What made Tiger cheat? Capitalism!

Why not? It's to blame for everything else, isn't it? Lee Siegal at the Daily Beast explains how we can betray our significant others and still sleep soundly at night. You see, it's not your fault, society is to blame! No self-control? No problem! Blame Capitalism! The article is chock full of nonsense but I want to focus on this part here first:

"Elin Nordegren is a nice, decent Swedish girl, the daughter of a nice Swedish socialist politician and the product of a nice socialist country. It’s a place where no one is allowed to enrich himself at the expense of other people, where everyone has access to free, quality health care, where no one lives in poverty, and where money does not play a decisive role in the social contract. No one suffers because he doesn’t have money, and no one is allowed to accumulate wealth without paying his fair share back into the social arrangement that permitted him to make a fortune in the first place."

Holy crap. To his credit, at least he realizes this statement causes "American conservatives" to go "numb with terror." Hopefully statements like these cause more than just conservatives to ponder the wisdom of various politicians who bemoan the United States' lack of "progress" compared to the European State. If Progress means I have to listen to hacks like Siegal lecture me on my economic and personal freedom: count me out. Of course, I'd say the American "rich" pay a might bit more than their "fair share". Perhaps Lee missed this: US has the most progressive tax system in the entire OECD. A Progressive tax is a tax that increases in rate as the taxable amount increases. Put simply, the more income you earn, the higher your tax rate, not just the total amount you pay in taxes. That includes... what was it? Oh yeah, Sweden. By far in fact. Sweden has one of the least progressive tax systems in the OECD. In the US, it's not the rich that aren't paying their "fair share", it's everyone else. Here we see that the top 25% of income earners paid ~70% of all federal taxes in 2006.

Anyways, his column goes round and round the idea that greed in Tiger's professional life led to greed in his um, bedroom life. He meanders to the conclusion that perhaps equality in other areas will lead to fidelity in the bedroom. Or something like that: equal fidelity, at least, if not absolute.

"Adultery happens in Sweden, too, of course—the caricature of guilt-free sex in Sweden is proverbial—but in that good, socialist country the CF is an EF (“E” for “everybody”)."

How... stirring. At this point Lee is satirizing himself, surely. What's that you say? You can't keep your pants on? Well, the government is here to help! We shall simply impose equality of results on your society and Wa-La, you are now a good person! Don't you feel so superior? Yet another problem solved by smart, important people telling their lessers what to do. We just need a handful of wise, societal engineers to tell us what's what and we'll be off to the fidelity races!

Ironically, it turns out marriage as an institution hasn't been doing so well in Sweden over the last couple decades. In the late 90s Sweden had one of the lowest marriage rates in the industrialized world. And their divorce rate isn't so hot either. It's not as high as the US's but it's still hovering around the 40% mark. Most point to the declining marriage rate as being primarily driven by the liberal cohabitation laws in Sweden which result in cohabitating couples receiving economic benefits equal to that of married couples. Regardless, the point here is that Sweden isn't some marriage utopia. That said, fidelity is, of course, a slightly different matter. Worry not though, dear citizens, Lee has his eye on the prize.

At least he managed to not blame Bush. Not that the thought didn't cross his mind, I'm sure. But hey, you can only throw so much chum in the water, right?
 
h/t: Hot Air.