Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The War on Wealth…

The left in this country, including this president have waged a final battle against the creation of wealth in this country. Since our founding, the American spirit has been driven by opportunity to better one’s circumstance through industrious labors. The people that came to this great land were lured by only one thing; opportunity to improve their lives through hard work and limited government intrusion.

The world was a different place before America, and opportunity to create wealth for your own consumption was a “foreign” concept. Most citizens of the day worked to improve the standing of the ruling class. There was little opportunity for individuals to prosper in the pre-America world. The world’s economic output was often incentivized through fear, coercion, and force. Not until the new American Experiment did the world have the chance to see how much more effective economic growth could be when put into the hands of the individual and the rewards of that labor left in the hands that created it.

The creation of wealth in America became the fuel that lifted millions of people around the world out of the most despicable circumstances through the generosity and ability created by individual ingenuity and wealth. When individuals are incentivized through private property and keeping the fruits of labor it is no mystery as to why wealth explodes and raises the circumstances of all within a society. It is simply the harnessing of human nature. Our instinct to provide for ourselves actually fuels our instincts to help our neighbor. The problem we have seen in America is that for too long the wealthy have been fueling compassion, and the recipients have forgotten where this charity comes from.

The tax system has become a mechanism to take one man’s fruits and distribute them to another for no sensible reason. We have seen generations of low income Americans become locked in a system that breeds dependency and steals the incentive to make it on their own. This system has become an industry with the captains of that industry being politicians. These politicians have a self interest in perpetuating poverty and dependency. They fund their “industry” by demonizing the wealth creators, creating envy, punishing wealth, and redistributing the wealth through punitive taxation. This war on wealth has created a class of people that now believe they are entitled to the wealth that is created by these individuals.

We are becoming morally bankrupt as a nation when we believe a person’s success should be a source of scorn and disgust. The question is never “when is enough, enough for the individual wealth creators”. The reality is the more wealth they create the more goes back into society in the form of jobs, investment, and charity. It is not the government’s role in America to decide that question. The government has become over reaching and must be returned to its constitutional role once again. These wealth creators should be celebrated as they were at the founding of this great republic. Without the incentives of individuals to keep the fruits of their labor we harvest less fruit. As the fruit diminishes the dependent class gets restless and demands more from the captains of their industry. The captains demand more from the wealth creators and we find ourselves back in a system where wealth creation is driven by fear, coercion, and force. The engine sputters to a halt and collapses on itself.

We are not far from this point right now. Our tax system must be utilized to provide only the services necessary to conduct a law abiding society. Individuals again must be incentivized through the rewards of their labor. Right now the wealth creators are slowing down their activity because they are being punished and demonized. The wealth creators have not received their rewards through any special circumstance but the industrious spirit they pursue. The envy, jealousy, and demonization of the wealthy is going to destroy the American Spirit. Wealth distribution has already destroyed the people dependent on others. If we don’t stop demonizing wealth we will have nothing to demonize in the very near future…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said