Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.And it can take on odd guises such as: "Hey, I know, let's take resources away from the most productive members of society and give it to the least productive! Hooray for fairness and social justice!" Because I guess it's all fair when everybody is equally poor. But you'll have your sense of moral righteousness!
This is known as “bad luck.”
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Quote of the Day: Robert Heinlein on Wealth and Poverty
Great bit of wisdom and historical perspective -- not to mention, all too true:
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2 comments:
Well, yes, Maddie.
But whom are these 'most-productive members of society'?
Judging by their bonuses and annual earnings over the past 5 years - one might conclude that derivatives and CDO salesmen were 'most productive'. Meanwhile engineers, scientists, auto mechanics, and most everyone else whether productive or not have been
sold out and taking pay cuts (or at least small rises) for 8 years or more.
So while I generally agree with Heinlein about this phenomena, I'd have to say that it's been going on for almost a decade now.....
I actually wasn't thinking about those folks, but about all the taxpaying workers who've been playing by the rules and being responsible. I'm infuriated with the idea that we can make poor people rich by making rich people poor -- because it fundamentally means that everybody ends up poor as a bloated statist government hogs the pennies and decides how to distribute them.
In a grander sense, the creation of modern wealth is the fruit of capitalism and free markets, though in Heinlein's words "all right-thinking people" (i.e., the elite) constantly dump on these ideas.
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