Can We Realy Share the Wealth?

My answer is: No, not without destroying the wealth. Every redistribution plan ultimately does not work. Not in the long run, not in the medium run, or even much beyond today. Analysis of the outcome of plans to redirect economic activity from the free market shows that eventual collapse of any such plan is inevitable. It may not be obvious because a dozen other plans will usually be adopted to correct the outcome of the initial plan but they always result in the same thing: less wealth or impoverishment for everyone and back to the drawing board.

This weekend Les Leopold was on the Coast to Coast radio program. He is the author of "The Looting of America." He is a good spokesman for socialism of the disguised form, as is president Obama and a large segment of his administration. He has all the arguments and is able rhetorically to avoid the tough questions. Ian Pundant, the shows host, did a good job of allowing him enough rope to hang himself. He allowed Mr. Leopold to explain his ideas without the least hint of criticism.

Mr. Leopold's ideas all stem from the notion the there is an unequal distribution of wealth. This is especially true of Wall Street and that inequality is somehow the cause of the last and probably all other market collapses. He says that great wealth leads to a "casino atmosphere." This certainly is in keeping with popular sentiment and may be exactly the kind of argument that leads to the BHO takeover of the financial system. That is essentially what he proposed although in the most veiled terms. He states that Milton Friedman is the most to blame for our current economic troubles because his philosophy led to all of "this deregulation." Again, I ask what deregulation? Also again I ask, how could regulators have helped when it was government policy itself that they would have to regulate? Callers to the talk show program and later the host disputed Mr. Leopold's thesis. His responses revealed him for the well rehearsed snake oil salesman that he is. He asked one caller if he would agree with his various schemes if he could convince him that the great inequality of wealth on Wall Street was what causes collapses in the financial system. He said that his book contained definitive arguments. The caller said that he could never convince him of that and he couldn't convince me either.

(some of Mr. Leopold and friends: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/fear-and-looting-in-ameri_b_208153.htmlhttp://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blog-3834-qa-with-les-leopold-author-of-the-looting-of-ameri.html)

I, like Thomas Jefferson, "have sworn hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." I cannot be convinced that socialism is in some way just or can be beneficial to either the immediate recipient of government largess or to the ones that must be robbed to enable that largess. I agree with the dictums of Frank Chodorov, of the old right. It was written of him in 1952:

"Listening to Mr. Chodorov, you won't
get any meaningless gabble about "Right" and "Left," or "progressive'" and
"reactionary," or liberalism as a philosophy of the "middle of the road." Mr. Chodorov deals in far more fundamental
distinctions. There is, for example, the Chodorovian distinction between social
power and political power. Social power develops from the creation of wealth by
individuals working alone or in voluntary concert. Political power, on the other
hand, grows by the forcible appropriation of the individual's social power."

"People on Our Side: Frank Chodorov"
Mises Daily by John Chamberlain
Posted on 10/5/2009 12:00:00

http://mises.org/story/3741