[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

President Obama's remark about redistribution was in the context of ensuring everybody has a shot, but praised innovation and competition as being critical to the economy.

A shot at what? The vast amount of "redistribution" does not give everybody a shot at innovation and competition. Those are qualities that depend on individual effort and responsibility. Redistribution waters down those efforts at innovation and competition. Redistribution may give some more buying power to purchase products of innovation and competition, but when redistribution is merely a handout from a rich third party, it artificially raises the pool of money available to market those products at a higher price so the net gain may be very little, or, worse, the economy may inflate making the value of currency less thus forcing prices even higher and making third world foreign production more attractive thus shrinking the job rate in the U.S., thus requiring more handouts and continuing the downward spiral of currency and shrinking jobs and "shots" for everybocy. Artificial government redistribution does not ensure everybody a "shot," neither in context nor in reality. Organic redistribution through market forces creates the best shot.

It's quite possible that without a redistributive system -- that all parties have implicitly endorsed for decades -- we wouldn't have a middle class.

If the so-called "middle class" depends on a government redistributive system, then that system has an internal problem that will not only lead to a collapse of the "middle class," but of the whole system. A system that depends on government redistribution to survive would most likely have as a goal an end to class structure so that there would be no "middle class." The "trajectory" or "vector" of government redistribution, beyond a very basic safety net, would be a leveling effect. Ironically, the goal of the Founders did not explicitly consider the creation or maintenance of a class structure. Various "classes" might be a natural result of freedom and free market, but the original goal was individual freedom with the only garanteed equality being before the law.

I'd think if any of us had tens of millions of dollars we'd be just as charitable. It's easy to give away millions when you don't need any of it.

-spence

Then why is it necessary to progressively tax the rich at higher and higher amounts? Let them spend or give away their money as they choose, and the results will be far more varied, productive, and sustaining than forced government redistribution.