Stealing your Way to Utopia
During the Trump Administration, Republicans used tax cuts to “buy votes” in midterm elections. I argued then that, without corresponding cuts to spending, exacerbating budget deficits and expanding the National Debt were irresponsible outcomes. Biden has recently been using “College Loan Forgiveness” to do the same things. Some might argue that those “poor” college graduates are more deserving than the limited and shrinking pool of “net taxpayers.” You know: the infamous and dastardly “One Percent” and the much-maligned but nebulously defined “Rich.”
Never is one more charitable and altruistic than when he is spending someone else’s money. However, is it truly “charitable” and “altruistic” if one forces the (re)distribution of funds, assets, and resources to a favored class of beneficiaries, especially if (s)he is to be counted among those being benefitted either directly or indirectly?
Dr. Thomas Sowell asked:
Since this is an era when many people are concerned about “fairness” and “social justice,” what is your “fair share’” of what someone else has worked for?
There is a misplaced sense of nobility in “taking from the rich and giving to the poor.” Few could argue with a straight face in defense of strong-arm robbery; however, theft in any description or incarnation is immoral. Thievery is not made more moral by interposing government between the would-be beneficiary and the subject of the forced taking and denominating the ill-gotten booty a “tax.” It is institutional theft. It is immoral. One cannot enjoy the absolution, which might be offered by throngs of coconspirators and hordes of accomplices.
I can hear now the demand that “others” pay their “fair share.” When more than 50% of citizens are not net taxpayers (i.e. they receive more in direct benefits than they pay in taxes), who is it that is not paying their “fair share”?
Dr. Milton Friedman gave this example:
There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent — William Graham Sumner’s famous example of B and C deciding what D shall do for A. The first may be wise or unwise, an effective or ineffective way to help the disadvantaged — but it is consistent with belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty. The second seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty.
[See also Friedman’s discussion of the “Robin Hood Myth” and the application of “Directors Law.”]
Ask yourself:
Should an increasingly dependent electoral majority in the exercise of “democracy” be privileged to take with impunity from disfavored “others” whatever its constituent members desire to satisfy their wants, whishes, and whims? What is to limit capriciousness and cupidity? What assurances exist that our democratic masters would be perpetually benign and forever benevolent? How might an unfettered democracy be distinguished from mob rule?
Should one find himself the target of abuse, oppression, and tyranny, he is likely to take little comfort that his harms and losses come not at the hands of a single deranged despot but at the behest of a self-serving electoral majority.
