Legalized Plunder

It's looking like spreading the wealth has become the topic of our time. Here's Rep. Jim Moran (D) of Virginia:



It appears our nation is at a crossroads on this subject. "The simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it."?

I don't even know what to say.

Here's what Pres. Ezra Taft Benson, former Sec. of Agriculture under President Eisenhower has to say on the subject:

As Bastiat pointed out over a hundred years ago, once government steps over this clear line between the protective or negative role into the aggressive role of redistributing the wealth and providing so-called "benefits" for some of its citizens, it then becomes a means for what he accurately described as legalized plunder. It becomes a lever of unlimited power which is the sought-after prize of unscrupulous individuals and pressure groups, each seeking to control the machine to fatten his own pockets or to benefit its favorite charities - all with the other fellow's money, of course. (THE LAW, 1850, reprinted by the Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-On-Hudson, N.Y.)

Listen to Bastiat's explanation of this "legal plunder." "When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it - without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud - to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed!

"How is the legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime..." (THE LAW, p. 21, 26; P.P.N.S., p. 377)
As Bastiat observed, and as history has proven, each class or special interest group competes with the others to throw the lever of governmental power in their favor, or at least to immunize itself against the effects of a previous thrust. Labor gets a minimum wage, so agriculture seeks a price support. Consumers demand price controls, and industry gets protective tariffs. In the end, no one is much further ahead, and everyone suffers the burdens of a gigantic bureaucracy and a loss of personal freedom. With each group out to get its share of the spoils, such governments historically have mushroomed into total welfare states. Once the process begins, once the principle of the protective function of government gives way to the aggressive or redistribute function, then forces are set in motion that drive the nation toward totalitarianism. "It is impossible," Bastiat correctly observed, "to introduce into society... a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder." (THE LAW, p. 12)(Source: The Proper Role of Government)

There is a fundamental difference of opinion as to the role of government. On the one hand, there is the view that government should ensure that all their citizens should be provided the basic necessities of life--shelter, food, clothing, medical care, etc. On the other hand is the notion that government exists because the people in that government created it to protect basic liberties, freedoms and properties. We appear to be moving closer and closer to a common view that government should provide all with the basic necessities of life. This was not the intention of our founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson said the following in his first inaugural speech: "With all [our] blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."

This topic isn't going away. And man is it frustrating. I think it is our duty to know the subject and be able to intelligently discuss it so as to have a positive influence on our society. Ugh...

(Thanks to Jennifer for recommending Pres. Benson's speech.)