A reward has to come at the end of an accomplishment, not at the beginning. Otherwise it becomes less than useless, it becomes a liability. Liberals do not get this.

As parents, my wife and I learned early on about making deals with our kids where the reward comes first: "Pleeeeease, Mom. If I can (play, have a treat, get a favor, etc.) now, I promise I'll get right to my (chores, schoolwork, cleaning up a mess, etc.)."

Even though we knew better, every once in awhile we would have a weak moment (The kids were so darned cute, they were very sincere, would give an impressive argument, etc.) Every time we indulged this - every time - it became ridiculously hard to get them to follow through on their end of the bargain.

And these are good kids, well meaning kids, kids that want to keep their word. It would be easy to blame them for not following through. In fact, what we had done in trying to be "nice," was to make it extremely hard for them to complete their tasks, whatever those tasks may have been.

Once they had their reward, what's to earn? All that's left is a dull, joyless drudgery. Whatever excitement there was relating to the tasks to be done was removed; whatever pride in doing good work was washed away by the pre-emptive bestowal of goodies. By giving a reward before it had been earned, we made the earning of it worthless and the value of it trivial.

A reward is a compensation for work done, action taken, or accomplishments achieved. The effect of a reward, the purpose of a reward, is to make one's work, whatever it is, easier. By having something good to look forward to your work has a future orientation; you are striving toward something, the wind is at your back, and the gravitational pull is in front of you, moving you toward finishing the job. The reward motivates you.

When things get hard, the prospect of your reward can give you a goal to aim for that can help you get through whatever is tough now.

In contrast, by giving the reward first, you are making it more difficult for a person to complete his or her work. The whole function of the reward is undermined, and the potential incentive to work hard and do excellent work is removed.

This is why most "Self-Esteem" programs in schools are such a disaster. This is not Nathaniel Branden's theory of earned self esteem. Kids are told they are wonderful, and that they did a great job, when they in fact did nothing at all. They get all the rewards of doing good hard work, but none of the expectations. Their praise is not a benefit that flows naturally from their good acts, and so they are deprived of the experience of cause and effect.

And then when they grow up and a candidate like Obama comes along who says he will take care of everything for them, well they think that sounds just about right.

I've seen this principle at work several times when I have lent money to a friend, no interest, no terms, just an easy loan to help out.

One friend was in a tough spot and needed $2,000 for the first and last month's rent of a new apartment. At the time, this friend was very grateful and happy that I had helped, assuring me that they would pay me back right away. For a few months I received a small check in partial repayment. But at some point the checks just stopped coming, along with any other communications, and since then (over twenty years ago now) I have never heard from this person again.

In this instance, and several others, a spirit of goodwill allowed me to set up a difficult situation. I was being nice by not laying out clear terms and asking how and when they would pay me back. As a result, what they experienced was getting their needs fulfilled immediately, with no sense of what the cost would be. When the time came to give back what I had given them, all they felt was the burden. And all I got was grief.

Sure, they should have taken more responsibility for their part. That's easy and clear to see. But that's not my point. My point is that when you give a reward first, it ruins the natural quality of exchange and engagement that fits with human nature. Human nature doesn't change. But there is good and bad to it. What we can do is encourage the good, and discourage the bad. Rewards that are earned encourage the good. Rewards that are given first, before they are earned, encourage the bad.

This is exactly what Obama wants to do with us all.

Joe the Plumber, made famous in this week's presidential debate, made that case crystal clear. Here is a man who has worked very hard for years to get to the point where he could buy his own business. But Obama wants to make it harder for him now that he has done all the foundation work, and make it easier for those "behind him" who have not yet earned it, so he can "spread the wealth around."

This is the fundamental flaw in the Left's thinking. Or maybe it's part of the plan. By removing the incentive to work hard and build something for yourself, a liberal, progressive, socialist, and/or fascist government effectively removes individual drive. This drive is what allows people to solve their own problems, to create their own lives, to make their own way, and to take pride and joy in their own accomplishments.

This creative and productive spirit is replaced with a bland, generic, homogenized focus on group accomplishment of whatever the Great Leader has in mind -- it gets me thinking of all those boring monolithic paintings, sculptures, and monuments in the former Soviet Union. They depicted groups of people, all looking exactly the same, together in their expressionless mass looking into the same gray future - willing cogs in a great collective movement.

Yuck.

But this is what happens when you give the reward first. All subsequent action becomes drained of meaning and purpose. They're just empty tasks. The meaning is supposed to come through some abstraction, such as being a part of the great revolution, but the concrete problem solving of everyday life is reduced to meaningless drudgery.

The Left's entitlement programs and "social justice" interventions are examples of giving the reward first.

The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs forcing banks to loan money to those who could not otherwise qualify for them is a perfect example. The Democrats supposedly wanted to increase the middle class. So here's the plan: Middle class people own their own homes, right? So, let's give poor people the ability to own homes they can't afford, and voila! They become middle class!

The problem is middle class is not some kind of artificial and rigid caste system to be done away with by decree. Middle class in America is a way of living well. People do the things that bring them in to the middle class in part to earn the circumstances of a middle class lifestyle. If they are given these things first, where is the incentive to do the work?

It doesn't exist.

Democrats, whatever their individual intentions may be, seek to institutionalize policies and attitudes that make it much, much harder for people to live well.

Joe the Plumber made a great demonstration of this. With any luck, voters will think long and hard about that before November 4th.