In recent weeks there has been much talk about competing economic systems largely stemming from Joe the Plumber’s now famous question to Barack Obama and Obama’s telling and equally troubling response that we need to “spread the wealth”. Americans have reacted with angst and mistrust, and for good reason. Nations the world over have had little luck with socialist systems and even Europe, a place safer than most for socialism and those who support it, has largely come to see the system’s major failures and is beginning to move toward a freer, more capitalist system.
History has proven that free market systems properly administered with limited and proper regulation create more wealth for more people than highly regulated socialist systems where entrepreneurship and economic industrialism are tempered by removing rewards for hard work through suffocating taxation. Just look at the United States of America which has created far and away the largest and most successful economy on Earth and has done so through one of if not the freest market system amongst all nations. It is not mere coincidence that we both have the freest market system on Earth and are the most successful- our success is the result of our freedom.
Free market systems do better for their participants than socialist ones as unemployment rates remain lower and people are able to create more wealth for themselves by investing their own monies. It says much about the quality of our own system that we desperately fret about a possible 6% unemployment rate and call for the heads of leading politicians should it reach that point. We view 6% unemployment as a failure; many socialist European nations view it as a great success considering 8% plus unemployment is fairly average. The fact is our worst unemployment rate is usually much better than Europe’s best.
It is deeply troubling then that Democrats like Barack Obama and even many people amongst our own generation wish to backslide on a proven system with proven results. First they say they wish to reward hard work, but then when someone works hard and creates a good income for themselves, Democrats propose taxing them at a higher rate. What a great reward for hard work!
The argument in favor of socialist policies like Barack Obama’s is rarely if ever that it will create more wealth for more people. This argument is of course antithetical to the goal of socialism, which is equality, and not freedom. It aims at tearing down the successful until they are equal with the unsuccessful under some absurd proposal that being economically equal is more important than being economically free.
Instead, the argument in favor of socialism almost always rests upon an empathetic notion of altruism that socialists would have manifest itself through a crushing redistributionist taxation policy. It’s the Robin Hood theory of taxation- take from the rich and give to the poor. Why? Because the rich can afford it and the poor deserve it, as if affordability were reason enough for some tax collector to come steal the fruits of your labor.
Let it not be misconstrued though that I don’t believe there is a role for government in the economy and in the lives of our fellow citizens. Government must absolutely set rules that protect consumers against greed, corruption and other negativities of any economic system but that role should not grow larger than that. I also fully recognize that there are some people in our system that simply need help but such help should come in the form of a hand-up, and not a hand-out.
Welfare systems, despite seeming like innocent government programs that merely seek to help those who need it, are often very dangerous. They teach generations of people to rely on the government for their livelihood instead of upon themselves and in doing so make governments far too powerful as the result of citizens’ reliance. It brings to mind the old adage, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.”
Our founding fathers understood the concept, Barry Goldwater understood it when he re-annunciated it in his book Conscience of a Conservative and I pray Americans come to a better understanding of it before it’s too late.
