Redistribution Redux

Envy is a powerful member of the class of deadly sins. Ever since the dawn of civilization, envy has had a profound effect on our society. Envy is the foundation of the classification of people based on the things they have. If you're in the upper class, you have stuff. If you're in the lower class, you have less stuff. This doesn't mean anything, except that this guy has more stuff than this other guy. It doesn't make either man superior. 

In fact, in any society, someone must have something more than someone else. If the world contained just two people, let's call them Adam and Eve, there would be an inequality of stuff all the time. Eve would pick a flower. Now she has a flower and Adam does not. She becomes the "upper class" when measured by the number of flowers you have. Feeling envy, Adam picks two flowers. This moves him from the "lower class" to the "upper class" and repositions Eve from the "upper class" to the "lower class." So what? What difference does it make who has more flowers? What if Adam doesn't even like flowers? What if he's allergic to them? The idea that Adam hates Eve because she has more flowers than him is absurd.

Let me try to keep this simple. Think of a family with two children. Mom works, but dad stays home and takes care of the kids. In this micro-society, mom is the "upper class" because she alone generates all the wealth. She uses that wealth to provide for her own needs, as well as the needs of her husband and children. The system works fine and nobody cares that mom generates more wealth than they do.

Along comes trouble. The kids are approached by a politician who convinces them that mom isn't sharing enough of her wealth with them. This is really easy to do. One of the kids asked for a new smartphone and mom said no. Is she being greedy, or just a good parent? The politician suggests that she's being greedy. The other kid remembers that she wanted a new pair of shoes and mom wouldn't buy them for her. It doesn't matter if mom had a good reason to deny these requests from her children. Maybe she knew that the family budget would not support these extra expenses. In order to protect her family, she decided to use that money to buy something more critically needed for the family. Or, she may have decided that it was more important in the long run for the family to have the security of a nest egg, instead of the short term pleasure of owning a new phone or some new shoes. But the politician wants to steal control of the kids away from mom. It's easy to do that if he can convince the kids that mom was being greedy. Once he has control of the mom, he can force her to buy these things for her kids.

There was, of course, another way. The kids could have taken part-time jobs to earn the money necessary to buy these things for themselves. Dad could have taken a job, with the kids pitching in to help by doing some of the chores for dad. They could have compromised with mom, maybe working out a budget together to save for the things they wanted and buy them later.  They could have accepted mom's decision and learned to live without the phone and the shoes.

If the politician gains control over the mom, he can take mom's money and use it to buy the phone and shoes. Following through on his promise to the kids, he's made them happy, and they'll continue to vote him into power over mom. At first, it looks like a system that benefits the majority -- two kids over one mom.

But there are unexpected consequences. By taking wealth from mom, the family has not gained any total wealth. In fact, if the politician took more money from mom than he needed to buy the phone and shoes, that redistribution of mom's wealth to the kids cost the family some money. If the kids, or dad, had taken a job instead, the family would have had a net gain in wealth instead. The family would have been better off. Even if they decided to live without the phone and shoes, they'd be better off.

Now the mom loses her job. She doesn't have a nest egg to help her family survive the short-term loss of income, so they end up losing their home. The kids are forced to sell the phone and shoes to buy food. The politician is responsible for this. Mom had a better plan to protect the family. But the politician didn't care about protecting the family. He didn't care about mom's plan. He only cared about getting power over the family. He bought votes from the kids using their own envy as a tool.

Here's something really evil to consider. Suppose the politician owned the store where the kids bought the phone and shoes?  Now the politician has redistributed wealth from the family to himself. If you think that can't happen, think again.

This same logic works as well with a country of 300 million people as it does with a family of four. It works just as well with an entire planet of several billion people. Taking wealth from some people to give to others else doesn't generate new wealth. 

The desire of people to have more stuff is supposed to motivate them to create their own wealth.

 If the stuff they want is "redistributed" to them by government, there's no need for them to create their own wealth. The family suffers. The citizens of the country suffer. The people of the world suffer. 

Redistribution of wealth is evil. It only looks like a good idea if you allow envy to distort your perception of reality. What it really does is give someone power over you and your family. When they take away your power, you lose your freedom. Trading your freedom for a smartphone and some shoes is not a fair trade. You're better off being free to create your own wealth. 

Tell the politician to take a hike. He's not interested in helping you. He's only interested in helping himself. Tell him that you don't hate your mom because she didn't buy you some stuff. You love her for protecting her family, and you want to be free to do the same thing for your family one day.