X:
You continue to talk and think like a good Marxist. Dear old Karl would be proud. Your idea of capitalism reflects Marx, not von Mises or Friedman. You have a socialistic view of society and think that a mob or tribe is more important than the individual.
An especially atrocious thought is the one you have promulgated over and over: that of "the haves" sharing with the "have nots". They do not share that which is forced from them at the point of a gun. I exaggerate you say? Well, let's say you took all the risk and started a business. It fails 3 times. No one helps you -- especially not the government. On the 4th time it succeeds and you work years, 7 days a week while others are playing, to make it succeed. Now the government wants up to 50% of what you've created and wants to give it to the people who play or have so little ambition that they want to survive off the public dole because after all, isn't it their "entitlement"? Isn't it owed them because they simply exist? Don't they have a right to all your creativity, your labors, your risk if it pays off? (Of course, they don't want to share your risk -- only the payoff if you succeed.)
Now the government comes and demands 50% of what you've created because they want to give it away to others. Perhaps these "officials" are people you never voted for, are politically, philosophically and morally opposed to, and they are managing or creating programs you never authorized.
If you do not pay the amount they arbitrarily demand, the threats begin. They will confiscate your property, tear down what you built or literally march you off to jail at the point of a gun.
This is the benign "free" society you support? To me it is a legalized criminal nightmare. The land of anti-traders where they try to suppress the creation of wealth. If they are ever totally successful there will be no more wealth, because all wealth is created by the human mind and all confiscatory government schemes to redistribute wealth punishes the productive and rewards the unproductive. That, my dear X is what is called a negative incentive.
FT |