avery45
Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2011
- Messages
- 203
- Reaction score
- 38
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Conservative
The idea that when wealth is concentrated in few hand trying to redistribute that wealth to those that lack it "doesn't work" has no historical credibility. That's exactly what the nation did to address inequality that existed in the the early part of the 20th Century and was fixed by New Deal policies.
The idea of taxing the rich more goes back to Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations.
This IMF paper on redistribution and growth (pdf), concludes that there is no negative effect of redistributionist policies. What is does do is reduce inequality.
Claiming redistribution is "theft"(or as Mitt Romney claimed during his failed Presidential run, that redistribution is un-American) is silly. We have been redistributing income and wealth for generations. Medicare, for example, is in effect a strongly redistributive program: it’s supported by a payroll tax (and other revenue) in which the amount you pay in depends on your income, but it supplies a benefit that depends only on your medical costs. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
So no, we liberals here aren't radical for suggesting that we should continue to do what we're already doing; the real radicals are the people on the right who want to declare much of what our government has been doing these past three generations illegitimate.
Just because it's been happening for generations doesn't make it right. I have no problem helping people move up. I have a problem with people permanently living off me.