Excerpt
What is less widely understood is that they have also transformed politics. A zero-sum economy leads, inevitably, to repression at home and plunder abroad. In traditional agrarian societies the surpluses extracted from the vast majority of peasants supported the relatively luxurious lifestyles of military, bureaucratic and noble elites. The only way to increase the prosperity of an entire people was to steal from another one. Some peoples made almost a business out of such plunder: The Roman republic was one example; the nomads of the Eurasian steppes, who reached their apogee of success under Genghis Khan and his successors, were another. The European conquerors of the 16th to 18th centuries were, arguably, a third. In a world of stagnant living standards the gains of one group came at the expense of equal, if not still bigger, losses for others. This, then, was a world of savage repression and brutal predation.
It's always been my impression that liberals view an economy as a zero sum game; one pie, what I don't get someone else gets. When, in fact, free markets create bigger pies for all to dig into as long as you add an ingredient.
More.....
1 comment:
Liberals have always seen the economy as a zero sum game. That's why it's so simple for them to have their flawed core beliefs:
1) Higher tax rates = higher tax revenue
2) Taxing the rich only hurts the rich
3) The rich are rich *because* the poor are poor
4) The poor are poor *because* the rich are rich
5) A profit made by private company means that company is not paying it's employees enough
6) A profit made by a private company is a financial dead end, serving only as a tool for conspiuous consumption by the financial elite. That is, it is unable to be seen (in a liberals mind) as something routinely reinvested back into a successful entity, creating more jobs and prosperity for society at large.
7) A profit made by private company should not be viewed as a measure of success but rather as a tangible item that is "bad", and which should be taken away by government and put into service for its own "good" uses.
Post a Comment