In the worldview of the liberal left, power is best brought to an elite few in the center, and money is best disbursed out equally to the masses.
What if they are wrong? What if those two things are exactly backwards?
In the utopian worldview of the left, a wise and munificent few people do all the planning. They look out over these vast 50 states and decide—over coffee I suppose—what healthcare should look like in Pawtucket; what employment should look like in Helena; how many fish should be caught off of Crescent City; how many logs to cut from the forests of Alabama; and the hundreds—no; the thousands—no; the hundreds of millions of other decisions that have to be made—and made right—to keep a population of over 300 million prosperous, happy and running well. To quote Milton Friedman, ‘Who are these angels?” Who has the insight and ability to do that well? And who has the magnanimity to wield that power justly—and not be even tempted to use it to enrich themselves and their friends?
The fact is, that the doctors in Pawtucket are much more able to see what their Pawtucket patients need than a man in a suit a thousand miles away. The employers of Helena are there watching. They see things change before their eyes and make in-stream decisions that distant bureaucrats couldn’t hope to. The fishermen of Crescent city… Well.. you see the point. Nobody knows as much about local situations as locals. That’s why the framers of our original constitution limited the powers of Washington. They made a specific list of what the Federal Government was allowed to do. And nothing else. But today’s bureaucrats are much smarter than those rubes. No! They really are. Just ask them.
In reality, they have it backwards. Power is best disbursed to the individual. Locally. Nobody knows the individuals’ situation and the needs of their families better than the individuals themselves. But that doesn’t mean it’s every man for himself. The magic of free market capitalism is that nobody gets the prize–(profit)–unless and until they do something nice for somebody else. Until I induce my neighbor to willingly pull out his wallet and pay me for a good or service, my kids are hungry. That silent but powerful motivator is the ‘invisible hand’ that makes capitalism the most effective AND the most compassionate economic system ever devised. Three hundred billion people all trying to out-nice the other guy to get the prize. It drives innovation. It drives individual initiative. It makes for a robust economy where everybody can pay the rent.
So the Left got the power thing wrong. Let’s look at the other half of their equation. Money.
The Liberal Left would have us believe that when it comes to material things, equality rules. A wealthy person must be the reason another is poor. One congressman went so far as to say, “We want the same stuff in every house.” So wealth is taken from some and given to others. To equalize.
Does it work that way in your life? This is not a trick question. Have you ever worked for a poor person?
Didn’t think so. It happens that our economic system depends on wealthy people–pockets of capital–to support the investment and risk that is business.
So. Is that a bad thing?
Well, Bill Gates has fifty billion or so dollars? Has that made your life better or worse?
I’ll answer that. The odds are you are sitting right now at a computer brought to you by–or patterned after–his success. If his wealth had been sapped away early in his career—by ‘taxing the wealthy’–it would have prevented him from growing his mega-billion dollar enterprise. You’d still be clacking away at an old creaky Underwood and using white-out to fix your mistakes.
It bears repeating. Our system depends on pockets of wealth to support the investment and risk that is business. Take that wealth away, you strip the job creators of their magic. POOF. No fun new products. No jobs. (Kind of like what we’re seeing more and more of every day.)
Many don’t want to admit it, but Capitalism Rocks! And the thing that makes it rock is, first, decision-making power in the hands of the individual; and, second, money in the hands of a wealthy few that know how to make a business run well. Take either of those away, capitalism stops rocking. (Kind of like what we are seeing more and more of every day.)
The ONLY other alternative to that system is state-owned or run businesses. That’s called socialism. How did that work out for the Soviet Union? East Germany? Cuba? Europe?
Let’s face it. The liberal left has it wrong. Twice.
Power in a few hands cripples economies and invites corruption.
Wealth, forcibly disbursed, cripples economies and kills motivation.
With all the examples in history of both, wouldn’t you think they could see that?
