Remember the age-old question about what came first, the
chicken or the egg? A few years ago then-President Obama made an often-quoted
statement about what came first in the process of things being produced in the
private sector. The implication was that without government, nothing of value
will happen.
Because of the way he framed his statement, it makes sense.
But only if you don’t take time to think critically about how things work in
the real world.
I’d like to respectfully disagree with his notion, based on a
couple of very basic ideas.
First, government does not have the ability to produce
anything of economic value. What do I mean? Government does a lot of things. For
example, it legislates & enforces laws; it adjudicates cases that involves
those laws; it may regulate activities (& the list goes on & on, seemingly
to infinity). But one thing is absent in all this: the actual production of
anything of economic value.
Second, while government cannot by its nature produce
wealth, it can manipulate wealth & its creation or use. How does it
manipulate it? By the only means at its disposal – coercion. I believe this is
why people sometimes grimace at the thought of taxes. Subconsciously they
resent that the salary or profit that they have worked so hard to produce is
penalized thru a portion of it being taken away.
So, why do I differ with Obama’s statement? Because he says
that whatever part government plays in the creation of wealth is primary in the
process. No, government has whatever economic resources it has because someone
has already produced it.
Mr. Obama, I DID build that. If I didn’t, you couldn’t tax
it.
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