Envy, Equality, and Economic Destruction
May 26, 2009 Posted by Amy Hall
The idea that some are more wealthy–sometimes much more wealthy–than others is very disturbing to the Left. They believe they hold the moral position with their policies because they are working toward equality. The problem is that it is not fair or just to enforce an equality of outcome because, by necessity, you will need to take by force what some people have worked for. People have different abilities and ambitions which necessarily lead to different outcomes if they’re free to create what they like. The only way to prevent this is to do something very ugly indeed.
I’ve been reading Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago (the insider’s scoop on the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century), and came across a perfect (albeit extreme) illustration of the folly of this approach:
The land was allocated in accordance with the number of “mouths” per family, equally. It had been only nine years…. Then suddenly there were kulaks [those who were doing well] and there were poor peasants. How could that be? Sometimes it was the result of differences in initial stock and equipment; sometimes it may have resulted from luck in the mixture of the family. But wasn’t it most often a matter of hard work and persistence? And now these peasants, whose breadgrain had fed Russia in 1928, were hastily uprooted by local good-for-nothings and city people sent in from outside…. [T]hey began to round up the very best farmers and their families, and to drive them, stripped of their possessions, naked, into the northern wastes, into the tundra and the taiga. [Emphasis mine]
But this approach is not only morally problematic (even in much less extreme cases), it is also deadly for the economy.
And so it was that these two terms [for the peasants who worked hard and succeeded and those who were perceived as helping them] embraced everything that constituted the essence of the village, its energy, its keenness of wit, its love of hard work, its resistance, and its conscience. They were torn up by the roots–and collectivization was accomplished.
It was accomplished, but the price was catastrophic. Not only does the enforcement of equality necessarily squelch the virtues that improve the conditions for everyone–virtues we ought to be encouraging for economic growth, but the result of squelching those virtues is economic disaster for everyone. In the Soviet Union’s case, a famine quickly followed. In every case, when you become envious of the rich and attempt bring them down, everyone is hurt, especially the poor. We shouldn’t expect any less from a policy approach rooted in one of the Ten Big Ones.
The Soviet Union hated the idea that some people earned more than others, regardless of the fact that the abundance of an industrious subset increased the standard of living for all. They would rather everyone be equal together in famine than that some would have more than others with no famine. Though the Left in America is obviously not as extreme, you often hear echoes of this ideology, and to the extent that it is carried out, it will be similarly destructive here (e.g., see here where the idea that “the people who have wealth are entitled to keep it” is called a “simplistic notion” (forced “sharing” being the remedy), or here where Pres. Obama says that he’ll increase the capital gains tax, regardless of the fact that this will reduce tax revenue because he is interested in “fairness,” not revenue).
Envy is powerful and can make people do strange things. And when that envy is couched in language of “compassion” it is almost unstoppable. Nobody wants to sound like the bad guy who is against “compassion.” But if history has anything to tell us, the Left has neither the moral position, nor the one that will most help the poor.
Related posts:
- On the Equality and Inequality of the Genders
- ETS 1: Wayne Grudem on Poverty and Wealth
- The Moral Consequences of Economic Philosophy
- Relativism, Power, and the Need for a Standard – Part Two
- Controlling the Nurturing Instinct
- True Compassion
Posted in Amy's Posts, Politics
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May 26th, 2009 at 11:19 am
The idea that some are more wealthy–sometimes much more wealthy–than others is very disturbing to the Left. They believe they hold the moral position with their policies because they are working toward equality.
You have to wonder, though, unless they are pursuing this type of equality themselves, freely divesting themselves of their own wealth so that the poorer might benefit. But why would a person want to see funds extorted from the wealthiest and to trust an untrustworthy government to distribute that wealth, unless to preserve their own standard of living?
There was an experiment in communal farming/sharing similar to the Soviet one at the early Plymouth settlement. It also failed – see Of Plymouth Plantation pp. 216-217 (“torne” is corn)
May 26th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Amy, you rightly point to the consequences of communist politics as practiced in the soviet union. Solzhenitsyn is a respected authority in describing and observing to the rest of the world as to the brutality of the Soviet Union’s policies in the 1950s.
However, you take the extra step to link soviet style managed economy to American economics as perceived by those who are just left of center. It is unfortunate and wrong to make that link. Democrats in office will not pave the road to create a Soviet America. (And as much as the Weekly Standard, Townhall.com, and others would like us to believe)
What Obama and others rightly observe is that the tax system in our country is more advantageous to the rich than it is to the poor. It sucks to be poor in America because you will see a larger portion of your money taxed. The rich do pay a larger portion of the tax revenue in terms of raw numbers, but a smaller one when it comes to percentage of worth or income. I won’t go into the data or the evidence in that I know we’ll get caught up holding one set of data against another set of data.
Obama is not and in time his presidency will prove that he is not as far left as the right would like to paint him. Likewise, GW was not as far right as the left would like to paint him. I have criticized those who have linked the neo-cons and the previous administration to fascism.
Envy is a powerful force that will destroy people. But so is creating a system that puts undue economic burdens on the poor and excuses the greed of the rich.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
EE, you misunderstand. I didn’t at all say that Democrats will create a Soviet America. My point was only to show that leftist ideology is immoral and damaging to the economy, and it’s damaging to the extent that it will be enforced. I don’t expect the Democrats to start rounding people up. However, as I showed in my specific examples, the same ideology is there (a desire to enforce equality), though they will not be so extreme in enforcing it (as I said). Since the root of the ideology is the same, an extreme example more clearly illustrates the harm that results. The harm I was illustrating was not so much that people were put into camps as the idea that those who work hard and create wealth for everyone will be driven away and/or their industrious spirits repressed, thus harming the poor and making their plight worse.
California is another great example of this. I hear people in the film industry make statements all the time about how the industry is dying in this state because of taxes–people are losing their jobs, and this is very bad for California. They then beg for tax breaks. It never occurs to them to realize that this doesn’t just happen in the film industry but applies to every industry. Instead, they continue to want to take money away from everyone else except themselves, because they actually see the harm it does when it relates to them, but only when it relates to them.
It is not the government’s job to regulate a person’s greed. It’s the government’s job to create a just, stable society where people can work as hard as they like and do what they want with what they have, where contracts are honored, and where people aren’t cheated. It’s the church’s job (or any non-profit organization, religious or secular) to encourage charity and generosity. If the left spent 1/4 of the time they spend trying to get the government to take money from some to give to others and instead spent that time creating non-profits to help others in the way they want them to be helped, they would solve many more problems. Not only is this the moral option, it’s much more effective than government bureaucracy.
May 26th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I don’t think I misunderstood. You are criticizing the driving ideology of those on the left, pointing out that the consequences of such ideology could lead to soviet style economics.
Political ideologies are generally weak in the united states. Your using of labels such as left and right are not the same here as they are in other societies. Bill Clinton saw some of the greatest gains of wealth in the US, and yet his ideology falls in line with Obama.
I’m not saying it’s the government’s job to regulate greed, but to (and i agree with you) to create a just, stable society… Our current economic system and tax policy is not just and puts most of the burden on the poor. So I agree with you, I want my government (and I think that Obama could spearhead it) to create such a society.
I suppose you have fears that under “rightist” administrations, our country may end up in a fascist state since “the root of the ideology is the same, an extreme example more clearly illustrates the harm that results.”
May 26th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
>>You are…pointing out that the consequences of such ideology could lead to soviet style economics.
No, my argument is not that it “could lead” to something. My argument is that it is wrong, even in lesser forms. What Obama said about the capital gains tax is morally wrong and bad for everyone, including the poor.
You and I have different views of what “justice” and “just society” mean.
I have no fear that conservatives who believe in less governmental power, decentralized power, and more liberty as their driving force will lead to a fascist state. But again, none of this was about fear about what something could lead to.
May 26th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
[...] Those who are a bit more involved in the political process will add Obama’s tax policy and foreign policy objectives to the list. Some would go so far as to argue that the positions that Obama has taken are anti-thetical to the Bible. I recently found myself caught up in a debate with a writer for a conservative-leaning blog regarding the Left’s paradigm of taxation. I know that debates on blogs are futile, but I still decided to engage her arguments. [...]