Who Needs Austerity when some Are Rich

Tibor R. Machan

Portugal is broke but austerity measures there are protested persistently. Greece is in the same fix. And indeed in America, too, the Occupy Wall Street crowd appears to believe that if even a few folks are doing very well, no one need tighten his belt since all that’s needed is to rip off those well off and force them to continue to work hard.

The math is, of course, terribly off -- even if all the wealthy were raided for their resources, it would do very little to improve the situation of the vast numbers of those who need to cut back on their spending (including, especially, governments). It’s like a pyramid shaped storage of stuff, taking from the top and distributing it below isn’t going to create abundance. What is required for that is overall productivity, nothing less.

But these days millions of people, especially their politicians and academic agitators, hold the insane idea that wealth is collectively owned, sort of like in a family or commune. No private property is recognized so whatever anyone owns, everyone else owns as well. So if you have been profligate for years and now can’t pay your bills, never mind; there are those others with some money stashed away which can be confiscated because, well, it belongs to everyone. Never mind that it is just that kind of thinking and behavior that leads to widespread poverty, a direct result of the tragedy of the commons.

I have recounted this episode of my life before but it is relevant here again: At about 12 I was being lectured by a good communist teacher in my elementary school in Budapest about how we should all live by the Marxist idea, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” (taken from his famous essay, “Critique of the Gotha Programme”). I asked the teacher how would this work if my friend and I both started with a few bucks and I spent it on booze and he on wood. Once he made a nice little table, I'll simply drink myself under it, so would he have to help me out, would his table be my table, as well? And this landed me in hot water. (Both the Nazis and Commies dealt severely with students who asked the wrong questions, what today would be called politically incorrect ones!)

The idea now is that so long as other people are productive and lucky, the rest of us need not fret since we can always dip into their stuff and conscript them to work for us. But since the math in this “solution” sucks, it leaves everyone without sufficient wealth and, moreover, tends to discourage people from trying to increase theirs. Marx knew that this would happen so he envisioned communism as the society in which everyone became a "new man" and would automatically work for the commonwealth, the public interest (is how it is called now). With self-interest having been erased from the human race, no one would mind being poor, having to cope with austerity.

Sadly, the Occupy Wall Street people and others of similar attitude around the globe haven’t experienced this necessary alteration of human nature, whereby no one cares about himself and his intimates but only about the society as a whole. (Not that that would work out but at least people might put up with it more compliantly.) They are very much concerned mainly with their own and their loved ones’ well being. Certainly they care nothing about the well being of those who are productive, especially on Wall Street. Instead they hold the view that other people must all become fierce altruists while they themselves can remain self-indulgent. (At least that is how they behave, so I think it is fair to attribute that line of thinking to them.)

That there are free loaders among us is no news, nor a tragedy. What is, however, really disgusting is how many erudite people throughout academia, governments, and the media egg them on in their pathetic misconceptions.