You hear it all the time:
“If they could take all that money, they’d solve world hunger.”
No, they couldn’t. Not if they seized all the money in the world.
Let’s say you got hold of $10 trillion. That would feed a lot of people, for a long time — assuming you could get it distributed to all the people without difficulty (a huge assumption).
Nevertheless, at some point: the money will run out. I don’t know how long it will take to run out. Maybe less than you think. Maybe a long time. But we can be 100 percent certain: at some point, the money will run out.
What then? Someone will have to come up with another $10 trillion. But if there’s nobody around to create all the wealth, then how do you get it to the people — whether for food, shelter, health care, schooling, or whatever?
Nobody ever answers this question because it’s never asked. And if you dare to ask the question — you’re greeted with verbal hostility (if you’re lucky).
This isn’t just a mistake the “Democrats” or the Communists make. It’s a mistake nearly everyone makes. You hear everyone saying it, even apart from opinions about the government or politics. “We should take the money and spend it on…” WHOSE money? And HOW? What impact will seizing the money have on the people who are forced into giving it up? Will they keep producing the money? If not, what are you to do when you and the millions or billions of people depending on it run out?
Good economists have already figured it out. The chief challenge for human beings is not distribution, but production. Demand is limitless; supply is scarce.
If those hungry people live in a system where wealth is privately owned, profit permitted and rewarded, then sooner or later the food will reach the hands and mouths of the people who need it and want it. Assuming they’re willing to trade for the food, not merely have it handed to them as passive recipients of an entitlement.
This is not merely an expression of how it should be. It’s an expression of how it IS. If you’re ignorant of this fact — or worse yet, if you choose to remain ignorant of it — then you’re living in the Dark Ages. That’s where the human race is. In the midst of Star Trek-like, 21st Century technology, we’re still moral and intellectual savages when it comes to issues associated with human behavior.
There are very smart people who have already figured this out. But it doesn’t seem to have an impact. As the present decline of America tragically shows, people — by and large — will do the equivalent of jump off a 150 level building before listening to reason on this subject. History will record that even after America briefly created the proverbial shining city on a hill, most Americans ultimately opted to jump off the cliff and (if only be default) revert to some version of the tribal, socialistic, communistic mentality.
Maybe in the future, it will be different. But we’re still in the Dark Ages in the area of ideas. If mankind is to have a future, we’d better start to get this right.
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