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SyndicateThe Gap Between the Rich and the Poor
By Robert Ringer - Tuesday, June 1, 2010
By Robert Ringer
The main reason I’m against giving handouts to countries like Greece is that it sends the wrong message. We should not lie to Europe’s socialist misfits about capitalism. The greatest gift we can offer is to help them understand that freedom is not about security or equality; it’s about insecurity and inequality.
We should teach them that the price of freedom is self-responsibility, and self-responsibility means that no one has a right to a house, a car, a job – no, not even healthcare. What everyone does have a right to is exactly what others are willing to pay him, free of government interference.
We should also teach them that those who think otherwise are responsible for our $12 trillion national debt and a federal budget deficit that is projected to be in the area of $2 trillion as far as the eye can see. Economic security is not a right, but it sure is a formula for disaster.
If we help to bail out bankrupt European countries, we will be encouraging them to believe that capitalism is about security and equality, and they will become disillusioned when they find out the hard way it is not. If instead we focus our efforts on explaining to them that capitalism is about freedom of choice, self-responsibility, and risk, we will be doing them a great favor.
Unfortunately, progressives right here in our own country do not seem to understand this. This is especially true of so-called limousine liberals. I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when a casual acquaintance invited me to a social gathering at his home. After being assured that no members of the Weather Underground, the Communist Party USA, or the White House would be in attendance, I agreed to drop by.
I tend to be a target at limousine-liberal gatherings, and, sure enough, a middle-aged gentleman of means came up to me and, from out of the blue, blurted, “Capitalism is the most evil system ever invented.”
Displaying my finest George Will deadpan expression, I asked how an intelligent, successful gentleman like him had managed to arrive at such a fascinating conclusion. To which he groused, “Under capitalism, the poor are exploited by the rich.” Yikes – it was the ghost of Vladimir Lenin!
Masochist that I am, I asked him to define the terms rich and poor for me, but he simply waived aside my question as though it were frivolous. My acquaintance’s wife then intervened and admonished us that political discussions were forbidden in her house, thus preventing a Sunday afternoon homicide.
Darn. I didn’t even get a chance to see the expression on his face had I been able to lay this one on him: The gap between the rich and the poor is supposed to increase under capitalism! It’s built into the system.
But also built into the system is the fact that almost everyone is better off under capitalism. Why? Because trickle-down economics really does work.
The U.S. government’s own Census Bureau’s statistics confirm this truth. Average-income figures clearly show that during the Reagan years, almost everyone’s income rose significantly, while during the Carter years, most people got poorer. Does anyone seriously believe that voters kicked Carter out of office and gave Reagan two landslide victories because they were better off under Carter and worse off under Reagan?
In the Reagan years, what was in play was the so-called invisible hand of the marketplace. When people realize they can reap financial rewards by providing better goods and services to others, they work harder and longer hours to do so. As a result, the economy prospers and everyone is better off.
On the other hand, the more government interferes with this natural process, the worse off everyone is. How far mankind has advanced is not a reflection of his true potential; it is his true potential minus government interference. Those who believe that a strong central government is needed to manage a nation’s economy simply do not understand the awesome power of the invisible hand of the marketplace.
Which takes me back to the growing disparity between the rich and the poor (setting aside, for now, the important question of who has the omniscience and moral authority to decide who should be slotted into these two categories in the first place).
In a mythical, totally free society, if everyone were to start with nothing, some people would become “rich” while others would become “poor.” Now, stop and think about that fact for a moment. Wouldn’t natural forces assure that the most successful people would become even more successful over time and thus increase the gap between themselves and those who have not been as successful? After all, they would be using the same talents, efforts, and self-discipline that made them more successful in the first place.
Please, let’s set aside childish notions. Of course the gap between the rich and the poor will always increase under capitalism. But that, of and by itself, does not harm anyone. The only problem is the one caused by envious progressive thinkers who have unilaterally decided that such a gap isn’t “fair.” Which, of course, is merely their subjective opinion.
Personally, I don’t think of the increasing gap between the rich and the poor as fair or unfair. It’s simply reality. However, I do believe the fact that successful people tend to become even more successful is fair, provided they achieve their success on a non-coercive basis. Why shouldn’t a person be allowed to become as successful as his talents and hard work will take him?
If we are to return to the roots of our once-cherished freedom, progressive subjectivism must be defeated. Go-along-to-get-along conservatives must come to grips with the reality that compromise does not work. The reason for this is that it encourages a lie, and everyone knows that lies don’t work.
The progressive is, of course, free to think whatever suits him. But he must not be allowed to force others to give up their freedom to accommodate his twisted notion regarding one of the most abstract ideas known to man: fairness – which is right up there with “social justice.”
Right now, it is that twisted notion that has the United States about a furlong away from joining Greece as a third-world country on the verge of collapse. The only social justice that makes any sense is for everyone to keep what he earns in a free market.
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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times. To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, visit www.RobertRinger.com
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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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4 Responses to “The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor”
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Your Mythical, totally free society is exemplified in the book “How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes” by Peter Schiff (one of your Liberty Education Review Series interviews). This book clearly shows how a truly capitalistic society prospers and how government interference destroys this prosperity. It is a easy and amusing read. I think Mr. Ringer would enjoy it very much. Email me an address and I will send him a copy for July 4th! Keep up the great newsletter!
On paper in some book written for an ideal world— absent the dishonest monetary system upon which crooked capitalism is built— then yes, I agree with everything written in this blog; However, there is one big, bad problem: There can be no honest capitalism in a world where dishonest fiat capital is digitally counterfeited out of thin air and given to banksters at 0% interest so that they can then turn around and loan it out to the federal government, the gamblers of Wall Street, and the rest of the criminal elites.
Let me bottom line this issue: We have a corrupt political and economic system whereupon phony capitalism has been designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
You want to talk about gaps and an egalitarian system? What am I, two years old? Are you talking to a Kid? My eyes are wide open to the plutocracy, the military industrial complex, the financial casino that is named Wall Street, and the plutocracy that rules the world. I see right through the garbage that both the Republicans and the Democrats are excreting from their mouths on a daily basis, so lets get real. How can anybody believe that crap anyway?
I believe in fairness and value traded for value. So if you want to play fair and trade value for value, then bring it on buddy, because I don’t think these politically connected phony capitalists who use counterfeit, dirty money to de-industralize America in order to hire rent-a-slaves in China could make it in a world where value for value and an honest monetary system formed the basis of trade and society’s economic system. America used to have the most egalitarian system in the world. Why? Ask Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, the individual who fathered Reaganomics.
For anybody who gives a …… about the truth: You can find a well written version of the truth in Dr. Paul Craig Roberts’s latest book, How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds.
Good article. Let us also remember that under a capitalist-based system, the poor are encouraged to become LESS poor, whereas under the progressive socialist system the wealthy and poor are equally encouraged to become less affluent. Thought you might want to think about that one as well.
I agree with everything you said. But your insightful analysis raises the point which troubles those of the liberal persuasion: At some point it seems to become “unfair.” During the first generation, those with superior intellectual and interpersonal abilities and a good Jewish or Calvinist work ethic will rise like cream to the top. This will create a gap between the Haves and Have Nots. During succeeding generations, the Haves will–more or less successfully–instruct their heirs in the ways of acquiring wealth; while the Have Nots will be unable to impart this training to their offspring, since they don’t possess it themselves. In five or six generations, the gap between the Haves and Have Nots will be gigantic.
There will be thousands of Have Not children born for every one of the Haves. So, soon, the vast majority of wealth created in the society will be owned by a very small minority within that society. The Haves will have much more than they need, and hapless Have Nots will have little more than they need.
At what point will there be a correction in the distribution of wealth? Throughout history, there has always been such a correction…usually a violent one.
The economic version of “natural selection” works, but only to a point. Then all hell breaks loose, and a new economic order is created.
Just a thot from a Have Not.