I saw this — We need to limit accumulation of wealth for common good — and had to respond:
The writer goes back many decades, even centuries, to mention some activities prohibited today. He does this to proclaim that “we limit some individual rights to protect the common good.”
Never mind that several of his examples aren’t exactly “rights,” but what individual rights do not also rise to the “common good”?
One, for the column author, is the freedom, the right, to accumulate wealth. Yet, he argues against wealth accumulation even as he says some people do not have enough.
But so few have so much, and so many have not enough, he counters.
So, is the alternative to limit what one can make? That helps how? The economy is not a zero-sum game. Just because one person makes money does not necessarily mean someone else is poorer for it.
Do you then let people make whatever they can but when it gets to some level deemed “too much,” the government will take it and redistribute it? But won’t some of that money be lost as the government charges its “administration fees”? For every dollar taken, how much actually makes it to those in need?
Will professional athletes and entertainers be included, or are the members of the “too-rich club” just for those who run businesses, also known as employers?
What if someone was poor and, through hard work, reached the too-much level. Would he get a pass? How will hard work be defined?
He says the Bible “… required all accumulated wealth to be redistributed every 50 years.” If he’s referring to a jubilee year, it’s my understanding that it was the forgiveness of debt that was called for, among other actions.
Still, the Bible does refer to the dangers of the love of money. And it does call on us to help those in need. So then would it be better to give the money to the church for distribution? If so, which church?
The questions that arise from this disdain for having “too much” money are countless. But the column writer doesn’t present them, let alone answer any.
He argues that, “the one individual right we can’t limit is the right of the individual citizen to effectively exercise political power, but that is exactly what we do when we allow corporations to control our information and our options.”
And the column writer criticizes those who call for voting Congress out because he says their replacements will still be directed and influenced by private and corporate wealth.
Yet, if the voters did vote them all out, is that not exactly what he fears the loss of, the “individual citizen to effectively exercise political power”?
How could voting them out even be an option, by his reasoning? If the rich influence politicians, restrict the information we receive (as if that’s truly possible in the Internet age) and, thus, prevent us from effectively exercising power, all we can be capable of is doing as we’re told.
How were we even able to see this writer’s letter published in this supposedly restrictive environment?
Could it be that voting them all out this time would likely result in a shift of power, a shift that the writer dislikes?
