Income Redistribution

Raise your hand if you believe that America is the best place on earth for someone who wants to make more money, to move from the low income levels to the high income levels, if that person is willing to take time away from family and dedicate it to working on making more money, in a rational and cooperative manner.

I'm raising my hand.

Now, if you just raised your hand, raise it if you're willing to stand up before the crowd and explain why Larry Summers is not guilty of theft (a violation of the 8th Commandment) for his suggestions on how to redistribute the money earned by the rich by giving it to the poor.

I don't see any hands. If I missed yours, click the "comments" link below and make a comment.

Prof. George Reisman is not raising his hand either:

Summers apparently does not see, or if he does see, does not care, that in presenting his proposal for redistribution, what he is urging is armed robbery on a massive scale. That is the essence of any policy of “redistribution,” whether advocated by Summers and Obama or by Lenin, Stalin, or Mao.

For what is going to make each of the top 1 percent of income earners pay an extra $800,000 in taxes? The only thing that would make them pay it is fear of being arrested and imprisoned. And who will arrest and imprison them? Armed thugs wearing the uniforms and badges of officers of the United States Government, who would give them no other choice but to pay the money or be hauled off to jail and clubbed or shot if they resisted. (What a total perversion this would be of what the United States Government once stood for: a transformation from an institution designed for the protection of individual rights into a gang of bandits massively violating individual rights.)

How does this differ in any essential respect from those who are to receive the loot, in the form of $10,000 checks, taking matters into their own hands and simply robbing the homes and businesses of the top 1 percent of income earners to the extent of $10,000 each? They would give the homeowners and businessmen the same choice, of their money or their lives.

See also: Income Inequality: What's the Problem?