the meaning of "hard" is.   

Alan Reynolds succinctly points
out the statistical and methodological flaws
in the latest anti-Dream studies: "It helps
to focus on a few reasons why some people earn more than others —
they work harder, and have more experience and/or more schooling."

• households in which two people work earn five times as much as
  households in which no one works
• households in which one person works full-time earn more than twice
  as much as those in which someone works part-time
• college graduates earn three times as much as high school dropouts
• experienced people (45-54) earn more than twice as much as those
  starting out (under 24)
• there are two workers per household in the top fifth of the
  income distribution, less than one worker in the bottom fifth

Still protesting?  Aren’t the rich getting richer, etc.?  Yes,
they are, and the shocking fact is:

"Since the Census Bureau overhauled the way it counts income
in 1993-94 (making the figures incomparable with prior years), the
share of income earned by the top fifth rose to 49.8% in 2000-03 from
49% in 1993-94."

Back to Adam Smith.  The title of his most famous book reads in
full:  "An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of
The Wealth of Nations."  In other words, he was concerned with
the creation of wealth, and was at least in most of his published writings
an agnostic as to how it was spent.  (Only after his death was
it learned he had, in fact, donated a large proportion of his income
to charitable causes.) The first order of business must always be to
generate wealth; the distribution of it comes later.

It is only fitting to conclude with an excerpt from Smith himself
(Wealth of Nations, Modern Library edition [1994], Book I,
Chapter 1, pp. 12-13), which resounds with truth and, to our 21st-Century
ears, that damnable political incorrectness.  But ask yourself
this:  Is it preferable to grant people the power and liberty
to seek self-enrichment, or to presume one knows their best interests
and can provide it for them?:

"It is the great multiplication of the productions of all
the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which
occasions, in a  well-governed society, that universal opulence
which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people.
[…]

"Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great,
[a day labourer’s] accommodation must no doubt appear extremely
simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation
of a European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious
and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that
of many a [tribal] king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties
of ten thousand naked savages."