There is a dichotomy in conservative circles when it comes to the poor. Liberals want to help the poor, it seems, but conservatives don't. This, of course, isn't true. It's just the story that gets passed around so often that it seems like it's true. And on the face of it, there even seems to be some truth to it.
Think about it. The almost-a-given belief today is that the right thing to do is to tax the wealthy and give it to the poor. (Now, if you try that approach on the open market, you'd have a riot. "Hello, Mr. Jones. Just one gallon of milk today? Okay, that will be $2. Have a nice day. Hello, Mr. Smith. Oh, you're just getting one gallon of milk today, too? Okay, that will be $12. Why? Well, Mr. Jones only makes minimum wage, so he doesn't have to pay as much as you do. That's the way it is.") Conservatives wince at the "tax the rich" plan, and the suggestion is, "See? Conservatives are only concerned about themselves." Actually, while the "tax the wealthy" crowd is concerned about poor people, there are those who disagree because they are as concerned about the wealthy as they are the poor people. It's not that they aren't concerned about people in need. It's that they aren't in agreement about how to help those people. And stealing from the rich to give to the poor, while noble sounding when it is a Robin Hood story, seems like ... stealing in real life.
Christians in particular might run into difficulty with the concept. "Why wouldn't you be in favor of this type of socialism? The Early Church practiced it." And, indeed, if you read about the Church in Acts, you'll find pretty quickly that "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need" (Acts 4:34-35). "See?", someone might ask. "How is our plan to tax the rich and give it to the poor different than their plan?"
I would point out, in response, first that the process in Acts can't actually be called "a plan." It is more accurately called "an event." There are two reasons for this distinction. First, it doesn't appear from anything in Acts that someone thought it through and made the suggestion. It doesn't appear that it was mandated by the Apostles. From all appearances, it just seems to have happened spontaneously. The second reason to call it an event rather than a plan is that it didn't seem to continue. It was just short term.
The second part of my response, then, would be based on the first. The primary difference between the first Church event and the tax-the-wealthy idea was precisely in the fact that it was voluntary. If people choose to give up their wealth to help those with less, it is heroic. If someone forces them to give up their wealth to help those with less, it is theft. It's not that conservatives are against helping the poor or not concerned about helping the poor. (This is demonstrated in the fact that conservatives are documented as giving more of their income and time to help others than those who are not conservative.) It's that they are against stealing to do it.
But this voice of "Thou shalt not steal" is getting quieter and quieter. The rising throng of those with less are being told that the answer is in the government and that the wealthy must be forced to give to those less fortunate. Between the "haves" and the "have nots", we are told and most of us believe that the "haves" aren't merely fortunate -- they're bad. Good people don't have as much as bad people, it seems. Rich people are bad. Big corporations (you know, the ones that hire the most people, pay the most wages, and all that) are the worst of the bad. And we will not tolerate bad. I fear that the socialism that is touted as "compassion" is knocking at our door while we decide who our next president will be.
2 comments:
You write as if the wealth of the rich was created in a vacuum, that societal edifice that construed it was non-existent. In order to accumulate wealth, a system is constructed to harness resources and the labor of others. And in many instances, the foundation of that was pure theft or extortion from the point of the gun.
Whether it be slavery, exploitation of people who have no alternative, or wrestling land from native populations (as the U.S. colonialists did in eradicating native Americans) - there are means implemented to siphon riches from those exploited. And it continues this day, only we've exported the exploitation under the auspices of "globalization", where workers in foreign countries that have no protections earn a very small fraction of the wealth they create, with benefits flowing to consumers in America and W. Europe, and the preponderance of profits flowing to owners and the layers of subsidiary companies, all erected to create plausible deniability for the social ills manifested.
We stand on the shoulder of giants - but the rules are written to "socialize" the risk, yet privatize the profits for a very small minority. Consider how federal funds and legislative favor grant monopoly like state to corporate entites, and insure their risk (with the cost provided by common workers), whereas if venture is profitable, most of all of the largess flows to the already established entrepreneur who assumes no risk whatsoever.
Democracy and freedom rest upon having a solid middle class. The dog eat dog realm of laissez faire capitalism that you seem to promote, endemic to large scale suffering, as was witnessed during the Gilded Age.
And I find it rather curious, your "short term" moniker for what happened in Acts. Is that what you would call centuries old model (up to the time of Constantine in the 4th century)? That far dwarfs our experiment of a few centuries, that has been enhanced.
It's the wrong debate you're engaging — both FIBM (faith in blind markets) and GAR (guided allocation of resources) economic philosophies are rooted on a flawed premise. A more apt demarcation is a society based on justice, freedom + opportunity for all vs. a system of patronage, submitting to aristocratic interests, where one's lot in life is predetermined at birth. The patronage system has been in effect since the dawn of human existence, and even today, taints the wonderful revolution in the U.S. that threw off those shackles an empowered man to etch out a better life.
You write as though wealth can only be obtained by immoral means and only immoral people can have wealth.
But, I get your point. There is a lot of that out there. The "righteous rich" would likely be rare. So, the other options?
I still say that putting my faith in the government to properly distribute wealth is not the right choice. And I haven't the slightest clue how to legislate "freedom + opportunity for all".
Oh, and on the Church and its communism, my point was not how long it lasted, but that it was voluntary rather than mandatory.
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