Dear Friends,
It seems to me that Obama seeks to utilize political favor as the new metric of distributive justice. When government does this it has set up perfect conditions for crony capitalism. This is incredibly bad for society and the economy. The potential and outcome for everyone is diminished. What is not really understood however is that this type of distributive justice erodes the people’s productivity, ethos and self sufficiency.
The government, by so doing, must become more powerful than the most powerful faction, else government cannot seize the wealth of that faction. This, it would seem, is self evident but not necessarily the first thing you would think of. If a faction retains control of it’s money, under a socialist regime, that regime quickly looses power. The socioeconomic tensions will build, do to jealousy, to a point that the populace will erupt in anger. No government that ventures down the road to socialist redistribution can be queezy about usurping power and then exercising that power or it is short lived.
As I started with, socialist redistribution is no more or less, than distributive justice by political favor. When this is the case people will seek political favor and eschew productive labor. If for no other reason than, it is the political favored who get the goods of society and it is the producers in such a society, that get the shaft. The incentive for business is to rent seek not to build quality products and find innovative solutions. Under these conditions, profit is not from production, but in political favor. Crony Capitalism produces profit but production produces penalty.
Today we have several glaring examples of oligarchical capitalism practiced by the Obama administration. Solyndra is the best known but there are many others where the Obama administration pushed a loan to a political donor’s “green” company. The company never produces anything, and once it has squandered the money and protected the politically favored, it goes bankrupt. In the case of Solyndra to the tune of half a billion dollars!
The shelves in countries, that practice political favor as their metric for distributive justice, are always bare. Historical examples like the former Soviet Union stand as stark reminders. Bread was 10 cents a loaf but there was none on the store shelves. When firms rent seek and foreswear production they necessarily have lower efficiency than firms that seek alpha. As a result, in societies that utilize socialist redistribution as a means of the distribution of the goods of society, everyone becomes poor. No matter how politically favored you are, if the society cannot produce it, it is not on the store shelf.
Those people who had garnered political favor and paid out hansom bribes got a car in the USSR. But those that produced those cars and weren’t political favored didn’t. They were subjected to dehumanizing labor and their labor was truly exploited for the total benefit their overlords. (Those with political connections). Without the ability to move or seek another job, or even, especially, start a business, a person can be said to be indentured. So, history shows us, redistribution does diminish the outcomes for everyone, in a society that falls prey to that perniciously seductive idea of socialist redistributive justice, or, as I like to call it, distributive justice by political favor.
We have an election coming up in the US. In one corner, we have a bonafide communist named Barack Hussein Obama, in the other corner we have an empty seat. He may be another Ronald Reagan or another Gerald Ford. One thing that is for certain… if you want diminishing potentials and outcomes for your children and grandchildren, then Obama’s distributive justice by political favor is the road for you.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
