A Liberal’s Confusion

I think liberals would understand capitalism easier if money wasn’t part of the discussion. I don’t think most of them will stop doggedly pursuing Marxism, but they will have a firmer grasp of my nutty affection for freedom to say the least. Before I begin, let me boil down capitalism for the beginner: You keep what you work for. Period. That is eerily similar to being free. Marxism, on the other hand, is the abolition of private property.
That should be the end of the conversation, but liberals love challenging my fourth-amendment rights. Weird huh? Wealth, in whatever form, causes liberals to foam at the mouth. They always prefer an equal distribution of poverty to an unequal distribution of wealth. I’m always unclear whether liberals would prefer that the state prohibit the wealthy from working hard or simply prevent them from getting compensated for it.
In a capitalist economy you simply need to get your product or service into as many hands as possible in exchange for money. Look! You’re rich! Without money as a placeholder of sorts people would simply trade their products.
Whoever produces the most product has the most wealth to barter with. Would someone with a massive quantity of products that he produced himself infuriate liberals to point of legislative action? Goodbye fourth amendment.
Does a massive amount of products in the hands of a person hurt those who have less? Liberals always howl about something called “income disparity”. A capitalist might call it an “effort disparity” or “production disparity”, but, regardless, is it harmful to a society when a citizen produces a lot more than another?
If someone has way more stuff than you then you can rest assured that there will be someone who has enough excess to trade with you on a regular basis. Here in America, the greatest nation the world has ever known, this concept means someone is wealthy enough to cut you paycheck every week. In contrast, no poor guy has ever signed the front of my paycheck, at least not for long.
Liberals seem to pine for the day when government taxes all businesses into submission. That’s great until many of the products these wealthy folks produce end up in the hands of the government much to the satisfaction of liberals. With fewer products in their possession these rich guys are forced to trade with fewer people on a regular basis. You could say it this way: employees have to compete with the government for their employer’s money.
Me? I like rich guys. I wouldn’t mind keeping a lot of them around. There is a good chance that at least one of them would trade with me on a regular basis or perhaps give me a job. In fact maybe more than one of them would be clamoring for my products. In this environment you might call me the “comfortable middle class” with a lot of job options available. It could also be said that everyone benefits in a business-friendly economy.
You can increase production though increased trade with others. When the government steals what you produce and hands it to another your production suffers. You have less to trade with, and it doesn’t matter anyway. People can get your stuff without giving you stuff. This relationship doesn’t last long. The rich guy just stops producing excess that is destined for government seizure.
Steal a man’s capital and you steal his incentive. It’s kind of mysterious how a decrease in incentive immediately results in a decrease in production. Conversely, offer rewards for not producing and the dependant class grows without any motivation to ever produce. This hurts everybody except the liberals who offered a handout in exchange for a vote. This behavior is what you might see in a democracy, unlike America, which is a republic.
Starvation, it turns out, is a great motivator to produce. It gets me out of bed before six every day. The threat of starvation exists for everyone. The goal is to create as big a wealth barrier as possible between your family and starvation. Mother government can offer you no protection from starvation without moving someone else closer to starvation.
To claim that theft won’t cause as much damage to someone with more stuff to steal is no justification to steal, nor is it justification to allow government to have authority over anyone’s private capital. If our society has given government the authority to steal what we earn with the idea that the state knows better how to spend our money than us then how long will it take them to steal the things that we buy with the money that we earn? How long will it take them to abolish our fourth amendment?
To directly attack the fourth amendment the state must eliminate our second amendment first. In context of amendments one, three, and four it would appear our second amendment exists as protection from an out-of-control government. Hello anti-gun, anti-second amendment Eric Holder, our newly-nominated Attorney General. The predictability of liberals is frightening.

Tags: capitalism, capitalist, conservative, economics, economy, freedom, government, liberal, Liberals, marxism