Louis J Sheehan 63448 H18 A51 J.s.k.t.

COMMENTARY


A record eight million Americans moved from one state to another last year. Where is everyone going, and why? The answer has little to do with climate: California has arguably the nicest climate of any state in the nation -- yet in this decade more Americans have left the Golden State than entered it.

Migration patterns instead reveal which states have the most dynamic and desirable economies, and which are "has-been" states. The winners in this contest for the most valuable resource on the globe -- human capital -- are generally the states with the lowest tax, spending and regulatory burdens. The biggest losers are almost all congregated in the Northeast and Midwest. Liberals contend that tax rates, regulations, forced union laws and runaway government spending don't matter when it comes to creating jobs, high incomes and a higher quality of life. People tell us otherwise by voting with their feet.
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The American Legislative Exchange Council has just released a study we've done that presents a 2007 Economic Competitiveness Rating of the 50 states, based on 16 economic policy variables, including taxes, regulation, right to work, the legal system, educational freedom and government debt. Over the past decade, the 10 states with the highest taxes and spending, and the most intrusive regulations, have half the population and job growth, and one-third slower growth in incomes, than the 10 most economically free states. In 2006 alone 1,500 people each day moved to the states with the highest economic competitiveness from the states with the lowest competitiveness.

Of all the policy variables we examined, two stand out as perhaps the most important in attracting jobs and capital. The first is the income tax rate. States with the highest income tax rates -- California and New York, for example -- are significantly outperformed by the nine states with no income tax, such as Texas and Florida. As a study from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Board put it: "Relative marginal tax rates have a statistically significant negative relationship with relative state growth."

The other factor for attracting jobs and capital is right-to-work laws. States that permit workers to be compelled to join unions have much lower rates of employment growth than states that don't. Many companies say they will not even consider locating a factory in a state that does not have a right-to-work law.

Our study also finds that states with antigrowth tax and spending policies don't just lose people. Noncompetitive states like New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Jersey are plagued by falling housing values, a shrinking tax base, business outmigration, capital flight and high unemployment rates, and less money for schools, roads and aging infrastructure. These factors of decline hurt the poor the most.

The Northeast is the classic case of a region suffering from self-inflicted wounds. In the year 2006, it was home to a smaller share of the U.S. population, and produced a smaller percentage of America's total value-added, than at any time in the nation's history. Why?

One big reason is that governments in the Northeast are about one-fifth more expensive than in the rest of America ($6,000 versus $5,000 of state spending per resident). An average-income family of four still saves $4,000 in lower income, property, sales taxes and fees by moving to just an average-tax state, and more like $6,000 a year by moving to, say, Florida. Since the Northeastern states tend to have highly progressive tax systems, the incentive to flee is even greater for higher-income earners.

Northeasterners complain disdainfully of the "war between the states" for jobs and businesses, and for good reason: They can't win. Southern and Western states are cherry-picking companies from the North Atlantic states. One Southern governor (who didn't want to be identified) recently told us his state had closed its economic development offices in Europe. "Why search for factories overseas when we can plunder high tax areas like Connecticut and New York?" he said.

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Auto and other manufacturing jobs are still being created in America -- but in Alabama, North Carolina and even Mississippi. It has to be infuriating to Northeasterners to learn that people and businesses are "trading up" by moving out of their region to the likes of Georgia and Alabama. But they are.

The states losing population are in effect suffering from a slow-motion version of the economic sclerosis that paralyzed much of Europe in the 1980s and '90s, particularly France and Germany with their massive welfare systems. At least the European socialist nations are finally starting to change their taxing and spending ways to win back jobs.

No such luck in this country. Five of the states near the bottom of our competitiveness ratings -- Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey and Wisconsin -- have enacted major tax increases in the last two years. Maryland and Michigan just raised business and income taxes on upper-income earners, while arguing that raising the cost of doing business will attract more businesses. More likely it will induce companies to stay away, and people to move out.








With the wide-ranging conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek or Hellenic polis 'city-state' gave way to Hellenistic Empire. Distinctions between Greek and barbarian fell; individuals, no longer simply part of their poleis (pl. of polis), were suddenly aware of the greater whole to which they belonged. Stoicism arose as an attempt to comprehend the new cosmopolitan order. The philosophy of the Stoics lasted for 500 years, during which time it had a major impact on Christianity, the idea of natural law, and moral virtue. Some of the major early stoics were Chrysippus, Cleanthes, and Zeno.
Chrysippus

Without Chrysippus, there wouldn't have been any Stoicism
- anonymous

He alone is the sage, the others only act as shadows.
- anonymous

Chrysippus (280-207) wasn't the founder of Stoicism. That honor goes to Zeno (c 336-264). Chrysippus wasn't even the second head of the stoa poikile. That honor goes to Cleanthes. Chrysippus was, however, the person on whom our knowledge of the early Stoics depends. Like Epicurus, he was a prolific writer, composing 705 books of which none remain except fragments preserved by others, including Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, Aulus Gellius, and Athenaeus.

Some of Chrysippus' actions adversely affected the reputation of the Stoics. He refused to honor distinctions of rank. He would take opposite viewpoints for the sake of argument, but in the process show up the inconsistencies of Stoic beliefs. He sometimes argued illogically.

How Chrysippus died is not known. Two alternative theories are that Chrysippus died of laughter or over-proof wine.

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Cleanthes
Cleanthes (331-232), a wrestler from Lydia, had neither money nor genius, but through diligence and perseverance he served as Zeno's pupil for 19 years before succeeding him. He still had a long teaching career, since he died at 99, reportedly through intentional starvation.

Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers provides most of our information on Zeno of Citium because, although he was the founder of the Stoic school, none of his works survives. Zeno began his career as a merchant, but shipwreck led him to Athens and the Cynic philosopher, Crates. While under Crates' tutelage, Zeno wrote his Republic.

In the Republic, his utopian, rational society would have no need for laws. But since humans live in an imperfect society, they must accept social realities. Zeno opposed slavery, believed in sexual equality, opposed modesty, lived frugally, and appears to have drunk excessively.



Stoics and Moral Philosophy
8 Principles of Stoic Philosophy and Their Serenity Prayer-Like Advice
Below are 8 of the main ideas held by the Stoic philosophers.

1. Nature - Nature is rational.

2. Law of Reason - The universe is governed by the law of reason. Man can't actually escape its inexorable force, but he can, uniquely, follow the law deliberately.

3. Virtue - A life led according to rational nature is virtuous.

4. Wisdom - Wisdom is the the root virtue. From it spring the cardinal virtues: insight, bravery, self-control, and justice.

"Briefly, their notion of morality is stern, involving a life in accordance with nature and controlled by virtue. It is an ascetic system, teaching perfect indifference ( APATHEA ) to everything external, for nothing external could be either good or evil. Hence to the Stoics both pain and pleasure, poverty and riches, sickness and health, were supposed to be equally unimportant."

5. Apathea - Since passion is irrational, life should be waged as a battle against it. Intense feeling should be avoided.

6. Pleasure - Pleasure is not good. (Nor is it bad. It is only acceptable if it doesn't interfere with our quest for virtue.)

7. Evil - Poverty, illness, and death are not evil.

8. Duty - Virtue should be sought, not for the sake of pleasure, but for duty.

Serenity Prayer and Stoic Philosophy

The Serenity Prayer could have come straight from the principles of Stoicism as this side-by-side comparison of the the Serenity Prayer and the Stoic Agenda shows:

Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Stoic Agenda
"To avoid unhappiness, frustration,
and disappointment, we, therefore, need
to do two things: control those
things that are within our power
(namely our beliefs, judgments, desires,
and attitudes) and be indifferent
or apathetic to those things which
are not in our power (namely, things
external to us)."


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William R Connolly
Update: December 2007: It was pointed out to me that the main difference between the two passages is that the modern version includes a bit about knowing the difference between the two. While that may be, the Stoic version states those which are within our power -- the personal things like our own beliefs, our judgments, and our desires. Those are the things we should have the power to change.



"The life of virtue is the life in accordance with nature. Since for the Stoic nature is rational and perfect, the ethical life is a life lived in accordance with the rational order of things.'Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well' (Handbook, ch. 8)."
-- Ecole Initiative Stoicism