Morality of Wealth Redistribution

[Foxfyre]

Kiddies....all GOVERNMENT is, one way or the other, wealth redistribution.

We can debate specific policies, of course, and we ought to, too.

But to end wealth redistribution entirely demands that we have NO government.

I have to disagree with this a bit.

The Founders, classical liberals to a man, saw government as a necessary 'evil'. It was necessary to provide the common defense and secure the rights of the people. But that was ALL it was designed to do. Within the social contract that we call The Constitution, there was provision for some shared services such as post roads, licensing agencies, etc., but these were designed to be fully available to all citizens, rich and poor alike, at all times. Taxes were seen as necessary to fund the constitutional obligations of the federal government and for no other purpose.

No wealth redistribution was a factor in any of that and would have been anathema to the Founders' concepts of what government should be.

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
-Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

You are 1000% right. Government is a necessary evil. And it is designed to provide for the neccesities as you mentioned. Most of us sane rational people have no problem with that. I think where we start to get aggitated is how original intent gets so easily corrupted into abuse. Which is exactly what redistribution of wealth is.

And the Founders saw the possibility of abuse. Which is why they knew that the Constitution would work only for a religious and morally centered people committed to doing the right thing rather than what would funnel benefit to themselves. They knew that once the people realized they could vote themselves money, it would all start falling apart.

 

[manifold]

The Founders, classical liberals to a man, saw government as a necessary 'evil'.

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

The only issue up for intellectually honest debate here is what constitutes the fairest levels and methods of collection and redistribution. Narrowly defining redistribution to only include programs one opposes constitutes a feeble attempt to apply rigid black & white reasoning to a subjective determination of fairness. And that's ubertarded.

Well I'm willing to be convinced, but you'll have to give me a better argument than that to do it. I don't see the Founders' view of taxation as any form of redistribution of wealth via any program. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Constitution or in any of their writings that suggests that any license of any sort is given to government to take from one in order to benefit another. Presidents and Congresses operated under that principle for more than a century before 'wealth redistribution' started creeping into the process.

It seems that you are addressing the constitutionality of certain types of redistribution while I have been addressing the concept itself. Two different kettles of fish.

 

[Spoonman]

I have to disagree with this a bit.

The Founders, classical liberals to a man, saw government as a necessary 'evil'. It was necessary to provide the common defense and secure the rights of the people. But that was ALL it was designed to do. Within the social contract that we call The Constitution, there was provision for some shared services such as post roads, licensing agencies, etc., but these were designed to be fully available to all citizens, rich and poor alike, at all times. Taxes were seen as necessary to fund the constitutional obligations of the federal government and for no other purpose.

No wealth redistribution was a factor in any of that and would have been anathema to the Founders' concepts of what government should be.

You are 1000% right. Government is a necessary evil. And it is designed to provide for the neccesities as you mentioned. Most of us sane rational people have no problem with that. I think where we start to get aggitated is how original intent gets so easily corrupted into abuse. Which is exactly what redistribution of wealth is.

And the Founders saw the possibility of abuse. Which is why they knew that the Constitution would work only for a religious and morally centered people committed to doing the right thing rather than what would funnel benefit to themselves. They knew that once the people realized they could vote themselves money, it would all start falling apart.

exactly, and the problem we are starting to face is that a greater majortiy of the voting population is starting to see this as acceptable. then what? how can America ever compete again with this growing anchor around it's neck?

 

[Againsheila]

What's your opinion on the morality of taking money from those who earned it and giving it to people who haven't? Not talking about people who cannot earn their own money but rather those who choose not to. And can you recommend any books or writings on the subject?

Seems to me basic self worth is at least in part a reflection on your independence. Or at least contributing something, your own labor or time to your family or community. This country does not like freeloaders, and while there is a certain amount of leeway in tough times like we're in now, at some point opinions change.

So are we morally right to redistribute somebody else's wealth or deny people support in an effort to incentivize them to be more productive members of society?

Define "earn". Somehow I don't believe CEO's "earn" 500 times more money than their employees.

That's class envy. Start your own thread.

George W. Bush (Jan. 30, 2007): "The fact is that income inequality is real. It's been rising for more than 25 years."

Joel H. Rassman, Toll Bros. CFO (2006, explaining CEO Robert I. Toll's $20 million compensation

while shareholders were suffering a 22 percent loss: "I have yet to meet the person who has enough money."
Jim Webb, Senator (Jan. 23, 2007): "When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did. Today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money his or her boss makes in one day."

Chinese Saying : "Inequality, rather than want, is the cause of trouble."

Plato (427-347 B.C.): "The form of law which I propose would be as follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues -- not faction, but rather distraction -- there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil . . . Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth."

Andrew Greeley (Chicago Sun-Times, February 18, 2001): "It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us. Perhaps the reason is that rich men are very clever at covering up what they do."

Walt Whitman (1819-1892): "The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds-where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough-a modest living-and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities."

William Gates Sr. (Senate testimony, March 16, 2001): "I believe, with Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, Herbert Hoover and scores of other wise observers in the early 1900s that it is not in the interest of this country to have large fortunes passed from generation to generation forming ever larger pools of money and accretion of power.

Gregory F.A. Pierce (co-founder, Business Executives for Social Justice, 2001): "From a spiritual point of view, it cannot be true that the work of the CEOs of some companies is worth a thousand times that of some other of their employees, just as it cannot be true that because you can get people to work full time for minimum wage they are justly compensated."

 

[Spoonman]

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

The only issue up for intellectually honest debate here is what constitutes the fairest levels and methods of collection and redistribution. Narrowly defining redistribution to only include programs one opposes constitutes a feeble attempt to apply rigid black & white reasoning to a subjective determination of fairness. And that's ubertarded.

Well I'm willing to be convinced, but you'll have to give me a better argument than that to do it. I don't see the Founders' view of taxation as any form of redistribution of wealth via any program. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Constitution or in any of their writings that suggests that any license of any sort is given to government to take from one in order to benefit another. Presidents and Congresses operated under that principle for more than a century before 'wealth redistribution' started creeping into the process.

It seems that you are addressing the constitutionality of certain types of redistribution while I have been addressing the concept itself. Two different kettles of fish.

the concept is wrong and I'm sure the founding father would have found it unconstitutional.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Spin. That's pay, not a hand out. Those are the jobs taxes are inteneded to go for. It's not subsidized living.

That's a hand out. Pay for jobs that no one wants or needs done. Followed by free money for life.

 

[manifold]

Well I'm willing to be convinced, but you'll have to give me a better argument than that to do it. I don't see the Founders' view of taxation as any form of redistribution of wealth via any program. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Constitution or in any of their writings that suggests that any license of any sort is given to government to take from one in order to benefit another. Presidents and Congresses operated under that principle for more than a century before 'wealth redistribution' started creeping into the process.

It seems that you are addressing the constitutionality of certain types of redistribution while I have been addressing the concept itself. Two different kettles of fish.

the concept is wrong and I'm sure the founding father would have found it unconstitutional.

Your opinion and self-righteous degree of certainty duly noted.

 

[Foxfyre]

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

The only issue up for intellectually honest debate here is what constitutes the fairest levels and methods of collection and redistribution. Narrowly defining redistribution to only include programs one opposes constitutes a feeble attempt to apply rigid black & white reasoning to a subjective determination of fairness. And that's ubertarded.

Well I'm willing to be convinced, but you'll have to give me a better argument than that to do it. I don't see the Founders' view of taxation as any form of redistribution of wealth via any program. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Constitution or in any of their writings that suggests that any license of any sort is given to government to take from one in order to benefit another. Presidents and Congresses operated under that principle for more than a century before 'wealth redistribution' started creeping into the process.

It seems that you are addressing the constitutionality of certain types of redistribution while I have been addressing the concept itself. Two different kettles of fish.

No, I am addressing a basic principle that the Founders used to hammer out the U.S. Constitution. To them it is immoral and a violation of human rights for the U.S. government to take from one citizen and use that to benefit another. Those who pay the taxes should benefit equally with those who do not.

I honestly can't think of ANY redistribution of wealth the U.S. government could do that would not violate that principle.

 

[DiamondDave]

What's your opinion on the morality of taking money from those who earned it and giving it to people who haven't? Not talking about people who cannot earn their own money but rather those who choose not to. And can you recommend any books or writings on the subject?

Seems to me basic self worth is at least in part a reflection on your independence. Or at least contributing something, your own labor or time to your family or community. This country does not like freeloaders, and while there is a certain amount of leeway in tough times like we're in now, at some point opinions change.

So are we morally right to redistribute somebody else's wealth or deny people support in an effort to incentivize them to be more productive members of society?

Define "earn". Somehow I don't believe CEO's "earn" 500 times more money than their employees.

Yeah... the CEO skillset, depth of knowledge, risk, commitment, etc is such a common thing that any of their employees can do it

Let alone the fact that you can ask for, demand, negotiate whatever is in the range that fits the need for both sides (employer and potential employee)... and because of the limited amount of people who can actually perform and run a multi million or billion dollar corporation, those who can will demand a hefty sum

 

[M14 Shooter]

In my opinion, editec is right and you are wrong. No offense.

This just makes you wrong as well.

"Redistribution of wealth" has a specific meaning.

Huge parts of the government aren't involved in the specifics of that meaning, and so there's no way to soundly argue that you cannot have government w/o also redistributing wealth.

As for the post you linned to, I responded to it when you originally posted it.
Nothing you have posted since does anything to negate my response.

Only if you self-servingly, narrowly and wrongly redefine "redistribution of wealth"

:roll:
I laugh at you and your sad attempt at a rebuttal.

 

[Bern80]

The Founders, classical liberals to a man, saw government as a necessary 'evil'.

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

The only issue up for intellectually honest debate here is what constitutes the fairest levels and methods of collection and redistribution. Narrowly defining redistribution to only include programs one opposes constitutes a feeble attempt to apply rigid black & white reasoning to a subjective determination of fairness. And that's ubertarded.

True there can be different defintions of fair. But demanding more of some just because they have more does not fit any definition of the word fair. Taxing people nothing just because they have little also does not fit any definition of fair.

You want the rich to be taxed more yet the fact is taxing the more will not provide you the extra money for all your precious government entitlements. Regardless of you manipulate the tax code, tax revenues always tend to stay between %15-%20 of GDP.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The Founders, classical liberals to a man, saw government as a necessary 'evil'.

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

Horsepucky.

Show how the local fire department redistibutes wealth - that is, how it takes from the haves and gives to the have nots.

 

[Foxfyre]

The Founders, classical liberals to a man, saw government as a necessary 'evil'.

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

Horsepucky.

Show how the local fire department redistibutes wealth - that is, how it takes from the haves and gives to the have nots.

It would be redistribution of wealth if the taxes to fund the Fire Department were taken from the rich man but used only to put out the poor man's fires. As long as the rich man benefits equally in fire protection, there is no redistribution of wealth.

 

[Foxfyre]

As for the morality, the Founders were pretty much agreed:

Samuel Adams stated: "The utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of wealth], and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable as those that vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional."

James Madison, author of the Constitution, wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

 

[M14 Shooter]

Correct.

And the 'necessary evil' = some level of collection and redistribution of wealth.

Horsepucky.

Show how the local fire department redistibutes wealth - that is, how it takes from the haves and gives to the have nots.

It would be redistribution of wealth if the taxes to fund the Fire Department were taken from the rich man but used only to put out the poor man's fires.

No. To redistribute wealth, said wealth is taken from party A and, absent any premise of compenation for goods/services renderd, given to party B so that he might live better.

You descibe a failure to provide equal protection.

 

[Foxfyre]

Horsepucky.

Show how the local fire department redistibutes wealth - that is, how it takes from the haves and gives to the have nots.

It would be redistribution of wealth if the taxes to fund the Fire Department were taken from the rich man but used only to put out the poor man's fires.

No. To redistribute wealth, said wealth is taken from party A and, absent any premise of compenation for goods/services renderd, given to party B so that he might live better.

You descibe a failure to provide equal protection.

Having one's fire put out at the expense of another would qualify I think. Certainly not having one's house burn down would help one live better.

So, unless the Fire Department, funded by taxes, benefits all equally; that is, if it was for the benefit of only one group but not all, it could easily qualify as a 'redistribution of wealth'. Same goes for 'free clinics' provided to the poor but not the rich funded at taxpayer expense; free lunches provided to some kids but not all kids, etc. It doesn't have to be a dollar confiscated from one and given to another to qualify. Anytime there is no benefit available to the one and there is benefit to another, the principle of redistribution of wealth kicks in.

 

[keee keee]

Like how the government subsidizes the oil companies? They receive money they didn't earn. Let's give that money back to the people who earned it: the taxpayers.
The tax payers? How did the Government get the money they give in subsities? They do nothing but steel the money from the producers, and give to non producers.

 

[boedicca]

Like how the government subsidizes the oil companies? They receive money they didn't earn. Let's give that money back to the people who earned it: the taxpayers.
The tax payers? How did the Government get the money they give in subsities? They do nothing but steel the money from the producers, and give to non producers.

Please explain what money oil companies receive that belongs to others?

From what I've read, the "subsidies" are in the form of accelerated depreciation for tax purposes, which is something all businesses can do for qualifying capital investments.

 

[Foxfyre]

Like how the government subsidizes the oil companies? They receive money they didn't earn. Let's give that money back to the people who earned it: the taxpayers.
The tax payers? How did the Government get the money they give in subsities? They do nothing but steel the money from the producers, and give to non producers.

The tax breaks the oil companies get is to help offset tremendous expenses for complying with government goals and mandates. For instance when it is mandated that X percentage of ethanol must be included in domestic fuels, that becomes an enormous expense for oil companies to comply with that mandate. To mandate that sulphur be removed from diesel fuel is so expensive that no oil company would continue to produce diesel unless there was some tax relief involved. When the Bush Administration mandated increased development of bio fuels, the oil companies have complied at hundreds of millions of dollars expense to turn say beef fat into fuel. No oil company would have been willing to incur such expense without some form of compensation.

So in that case there is no transfer of wealth. You can certainly question whether the government should be spending your tax dollar to micromanage the oil companies, but that is a totally different issue than redistribution of wealth.

 

[editec]

Society is by definition about the business of wealth distribution, lads.

You guys aren't thinking very deeply about what societies even are, ya know.

The question isn't does a society distribute wealth (it must) the question is

DOES THE SOCIETY DISTRIBUTE WEALTH IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE FOR THE SOCIETY AND ITS PEOPLE?

Societies that fail to do so aren't very successful.