There will always be people in poverty we should do what we can to help them get out of it but we must also accept the fact there are some for whatever the reason or reasons will not accept that help or do what is necessary to get themselves out of poverty.
Couldn't be more so.
But somehow the folks who believe in Karl Marx and Santa Clause can't get beyond the idea that there should be and can be material equality.
I kinda liked this essay...
What if everyone starts off with the same amount of money?
“….
by the end of the first year, some people will have more than others.Guaranteed. Some people, you see, will be careful with what they have. Others won’t. Some people will gamble, others will save. Some will spend lavishly, others will be frugal.
Besides that, some people simply have more of the kind of wealth that can’t be redistributed. Intelligence; education; ambition. Drive, as opposed to: aw, we’re gonna get what we’re gonna get anyway, so let’s just stay on the couch and watch TV. Some people will put a little giddy-up in their get-alongs, and will find ways to improve their own lives.
Some of that will be “unfair,” because some people have more and better resources to tap. Intelligence; talent; family. Even accounting for such differences, though: some people will turn what they have into more, while others will not. Therefore, by the end of the very first year (not to mention the first five or ten) “haves” and “have-nots” will appear.
I know what you’re thinking.
Crap.I thought we
had it this time.
Fairness! And this return to economic inequity will happen, I daresay, even under the strictest Communist policies.
I’ll come back to that.
After ten, twenty, thirty years, those
discrepancies will widen. A middle class will form. An upper economic class, and a lower economic class. These classes will not be dead ends: people will be able to move from one to another and back again. But they’ll reappear, despite the original, radical redistribution of wealth.
So: let’s take this exercise further.Rather than a one-time redistribution of wealth, let’s redistribute every year. Every April 23 – Michael Moore’s birthday – all wealth is
redistributed. All wages set by Central Command. Everyone is as equal as it’s possible to make them. Even individual advantages are nullified.
Not really, but we’ll come back to that, too.
Obviously, that system
does away with any incentive to create. It removes any incentive to save; to be frugal; to work hard. Because no matter what you do, what you get is predetermined.
And yet, by April 22 of the following year, some people will
still have more than others. And they’ll
keep it.
How can that be? Simple.
Even state-enforced economic “equality” did not –cannot – make everyone “equal.” It can only change the attributes that are most important to getting ahead.
Sucking up to your superiors becomes more important than working hard.Figuring out which bureaucrats can do the most for you, and ingratiating yourself to them.
Using the power of government to get you ahead, instead of creating, making, building, selling. Improving technical or academic skills? What for? Improving
political skills.
That’s what makes a difference.
You may recognize a little of our current system there. More and more, becoming a “have” in our society requires entering
the bureaucracy, or getting the bureaucracy on your side.
Even the hard working entrepreneurs and innovators among us increasingly need the bureaucracy’s help. Vast mazes of
regulations give bureaucracies vast power over both you and your competitors. Government can make or break an industry. Make or break a company. It can increase the cost of entry beyond plausibility, or it can make that cost go away.
In the free market, wealth comes from work. The closer we move toward socialism, the more wealth comes from power. That’s the difference. The similarity: wealth still exists in relatively few hands.”
What if we just gave everybody the same amount of wealth John Hawkins Right Wing News
