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Any attempt to equalize wealth or income by forced redistribution must only tend to destroy wealth and income. Historically the best the would-be equalizers have ever succeeded in doing is to equalize downward. This has even been caustically described as their intention. “Your levellers,” said Samuel Johnson in the mid-eighteenth century, “wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.”
There can be little doubt that many egalitarians are motivated at least partly by envy, while still others are motivated, not so much by any envy of their own, as by the fear of it in others, and the wish to appease or satisfy it. But the latter effort is bound to be futile. Almost no one is completely satisfied with his status in relation to his fellows.
In the envious the thirst for social advancement is insatiable. As soon as they have risen one rung in the social or economic ladder, their eyes are fixed upon the next. They envy those who are higher up, no matter by how little. In fact, they are more likely to envy their immediate friends or neighbors, who are just a little bit better off, than celebrities or millionaires who are incomparably better off. The position of the latter seems unattainable, but of the neighbor who has just a minimal advantage they are tempted to think: “I might almost be in his place.”
Envy is implacable. Concessions merely whet its appetite for more concessions. As Schoeck writes: “Man’s envy is at its most intense where all are almost equal; his calls for redistribution are loudest when there is virtually nothing to redistribute.”[3]
(We should, of course, always distinguish that merely negative envy which begrudges others their advantage from the positive ambition that leads men to active emulation, competition, and creative effort of their own.)
How to Bring On a Revolution
There are economists who will admit all this, but will answer that it is nonetheless politically necessary to impose such near-confiscatory taxes, or to enact similar redistributive measures, in order to placate the dissatisfied and the envious — in order, in fact, to prevent actual revolution.
This argument is the reverse of the truth. The effect of trying to appease envy is to provoke more of it.
The most popular theory of the French Revolution is that it came about because the economic condition of the masses was becoming worse and worse, while the king and the aristocracy remained completely blind to it. But de Tocqueville, one of the most penetrating social observers and historians of his or any other time, put forward an exactly opposite explanation. Let me state it first as summarized by an eminent French commentator in 1899:
Here is the theory invented by Tocqueville. … The lighter a yoke, the more it seems insupportable; what exasperates is not the crushing burden but the impediment; what inspires to revolt is not oppression but humiliation. The French of 1789 were incensed against the nobles because they were almost the equals of the nobles; it is the slight difference that can be appreciated, and what can be appreciated that counts. The eighteenth-century middle class was rich, in a position to fill almost any employment,almost as powerful as the nobility. It was exasperated by this “almost” and stimulated by the proximity of its goal; impatience is always provoked by the final strides.[4]
The expressions of sympathy that came from the privileged class only aggravated the situation:
The very men who had most to fear from the anger of the masses had no qualms about publicly condemning the gross injustice with which they had always been treated. They drew attention to the monstrous vices of the institutions which pressed most heavily on the common people and indulged in highly colored descriptions of the living conditions of the working class and the starvation wages it received. And thus by championing the cause of the underprivileged they made them acutely conscious of their wrongs.[6]
Tocqueville went on to quote at length from the mutual recriminations of the king, the nobles, and the parliament in blaming each other for the miseries of the people. To read them now is to get the uncanny feeling that they are plagiarizing the rhetoric of the limousine liberals of our own day.
All this does not mean that we should hesitate to take any measure truly calculated to relieve hardship and reduce poverty. What it does mean is that we should never take governmental measures merely for the purpose of trying to assuage the envious or appease the agitators, or to buy off a revolution. Such measures, betraying weakness and a guilty conscience, only lead to more far-reaching and even ruinous demands. A government that pays social blackmail will precipitate the very consequences that it fears.
Here is the theory invented by Tocqueville. … The lighter a yoke, the more it seems insupportable; what exasperates is not the crushing burden but the impediment; what inspires to revolt is not oppression but humiliation. The French of 1789 were incensed against the nobles because they were almost the equals of the nobles; it is the slight difference that can be appreciated, and what can be appreciated that counts. The eighteenth-century middle class was rich, in a position to fill almost any employment,almost as powerful as the nobility. It was exasperated by this “almost” and stimulated by the proximity of its goal; impatience is always provoked by the final strides.[4]
TrueBrit
reply to post by greencmp
Middle class revolt? Don't make me laugh.
The only people with any business to be angry in the developed world, are the vast number of people in poverty who did not place themselves there, and are yet treated like dirt. The people with the reason to be angry are those working thirteen hour back to back shifts, just to make the rents on their appalling, mould ridden, code violating apartments. Those who lost their homes through no fault of their own, and lived in tent cities.... These people have the right to complain. They are not the middle classes.
The only people in any western society with a right to be furious right now, are those who are being forced into actual destitution, onto the streets, out of a job, or to work for nothing as some sort of punishment for being unemployed.
No one else's problems amount to jack diddly squat, because no one else's problems include where their next meal is coming from, whether they will ever have another one at all, how they are going to avoid sleeping in the car. Whining about lesser concerns than these is PATHETIC, and a past time not undertaken by anyone with an ounce of self respect.
TrueBrit
reply to post by greencmp
While I would agree with you that it is not the middle that need the help right now, I cannot agree with your conclusions about the remedy. There are individuals who are literally hoarding money, for the sake of having it, people who spend the net worth of ten poverty stricken families, in under twenty four hours, just because they can. The gap between these demographics is getting wider, not smaller, and the reason for that is very simple, although some people, wether they have been indoctrinated to believe a falsehood, or use fallacy to escape their own conscience, would tell you otherwise.
Simply put, the poor are only poor, because those at the opposite end refuse to say, at some point, "I have all that I could ever want, and need earn no more". Some might tell you, that such a view of this situation is naive, or rooted in socialist wrong think, but to them I say, how many trillions of dollars are there in the country? Is the figure infinite, or limited? If it is limited, then surely, in order for someone who has nothing to gain something, that money must come from somewhere? If all the money is held by a minority, and everyone else is forced to fight for scraps, then what hope has society to improve itself?
People excuse the continuation of the torture of the powerless by the powerful, by dressing the issue in fancy terminology, attempting to soften the features of the predator society that grows under the status quo. But there is no honest way to excuse absorbing vast wealth, when hard working people, hands calloused from their toils can barely keep a substandard roof over their heads. There can be no righteous and virtuous land, no land of opportunity, if all the opportunity rests in the hands of a tiny minority.
Now, that does not mean that I believe that governments ought to take wealth from the rich, and redistribute that money according to their whims, because socialisms are always corrupted by politicians, either from the beginning of their inception, or later, after the ideal has been placed at the head of a society. It leads to dictatorships, draconian behaviour, murder on a huge scale, virtually every time, normally because the temptation to embezzle such funds as are gained from redistribution is massive, and people will excuse great sin, to avoid answering for a lesser one. Human beings have a propensity for weakness, especially where large sums of currency are concerned.
However, what I would say, is that it is foolish in the extreme to assume that the answer to poverty does not have anything to do with the vastly wealthy. Families NEED to eat,NEED to have shelter, heat, light, running water and food to eat, if their standard of living is to be maintained at an acceptable level. No one however, needs four times as much money as anyone could ever spend, and to sit upon that hoard like a serpent.
Further more, I am by no means a wealthy man. I live with my mother, in a two bed apartment, and have not a penny to my name. I have never driven a motor car, because I cannot afford the lessons, the road tax, the insurance, the petrol, or indeed, a car. If the work I do these days falls through, I will have nothing to fall back on. I have nothing in my bank accounts, and could not afford to get my identification updated to allow me to access them anyway.edit on 5-10-2013 by TrueBrit because: Added detail, and an answer to a question.
originally posted by: greencmp
This is the hardest of all realities to face, it is not easy to accept the conclusions contained in these ideas.
You stand a much better chance of understanding them by reading the full article but, I can summarize.
The closer the middle class is to the upper class, the more vociferous is the call for egalitarianism. The final movements toward revolution are caused by simple impatience, not inequality.
Here is the theory invented by Tocqueville. … The lighter a yoke, the more it seems insupportable; what exasperates is not the crushing burden but the impediment; what inspires to revolt is not oppression but humiliation. The French of 1789 were incensed against the nobles because they were almost the equals of the nobles; it is the slight difference that can be appreciated, and what can be appreciated that counts. The eighteenth-century middle class was rich, in a position to fill almost any employment,almost as powerful as the nobility. It was exasperated by this “almost” and stimulated by the proximity of its goal; impatience is always provoked by the final strides.[4]
Does anyone think that Warren Buffett and his co-owners of the planet are threatened by a socialist takeover of America? They have all of our representatives in their pockets already with very few, if any, exceptions. The entirety of the federal government is occupied by the corrupt and self interested. There are those who think what we have is not a trend toward socialism because corporate cronyism is restraining that impetus. You are wrong, not only do we have a trend toward socialism but, it is specifically because of cronyism. Because of anti free market mercantilism and corporatism that wants nothing less than a planned economy that forbids competition.
What we need is to proscribe power, not grant more of it. To inhibit the expansion of the federal government, not facilitate it. Monopolies cannot compete in a truly free market without the threat of state violence to support it.
Not revolution, not insurrection, not socialism, not cronyism but a return to a bare minimum of government through peaceful, vigilant, informed and relentless relibertification through grassroots austerity.