Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2026 7:48 pm
Regarding your views; so your view is that we should live in a society where the wealthy "earn" their wealth and use it to do good for society in the process. Is that correct?
Not quite, but you've got the idea...sort of.
There are good ways to get wealth, and there are bad ways. Socialism is kind of stupid about that: it takes the assumption that wealth is a zero-sum game, one in which any amount of wealth is somehow stolen from those who have less. But just how does the inventor of some new device -- let's say a computer, since we all have one -- get his money? He gets it because he's solved a problem for other people. People want to communicate faster, get more information, do more complicated calculations than they can do in their heads, or access new forms of entertainment...and a computer does that. So people very willingly buy the product, because it makes their lives better, and the inventor becomes wealthy because he benefitted those same people by inventing something they couldn't.
And let's go the next stage. The inventor can't market his product; it's not his area of expertise. So he employs a businessman, who employs some salesmen, who all volunteer to work in exchange for the money they stand to get, and all of them get rich -- or at least earn their living -- by accessing the market for the inventor. And then there are the retail outlets, who also give salaries to employees, and the delivery people who drive the trucks loaded with the computers, and the repair people who work in the shop...a whole ton of people are getting their livings off the cleverness of the inventor, and not one of them has stolen anything, or exploited anyone, or is not deserving of the wage he/she has willingly contracted to receive in exchange for his/her participation.
This is how value is created: new things are invented, or new uses for old things, or new resources are accessed, or new strategies created, and each one of them adds value to the world. And every person in that free society benefits from such ingenuity, and nobody is robbed of anything that they have earned.
Are you merely suggesting that the Fabian society has hijacked socialism to make it more palatable for the wealthy?
Much more than that. There is a class of elitists, not only the Fabians, but the Pelosians, the Carneyans, the Abanesians, the WEFers, the Neo-Marxists...you can name them by the score; and they all think they're entitled to take over any society, or all of them, and manipulate them to create whatever vision they think desirable, whatever serves their interests. And today, Socialism is the tool they are using to do it: Socialism for you, but not for them. They can escape it, but you cannot. And the same fixtures Socialists advocate, such as confiscation of property, censorship, devoicing and political correctness, taxation, a singular, centralized government, a welfare state, nationalization of industry, control through the major mass media, and so forth, are the furniture they use to stage their own ambitions.
Or what exactly is your takeaway from all of this?
That's easy: that you're being lied to. And the more you back Socialism, the more you forge the chains of your own imprisonment. These Socialism-using elites will never give you what you think they will; they'll only ever let you have the absolute minimum they can get away with, and the rest goes to them.
Is it simply that you want wealthy people who have "earned" their wealth while making the world a better place for all to be in power?
Think carefully, Gary: what has wealth got to do with the right to rule? Are people with more money better people than others? Are people with less money better? And what would make you think that, say, an inventor or entrepreneur would be a good ruler as well?
Ruling is its own skill. The more it is disassociated from things like money and personal advantage, the better for everybody.
Something democracy got sort of right: people should be allowed to vote for their leaders. But at the same time, they should have choices about what sort of leadership they want. Moreover, there should be strict limits on the power and wealth available to the people who lead, and term-limits to keep them from becoming dictators. But Thomas Sowell is also right: even in a true democracy, there are no solutions available through messing about with government or power. What we should hope for from our politicians is that they are honest, that they only ever get limited power for a limited time, and that when their term is up they have to surrender their place to the next person. And we would want them not to be doing in for money or power, but for the common good.
If you know such men, please send them along. They don't seem to be in politics today.
