If there is one concept with which I have never been really comfortable is wealth redistribution. The most obvious reason lies undoubtedly with some of the mechanisms it employs. State providence shares one common flaw with many charity institutions: by the time you finish putting the final touches on the structure, there is hardly any money left to fulfil the social purpose for which it was created. So the people you employ to carry out your noble intent, whom you hadn't in mind contemplating in the first place, end up being the true beneficiaries of the exercise. What's the purpose then?
Wealth redistribution made a lot of sense in the past, when societies were arranged in rigid social structures that did not permit social mobility but for the very rare exceptions. Two ways to escape the system at the time were to take refuge in a religious career or fight your way through in the army. Otherwise, if you were born poor, you were condemned to die in squalor. Yet, when it was most needed, it did not exist in any formal way. The Church filled the gap.
It would take an absolute fool not to recognise that societies are vastly different today, So are the causes of poverty. The most incredible paradox of them all is the fact that the very governments that are purported to protect their citizens can be the root cause of their ruin: you can be taxed into oblivion and harassed with so many bureaucratic burdens that you end up engrossing the numbers of the poor. Or they can set interest rates at such unreasonably low levels to try and compensate for the economic mistakes for which they were solely responsible that the meagre amount you saved over the years, with a lot of sweat, is eventually insufficient to cover your bare necessities. This time, with the State on the altar, you are in the poorhouse.
Of course, you don't need the help of State to become poor. You can do that all by yourself. If you are financially imprudent or fall prey to one or more of the tempting vices, your route to poverty is clearly set out. Am I, as your co-citizen, responsible for the end result? The State seems to think so. I don't.
Today truly disadvantaged people have ample opportunities to improve their educational and professional skills, and thus their economic situation. If that still doesn't help, you as an individual have to consider looking for prosperity in another city, in another state or in another country. Many are those that have picked up their walking sticks and have made it to the other side. If you choose to sit all day in your underwear, drinking beer and smoking pot, why should I subsidise you?
So, when these pseudo-pious politicians come to me extolling the moral virtues of wealth redistribution, I've got only two words for them:
- Sod off!
