Why Obama’s “share the wealth” argument should hurt him
Bookworm on Oct 16 2008 at 8:53 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
Joe the Plumber matters because he had the misfortune to ask Obama a straightforward question and, amazingly, elicit from Obama an honest answer about his plan to socialize the American economy. (I say misfortune because the media is now bound and determined to destroy Joe for having the temerity to have asked the question that startled something honest out of Obama.) And Obama’s answer matters because it finally spells out to Americans in concrete terms what we on the Right have been fussing about all along with our abstract talk about Obama’s socialism.
Let me remind you what Obama said:
The money quote, of course, comes near the end when Obama finally stops waffling on about his convoluted tax plans, and states his actual goal: “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Not so fast, Senator.
First of all, everybody listening instantly understood that the phrase “spread the wealth around” can mean only one thing: The government is going to play Robin Hood. It’s going to take from those it deems rich, and give to those it deems poor. And Obama, in that incredibly long, discursive monologue, makes clear that he defines people who provide employment for others as “rich,” and those who actually don’t pay any taxes right now (or who pay almost no taxes right now) as “poor.” Undressed, what he’s saying is “from each according to his ability [that would be us "rich" folks], to each according to his needs [that would be those "poor" folks].” Hmm. Where have I heard that before?
Right about now, thoughtful people might be worried that Obama’s statement, rather than being a death knell for his campaign, will shoot it into the stratosphere. After all, there are a lot of “have nots” in America and this sounds as if it would be a very attractive plan for them. They should be leaping all over it, creating a poor person’s revolution at the ballot box. That conclusion, however, underestimates the blessed economic and social fluidity that is America, and the fact that most Americans can still readily imagine themselves, or their children, ascending America’s golden economic ladder.
Socialism, with all its many vices, was nevertheless a logical response to a very specific European (and very non-American) phenomenon: The almost complete absence of movement between one economic level and another, a stagnancy that was closely tied to European class lines. Alan J. Lerner summed it up pithily in a song, famous to all who know My Fair Lady:
An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
In a tightly stratified society, you never could escape the socio-economic status to which you were born. Sure there were exceptions to the rule, but generally, once a peasant, or a serf, or a Cockney, always a peasant, or a serf, or a cockney. Only breaking the system could break those limits.
America from its inception was different, in that it was always an incredibly fluid society, both vertically and geographically. If you failed in Philadelphia as a tanner, you could try reinventing yourself as a printer. If that still didn’t t work, you could move to Wyoming and try your hand at ranching. And if that failed too, perhaps you could strike it rich in Nevada silver mines, or California (or Alaska) gold mines. And once you were rich, you had social entre, even if people did whisper a bit behind your back.
How different from back home in England or Germany or France, where your forebears had lived in the same village for centuries, and were always known as the family too poor to have a separate barn. (Although the cows in the middle of the one room house did provide some nice warmth during the winter.)
America’s promise, and its reality, was that immigrants could leave their poverty behind in a generation or two. If you are ever lucky enough to visit the Tenement Museum in New York, you’ll learn that the descendants of those tenants — and they were people who lived in unimaginable squalor and poverty — all moved to the ‘burbs and became middle class. Sure there were failures, those people who couldn’t make it and just settled into nothingness and vanished from history. On the whole, however, these immigrants and their children joined America’s generally upward economic the trajectory, one that took them at least as far as working class-ness and, possibly, up to the comfortable middle class.
The only exception to that American truth is blacks, and even that isn’t quite the story most believe. (That is, most believe that blacks have never had a fair shake, and have been down-trodden without exception.) The truth is that, despite Jim Crow, African-American nuclear families in the 1950s and early 1960s were making steady economic gains. They weren’t entering Forbes’ upper ranks, but they were becoming increasingly middle class.
What ended this slow upward economic movement was Johnson’s Great Society, which essentially socialized American blacks. Rich Americans would henceforth support them. Men who were working miserably hard, but who were still making it, suddenly scaled back, since a government handout was better than a demeaning, dangerous or back-breaking job. Families soon fell apart when it became apparent that that they could do better economically if they reconstituted themselves as a single welfare mother with children, rather than as a struggling cohesive family ineligible for welfare.
With the exception of African-Americans (and I do wonder if they’re doing better since welfare changed in the 1990s), America is still a singularly fluid social and economic country. That’s part of why, despite our vast immigrant influxes, we don’t have the banlieus of France (riot central a few years ago, as you may recall), or the tremendous immigrant unrest one sees in other European countries such as Germany, Italy and England. Our immigrants start poor, work hard and, always, have the possibility of “moving on up” — and this is true even if not all of them are able to act upon that possibility. It’s the American dream.
Obama’s plan, however, announces the end of the American dream. In Obama’s USA, there’s no benefit to be had in moving on up. If you move to the head of the line, his government is just going to bat you right back down again.
There’s no doubt, of course, that those who are really, really rich will probably still stay fairly rich, because their vast wealth may take decades of government siphoning before it vanishes entirely. The problem is that those who wish to be rich — and who for America’s whole history could reasonably make that happen — will never get rich in Obama’s America. That’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber.
Put in simple words, without all the waffle, Obama carefully explained that he was going to take from the ones ascending, and give it to the ones behind. This will inevitably create an endless circle at the bottom of the socio-ecomic scale. As soon as a person is lucky enough to “make it,” the U.S. government will snatch his money from him and give it to the person at the bottom of the ladder. And down the top guy goes again, to await his turn to climb high enough to once again become a target for the government’s redistribution.
I think Americans, all of whom dream in some small part of their mind that they will become real estate mavens, or start a successful business, or get lucky in the stock market, or see their children graduate from college with professional degrees, recognize that Obama will destroy these hopes and dreams. In his America, there is no up. There’s only an ever shrinking pie (yup, Obama’s pie), with people constantly having to give up their biggish pieces and start all over again.
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23 Responses to “Why Obama’s “share the wealth” argument should hurt him”
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thanks for saying this. Please spread this blog entry around.
There isn’t anything wrong with the impulse behind what Obama wants to do: economic “justice” looking out for the weak or less successful.
There is a huge problem with solution he offers.
There is something of contempt for the presently less successful.
They cannot succeed if we don’t do it for them, because they are victims of the economic system.
the facts on the ground scream that this conclusion is not true!
Coming from an immigrant family myself, we, in today’s frame of reference, had every right to feel victimized. But thank g-d that wasn’t’ the case back then and today, my father is an attorney, retired, and several other of his 12 siblings have university degrees. Everyone owns their own home. The only handout any of them ever got was the GI bill after WW2 and Korea.
When the ethnic pride movement began in the late sixties and early seventies, people would ask my dad what he “was”; in those days no one could recognize the origin of our last name, but it clearly wasn’t WASP, European, Asian or Hispanic in origin. With a great deal of patience, my dad would tell them that he was American and that was only important ethnicity in this country.
As a student at University of California, Santa Cruz, I remember having a little more status over the rest of the “white” kids because of the that last name. But I could never bring myself to see myself as a victim or downtrodden or somehow entitled to special treatment or status because of my immigrant grandparents. I was an American, too.
The American way of doing things, the American ethos is only real hope for change.
It sickens me that Obama and his supporters can’t see this and are going to take that away from millions of people.
Michal
This was very eloquently put Book and I second the motion that this post be disseminated far and wide.
The Democrats will put us all into a crab basket society, where any crab that dares to try to climb out will be pulled down by its fellow crabs. The exception, of course, will be the elite ruling class that feeds off the crabs. It’s the Chicago way!
If they win, they will crush the human spirit and we will all be like those pathetic Katrina survivors, waiting and waiting for someone to take care of us because we no longer have the initiative to do it ourselves.
Great post, BWorm. As a former liberal, I know it doesn’t matter how rational, logical, factual or otherwise provable it is that redisribution of wealth results in damaging everybody, from super-rich to poor. Liberals such as Obama truly believe that the market not only doesn’t work, but is stacked against anybody who isn’t born white and wealthy. Nothing short of an intervention or repeated economic facts being drilled into the head of a liberal can change his way of thinking. A very good friend of mine who is an author and business-woman living in the Bay Area, who is a genuine liberal, once said that my transformation from liberal to conservative was me simply “changing my mind.” I had to explain that I didn’t “change my mind” in the typical sense. I changed the way my mind processes information. That is the difference.
One point: Let us not malign Robin Hood. He was stealing from the corrupt government and giving back to those who had taken from them what little wealth they once owned.
Book, excellent post.
Note also: Those talking about “spreading the wealth around” are usually not economically disinterested parties. Increasing the influence of government over society clearly increases the market value of politicians and of senior government officials; also of lawyers, lobbyists, and certain “nonprofit” officials.
For all the talk about “public service,” successful politicians generally manage to accumulate considerable wealth–check out Al Gore’s 100-foot houseboat. And even if he loses, Obama will still be able to collect more money for a 1-hour speech than Joe the Plumber will ever make in a month, and also more than he (Obama) would likely have ever made as a private-sector lawyer.
Claudia Rosett has a great post up at Pajamas Media along these same lines.
http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/preparing-for-the-wealth-spreader/
I liked this bit:
“Obama’s breezy remarks to Joe are the voice of the Harvard Man talking down to the Plumber, and somewhere in there, it starts to sound like Orwell’s Big Brother talking to Winston: “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too,” said Obama. “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Oh really? Who’s the “you” who’s going to do the spreading? It’s not Joe. If Joe was using his income himself to buy things he wants and can afford, he was already spreading the wealth around — and in the process helping to create real jobs, and real value, probably with a lot more knowledge and efficiency than the government ever could.”
Excellent post, Bookworm.
Interesting isn’t it that we have vivid examples of the American opportunity to move up in this very election? I, of course, am thinking of Sarah Heath Palin; the daughter of an elementary school teacher and school secretary. Others may focus on different candidates.
I would particularly like to comment on Michal’s contribution. I applaud his father’s refusal to be identified as a hyphenated American. That simple principle is enormously important.
I believe that this enduring use of the hyphen is a cancer in our society. However, since I cannot “beat them” I will join the movement. Henceforth I will identify myself as a Native-American. After all I was born in Tampa, Florida, USA. True, all of my ancestors came from somewhere else; but strangely enough their origins became blurred and of less consequence as they worked at becoming Americans.
“An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him”…and there are a lot of people who would like to see the same situation in America. Look at the mockery of Palin and Bush for not using the speech patterns expected of a member of the governing class.
The emphasis on speech patterns, and the closely-related emphasis on “elite” college degrees, is a threat to traditional American class mobility. Of course, if you’re a wealthy parent and aren’t too sure that your kids will make it to the top based on their individual talents, it makes sense to rig the game by emphasizing colleges that you can coach and/or bribe (via contributions & alumni connections) their way into, and modes of speech that are largely absorbed from family and neighbors.
I worked with a young man who was just out of a very “liberal” college. He said the tax cuts didn’t matter since the same amount of money was in the economy whether the government spent it or the taxpayers. I said, okay, give me your paycheck. He blinked and asked why. I said, if it doesn’t matter who has the money to spend giving it to me wouldn’t matter to the economy at all.
We had several discussions like this and others (environment, WoT, gun rights) over the years. When I left, he came up and said I had made him think of things in other ways and he thanked me for it. I’ll forward this to him as well, in furtherance of his education.
Great post Book,
We must remember when we talk of Marxism and Socialism:
(1) HS and College kids (who are the backbone of ObamaManiacs) were never educated on the horrors of these diabolical philosophies — they don’t know, thus they follow like mindless lemmings.
(2) There will be some who advance admirably under Obama’s Socialism, the elite worshipful, faithful who will abide by and push for his every leftwing wish and command.
(3) Think Dictator Hugo Chavez and Venezuela when we hear the Socialist mantra “Spread the wealth around.”
Just think of the joy in the Halls of Ivy when Barack Hussein Obama is President with Reid and Pelosi having a super majority in both houses.
Woe be unto America. Let us do everything to see this does NOT happen.
In Christ,
ExP(Jack)
Not only do they _not_ want to privatize SS, but now it looks like they want to nationalize your 401s… No mention of IRAs yet. Probably next on the list. Boy. Anything to get more bucks to give to the “poor”…
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/10/next-on-democrat-agenda-nationalizing.html
Suek,
Cynic alert!
Congress will indeed try and get their hands on your IRA money. Remember in 1998 when Congress offered the new Roth IRA, where money is put into the account taxed, and is tax free when taken out in retirement?
Many people dutifully converted from traditional to Roth IRA’s by paying the taxes on the account and moving them over.
Congress needed money in 1998, and got a nice bump in tax revenues.
Now there are untold Roth IRA’s, where the government will receive no future revenue. Cynic that I am, at some time in the future, the pile of money is going to be big enough that Congress won’t be able to help themselves, tax addicts that they are.
And Congress has never seen a pile of money that they didn’t think they were entitled to!
Does anyone know what legal power Congress or the Executive Branch will have over banks and firms, once they own equity shares (non-voting I believe) in these banks and firms.
This quote that I put in a different recent post is worth repeating. It’s absolutely chilling:
After Mr. Kovacevich voiced his concerns, Mr. Paulson described the deal starkly. He told the Wells Fargo chairman he could accept the government’s money or risk going without the infusion. If the company found it needed capital later and Mr. Kovacevich couldn’t raise money privately, Mr. Paulson promised the government wouldn’t be so generous the second time around.
“We won’t be so generous next time.”
Chilling. Just chilling. The raw exercise of power-as-threat. The lack of standardized, predictable rules, in favor of dictatorial decisions for punishment and reward. Rule of man, not rule of law. Pandora’s box has been opened wide.
As to the seizure of savings accounts, this is from October 1996.
http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=160
I would dare say that this has long been planned and the current “crisis” is just the excuse for implementation of said plan.
[...] allow yourself to become distracted by the media swarm/feed. Stay focused on Obama’s words. THOSE are what matters. And what is happening to Joe the Plumber [...]
Helen believes the same thing that. That’s one reason why she should and is voting for Obama. But they don’t find such a thing unjust,Book, on the contrary. They believe it is the right thing to do, up until they have to give their own money, that is.
There was a joke a long time ago in the Reader’s Digest about a butler who went to his Socialist meeting religiously. His employer knew this and _never_ scheduled anything for his meeting nights. On one occasion, however, the employer was in a situation where the “off” night was the only one available for a social occasion that the employer considered a necessity. When asked for a recommendation for a substitute, the butler said he’d work. “Oh no”, said the employer, “I couldn’t ask you to give up your meeting”. “That’s all right, Madam” the butler said, “I don’t go to meetings any more.” “Why not?” his employer asked. “Because, Madam, at the last meeting I went to, they said that when they came to power, everyone in Great Britain would earn 600 pounds a year”. “Well”, said Madam, “that seems commendable”. “Yes, Madam, but _I_earn _700_ pounds a year.”
What is interesting about the Democrat/Fascist reaction to Joe the plumber is how quickly the MSM and Obama campaigns pounced on Joe the individual and the question. But the issue was never Joe the Plumber, nor was it the question: it was Obama’s response, which to this day remains undefended.
I am reminded of McCain’s point during the final debate about how carefully you have to parse what Obama says in order to realize what an illusionist he is.
Danny…
Have you heard the speech where McCain congratulates Joe the Plumber? Pretty funny, actually….he congratulates him on _finally_ getting a definite answer from Obama…! _Any_ definite answer!!!
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