Fallacy Of Redistribution Has Grave Economic Impact

IBD Editorials ^ | 09/19/2012 03:59 PM ET | THOMAS SOWELL

[Mier]

The recently discovered tape on which Barack Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in redistribution is not really news. He said the same thing to Joe the Plumber four years ago. But the tape's surfacing may serve a useful purpose if it gets people to thinking about the consequences of redistribution. Those who talk glibly about redistribution often act as if people are just inert objects that can be placed here and there, like pieces on a chess board, to carry out some grand design. But if human beings have their own responses to government policies, then we cannot blithely assume that government policies will have the effect intended. The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example. In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of the society more prosperous. But when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce. As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler's Holocaust in the 1940s. How can that be? It is not complicated. You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.

[Mier]

You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.

IMHO this is how Mitt Romney should be responding to Obama's spread the wealth/rich paying their fair share/redistribution socialist hog wash!

[GeronL]

bump

[Gaffer]

With all due respect to Mr. Sowell, I watched a report on CNN this morning that actually reported on Romney's so-called ‘gaffe’ [actually the truth] about the 47%. Then, the 1998 incident about Obama and the redistribution thing was reported! [Hope? not so fast, folks]

The CNN Obama fluffer-chick then proceeded to elucidate on just exactly what ‘redistribution’ is. Her contention is that Obama’s redistribution is merely our historically-accepted concept of “progressive income taxes”.

So what this is going to end up is that REDISTRIBUTION equals UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED Progressive Taxes - what's the problem?

[dalebert]

example ...holocaust.

[mosesdapoet]

Thanks for posting

What Romney should now explain are the reasons why those on fixed incomes must go on food stamps and apply for other “benefits” such as energy assistance etc.

The price of ; goods, services ,food, as well as the cost, use, and type of of energy resources, particularly coal,and oil, have all been driven up by Obama through his endless edicts, use of regulations and prohibitions all designed to change the systems of distribution and use of pleantiful resources to conform to his socialist scheme or ideal. Without any regard to the consequences. After all let US remember “To make an omlet ..”one must break a few eggs” and the one who made that remark and the followers of that ism who repeat it.”

[newheart]

You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth

This may be the first time I have ever disagreed with Dr. Sowell. Barack Obama accused George Bush of being unpatriotic for increasing the deficit by 4 trillion during his 8 years as president. Then he promised to cut it in half. Then Obama proceeded to increase the deficit by 6 trillion in only his first 3 1/2 years as president.

That, my FRiends, is the confiscation of future wealth. This generation does not have the means to repay that debt and it will fall to our children and grandchildren to do so. And worst of all, Obama and his minions know it. It is the most subtle and pernicious plan to enslave a free people in the history of humanity.

[Ohioan]

"Redistribution of wealth" is a euphemism for organized theft; for forcibly taking the fruits of productive labor & ingenuity, from those who earned them, to bestow on others who did not.

Of course, it is very, very bad economics. Yet before we even go to that obvious fact, we should be denouncing the idea for the moral degeneracy that it represents.

In the America the Founders gave us in the Constitution, Congress was forbidden to directly tax the citizenry on any basis but "per capita." In other words all stood equally liable for any such tax (Article I, Sec. 9, of the Constitution.) The principal could not have been made any clearer.

Of course most of the Founding Fathers were economically in that upper 1%, Obama has elected to scape goat in this campaign.

For those who need to understand why our original system works best: It was premised upon actual human experience. It was not something theoretical. It was utilitarian, not because the Founders believed as do the Socialists, from the Jacobins, through Marx, Lenin, Hitler & Obama, that the end justifies the means; but because in our case, theory followed experience, not the cloud-borne wish lists of crackpots & demagogues. (See America--Grounded on Experience & Reason.)

That Obama calls for a form of organized brigandry, should disqualify him from any consideration by rational Americans. (Of course, Dr. Sowel has done a good thing in laying to rest the utilitarian argument; but the moral argument is yet more conclusive.)

William Flax

[Ohioan]

You can certainly impose burdens on the future; but you cannot confiscate what does not yet exist. That is the essential point that Dr. Sowell was making, with respect to your otherwise perfectly valid point.

William Flax

[newheart]

You can certainly impose burdens on the future; but you cannot confiscate what does not yet exist.

Good point. But I think I'll stick by my original idea. In a world where wealth is not so much real property as it is a balance in an electronic ledger, the debt is still a pre-emptive confiscation, since future generations will never see the wealth in the first place. And worse, it will suck up the capital necessary for generating new wealth in the first place making it nearly impossible for the economy to grow.

[maxwellsmart_agent]

Redistribution is Communism! To take from working people to give to those not working is immoral. The people who dig and strive to get ahead should not be punished by taking from them, everything they have struggled for to give to people who just sit.