Pictures are from Thomas Sowell's collection. (I don't think he'd mind)
Of course with all the economic unrest in our nation today there is a good measure of frustration and anger finding articulation from many in our society. My observations would suggest that the most commonly held opinion that finds expression is that of the rich not paying their "fair share". We have compiled quite a list of half-truths and incomplete stories that have brought us to this conclusion. As far as I can see the media and a plethora of politicians are happy to leave some important information out of discussions on this matter. Fairness is a tricky thing to define and is a dangerous end for a whole society to pursue. In the end there are thousands of differing ideas on just what is actually fair and to what extent society is obligated to promote whatever definition of fairness that seems fair to it. It may seem unfair for someone to have something someone else doesn't have but as we fill in the details of how this "something" was acquired we may actually conclude that it would be unfair to give this something to he who has it not. This isn't the path I intended for this blog so let me shift gears a bit here. As we look at our culture and our country in terms of the wealth that is generated by its economic system and the results of such wealth over several generations, we would do well to be careful about pointing fingers and concluding too easily that the unequal distribution of wealth is due to rich people's greed. Greed may play a part and is certainly at play in some wealthy people's lives but I would like to suggest we need only look in the mirror to see greed. Why can only the super-rich, (whatever that means), be greedy? Let me suggest that hourly paid workers whose demands first push a company to an un-competitive market position, then to bankruptcy should be included in our definition. You can point to overpaid CEO's all day long but if they drew no salaries at all it would have little effect on the overall economic health of the company. You have auto workers making twice as much money and receiving much better benefits than the vast majority of the people who are buying their cars. Is that fair? Then instead of the natural ebb and flow of free markets correcting this unfairness the government steps in and takes even more money out of our pockets to supplement the money we've already given them. Fair? I paid substantially more for the last set of tires I put on my vehicle due to a tariff the government placed on imported tires. The result of this is more of my hard-earned money going to people who make more money than I do and who have better benefits. Again, I'm wondering if this fits your definition of fairness. If this is all a little hard to follow let me try to tie things together for you. Instead of beating up on the top one or two percent of wage earners who already pay 50% of all income taxes, let's look for ways for our government to spend less money so we can all keep a bit more of what we make. And instead of looking for ways to interpret fairness to mean I'm entitled to someone else's money let's take a look in the mirror and see if we can make a fair effort to provide for ourselves. When that happens it opens up some wonderful opportunities for new-found joy in helping out others with what you have earned.
