Friday, February 22, 2008

Politics by Elise: Redistribution of Wealth

Redistribution of Wealth is a philosophy that used to be considered dangerously communist. Today, Americans don't even realize that they are being saturated by it. Programs and systems like Medicare, Medicaid, the graduated income tax, and the whole welfare system are forms of the redistribution of wealth.

It is my understanding that government spending (specifically the redistribution of wealth) is ALWAYS damaging to the economy. It interferes with the free market–damaging initiative and effectually hurting the middle class (well, it hurts everybody, but especially the middle class). As proven by communist and socialist governments, capitalism is always the most economically beneficial system; communism and socialism always lead to eventual bankruptcy–thus requiring a revolution and reconstruction of the government. Because increasing our government spending increases our socialism, and socialism is always economically unwise, I believe in restricting the Federal government to only the things which are outlined in the Constitution. This seems to me to be the wisest course of action in keeping our economy safe.

Even if the redistribution of wealth were beneficial to society overall–and it isn’t–I believe it is morally wrong. As stated in the Declaration of independence, each person has three natural, inalienable rights–life, liberty, and property. These rights are for EVERYONE. When the government taxes people unequally in an attempt to redistribute wealth, it violates that third right. Even if someone does make $1 million every year, why should they be forced by government to pay half of that to be “redistributed” to the poor? That is effectually saying that they don’t have as much of a right to their own property simply because they have MORE property. It is saying, “Those with little or no property have the right to that property, but those with a lot of property don’t have that same right, because, well, I WANT SOME OF IT TOO!”

I find this “Robin Hood” philosophy to be fundamentally immoral (despite loving the movie). Taking from the rich simply because they are rich is violating their right to own and control property. I am not triumphing the rights of the rich because I think they are all of infallible and august character, but I recognize that just because someone has more does not mean that they deserve less.

Those are my beliefs as to why it is imperative that we cut back on government spending and the redistribution of wealth. Not only does it damage our economy and eventually lead to bankruptcy, but it is fundamentally immoral.

P.S. To read more on the immorality of the Robin Hood philosophy, take a crack at Atlas Shrugged. Who is John Galt?

3 comments:

Stephen said...

i am john galt.

two questions:

if communism and socialism always fail, why is china doing so well on the world market right now?

how do we help the poor? what method do you have to replace the redistribution of wealth?

Elise said...

China realized that full-fledged communism was leading them to bankruptcy: at the beginning of their communist "reign," industrial output dropped 75%.

China became so bankrupt by 1960 that they barely avoided famine.

They were forced to allow a private sector to save their economy from total collapse. Thus, they are not completely communist as of today.

China is still ruled by the Communist Party, but the CPC had to allow some capitalist principles in order to avoid bankruptcy.

Here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal: "Indeed, while China's government still calls its system socialist, and still plays a big role in the economy, what has developed here sometimes resembles a sort of naked capitalism, where an unfettered pursuit of profit governs almost all facets of life, and a growing share of the population is left unprotected."

Check out this link:http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0110-42.htm

Elise said...

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0110-42.htm