The Socialist Problem

The Socialists desire to spread the wealth. They see a population that has many inequities and, believing that it is the structure of that population, simply want to change the structure so that it is fair or just in their eyes. They think: if the wealth of some could be moved to others that do not have, then, the population would reach a happier level. Some people that had much would have less and some people that had little would have more. What could be easier to understand - just change the structure.

Pol Pot believed that all the wealth was concentrated in the city. His solution to changing the structure was to empty the city, move the entire citizenry out of the city and force them into the country side to earn their living. Yes, he moved everybody out. Emptied all the buildings, hospitals, schools, houses and put them on the road to move to the country side.

Hitler believed that the Jews in Germany had too much wealth and decided to take their wealth. He systematically forced their business to close. First by boycott and then by violence. Krystalnacht was the time that Jewish business had their windows broken and the owners terrified. When a business closed the State was there to reap the rewards.

Stalin believed the Kulaks, who owned most of the large farms, were a problem in Russian society. He decided to turn the land over to the people by declaring the large farms as communes. The communes would be run by the people on the land. What did he do to the Kulaks? He put them on trains to Siberia to fend for themselves.

Hans Konicker of East Germany put many restrictive policies in place to redistribute the wealth. Those that did not want their wealth taken merely walked out of East Germany into other sectors of Germany. This caused a worker and brain drain on the society that Konicker could not let happen. He built a wall so that East Germans could not escape. Those that tried to climb the wall were shot.

Cat Sunsteen, an advisor to President Obama, knowing that quick extreme measures did not accomplish the wealth distribution desired for the long run, has designed a program of "nudging". That is: making changes but only small changes so that the population is not fully disrupted. A small change here, a small change there, and eventually the goal will be achieved. For the most part it is done here with taxes. The graduated income tax was supposed to take more from the rich and less from the poor. Because their are still rich people it now becomes necessary to almost confiscate all the earnings that a rich person makes. That is why we hear that millionaires and billionaires should pay more. And why should they pay more? Because as President Obama has stated: "for fairness".

Here is the problem. When two persons working side-by-side are sharing the work and the earnings that is fairness. When one person does not do the quantity of work of the other, yet gets the same earnings there is an element of unfairness. When one person does almost nothing yet gets some of the earnings it is extremely unfair. How long does it take before the person doing the work loses heart, or ambition, or desire, and says: "How stupid am I to do all this work and see the fruits of my labor go to others. I will not work as hard, or as long, as I do. I will just take it easy." It is impossible to know how many people do this. It is a little easier to measure capital movements.

High tax states are seeing business move out of their states to those states that do not tax as much. High valued people are also moving out of those states. Unions have desired to build a wall around a business (as East Germany did) so that the jobs cannot be taken elsewhere. Corporations decide to build factories where the taxes are less, even building them overseas. Cat Sunsteen is nudging but sometimes the nudge is enough to nudge into another state or country.

Today, the Democrats are trying to tax the rich more and are doing all they can to get the people to hate the rich. Hate is being used to further the socialist goals. It is amazing that Christians fall for this when one of their Commandments is: "Thou shall not covet thy neighbors goods."