Charles Kirtley

cek100248@hotmail.com

“NOTHING succeeds like success” is an old and increasingly outdated saying. The meaning is simple and straightforward: A person is considered successful if he succeeds in his endeavors, no matter how grand or how humble they may be. At one time, a person was considered successful if he worked hard and played by the rules. This would often lead to financial success as well as a sense of personal satisfaction.

But this way of viewing things is increasingly going by the wayside. We are entering a new age, in which compassion and good intentions are becoming more important than successful living.

The poor in America were once considered failures in life because they were unable to make their lives successful. Admittedly, there are many poor people who try very hard, but conditions beyond their control led to their poverty. These people have always been well-deserving of help.

But in today’s world a new class of poor has begun to emerge: the noble poor, or the professional poor. The noble poor may or may not have a job, or even be able to work. The noble poor earn sympathy, even respect, because they are poor. Instead of pity, their failure has become a success in many people’s eyes. They are viewed as victims of society, not as captains of their own lives’ ships.

The noble poor are rewarded with cash and benefits that the U.S. Government extracts from others to give them. A recent study found that a family of four “noble poor” gets benefits from others worth about US$60,000 each year, a much larger amount than the average earnings of a working family of four.

Other examples of failure being rewarded, even praised, include businesses in favored industries that cannot compete successfully against others. Their failures are rewarded with tax breaks, subsidies, tariffs imposed against their competitors, and noncompetitive purchases from the government.

But there is nowhere where failure is rewarded by success more than government. If a government program fails to perform as expected, it is never shut down. Instead it is given more money, more power, more responsibility and more bureaucrats, in an attempt to turn its failure into success.

In the U.S. and Europe, governments at all levels typically fail to deliver their promised successes. A personal favorite example is the U.S. Department of Energy. Founded in 1972 as a result of the Arab oil embargo, the department was supposed to help the United States wean itself from dependence on foreign oil. Despite spending billions, the United States is more dependent on imported oil than ever before. Clearly this is a failure, but not in the political world. Instead of being dismantled, the department is rewarded with larger budgets and more bureaucrats nearly every year.

Despite being unable to run a train or deliver a letter efficiently, the government in Washington, D.C., has decided to take over the health care system in the United States. It is rewarding its failures with the success of even more power and more revenue. The weak-minded welcome this power grab, thinking they will be getting something for nothing, while failing to examine the results where it has been tried elsewhere.

China began its modern existence as an all-powerful, all-controlling state. Slowly it is coming to realize that a powerful, all-controlling government stifles initiative and creates resentment. It is quietly loosening the strings of both political and economic power. The success of accomplishment is replacing the failure of compliance. The result is the China miracle of recent years.

(The author is a retired American businessman who lives in Shenzhen.)