Daily Reckoning - Bill Bonner

We opined the other day that it is not absolute wealth that the average
man cares about, but relative wealth. A man in an Indian village doesn't
envy the American with air-conditioning and two cars in his garage. He
envies the man down the street with a half-acre more of garden space.

An American may be perfectly content to vote Republican when Ronald Reagan
is in the White House and he thinks everyone is getting rich. But when the
slump comes, he looks around and sees things differently. He begins to
look for a New Deal. Not since the '20s, in America, have so many people
had so little while so few others have had so much. The many, pressing
their noses to their television screens and gaping at their rich neighbors
like the mob facing Marie Antoinette...are likely to want a change.

Then, the scoundrels and scalawags will have their day at last. The old
politics of envy will make a comeback. "Soak the rich," they will say.
"Hang the profiteers"... "Power to the people..."

Envy does not permit a free society. People say they value liberty, but
they can't stand what it produces. They can't stand the fact that - left
to their own devices - some people will have more than they do and some
will struggle to survive. Redistribute income, tax, control, regulate -
they will support almost any measure that promises to make the outcome
more to their liking. They will ask (and in some cases demand) that their
leaders control everything - income levels, interest rates, health care,
parking, handicapped access, what the schools teach, what language people
speak, who can marry whom, what goes into the sausages - even the
weather!

The rascals in every major political party all share the same basic
opportunistic creed. They differ in style, not in substance; one clown
wears patrician blue...the other a plebian red. One favors a plan whereby
government pays all medical expenses. Another offers reimbursements. Still
another offers subsidies and tax incentives to various favored projects.
Every one of them believes in taking something from one citizen and giving
it to another.

But envy is not the only reason for the triumph of collectivism. We are,
by nature, collective animals - like our monkey relatives. We may no
longer live in trees, but we still live in groups. And we look to our
neighbors - not to ourselves alone - for food, shelter, comfort,
companionship, direction, religion, opinions, and much more.

Yes, in theory, all of these relationships could be managed in a free,
consensual, collegial and civilized way - in which persuasion and honest
trade are used instead of violence and force. Most of our private lives
are run that way. We do not threaten the baker for a loaf of bread. Nor,
for the most part, do we take our wives like Sabine women; we are taken by
them...seduced, not stolen.

But public life is different. Without the iron hand of the state behind
him, mass man feels a little lost...vulnerable...and lonesome. How will he
eat, unless his neighbors are forced to give him bread? Who will look out
for him in his retirement, unless the younger generation is forced to pay
into Social Security? Who will protect him from terrorists, if his armed
forces are not properly locked and loaded? A little bit of humble
reflection might show him that he would be better off by relying on his
own wits...but not one man in ten is prepared to do it.

The world might be a better place if people were free...but it would not
be the place it is.