The Wealth Redistibution Strawman

Truthteller writes:

I don’t think intelligent people from lower performing nations should have to share too much or be hindered by the less intelligent countrymen. They should be allowed to shine and prosper above the rest. If they are forced to share everything, they can’t shine and everything averages out to nothing. They have no means to prove themselves and no reward for generations of hard work and careful breeding.

Truthteller’s comment is called the Wealth Redistribution Strawman. We cannot take any money from the more rich and transfer to the less rich because to do so would mean that achievers would not want to achieve anything or make any money, businesses would not want to create jobs or invest in enterprises and people would not be rewarded for their achievements so no one would try. All of society would average down to some mediocre level. This is pretty much a straw man because this never or seldom happens anywhere in the world, even though wealth redistribution happens around the globe. In other words, societies redistribute wealth just fine without any of these grave consequences that the Right insists will occur. None of these catastrophes ever show up. So they are saying if we do X, Y will occur and Y will be bad. But we already do X and Y generally does not occur, so the argument really is just a scary sounding lie. We already force the more successful to share with the more successful as it is in much of the world, no? What do you think taxation is? Taxation is wealth redistribution, and in every society that has social programs, taxation necessitates wealth redistribution from the richer to the poorer. So I am not advocating anything new, just saying do more of it. Even with all of the wealth redistribution going on in the world, virtually none of this taxation seems to be preventing rich people from getting rich from their hard work (but the rich do not work harder than anyone else anyway). No one is being preventing from shining or succeeding. Everything is not averaging out to nothing. As long as taxation is not too extreme, it doesn’t seem to prevent anyone from making money, investing or just succeeding in general. Also: show me one society on Earth that does not engage in some form of wealth redistribution. If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site.

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0 thoughts on “The Wealth Redistibution Strawman”

    1. Yeah but that is total Communism. I am not advocating that the whole world go to total Communism. Instead I am just advocating for some form of reasonable wealth redistribution.

  1. I’m against most wealth redistribution but not all. wouldn’t mind sharing money with people who deserve the money. I think for example if someone is homeless due to the bad economy they deserve food and shelter and maybe some money to save in exchange for doing things such as cleaning the parks, planting trees, or doing some kind of service.
    I don’t want to share with people who simply have kids from multiple fathers just to get more welfare money or people who plan to never work in their life. There are many who abuse the system who don’t deserve anything they get.

    1. Social welfare is a safety net. And just like the nets our fisherman throw out to catch tuna, they end up causing some degree of harm to animals we didn’t intend to catch like dolphins. But nobody can design a net that will only catch what we want and never what we don’t want. That’s just the nature of the biz. It’s the same with welfare, there are ALWAYS going to be abusers no matter what you do. But at the end of the day are most people abusing it? No. Stats show the average person on welfare uses it as intended. Temporary assistance until they get back on their feet. And it’s a myth that people on welfare are having more kids than the rest of the population. Family sizes of welfare recipients and non-welfare recipients are virtually the same.

      1. The only people I know who are totally on welfare are SSI recipients. For various reasons, these people can never work. They give them a very low living allowance, though the government will pay for their college or vocational training (something worth thousands of dollars). Now, some of these people paid for their SSI via working in the past (submitting a portion of their pay to Social Security), while others have rarely worked in their life.

  2. Maybe a revolutionary mindset is needed to convince “neer do wells” to get with the program. All sorts of vocational and academic education is available. So why do some people refuse it?
    Note, a lot of education is paid by wealth redistribution via free loans, as well as disability programs. Nonetheless, it’s a good investment.

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