Labour's Follies

The Descendants of Karl Marx Are Alive, But Unwell

Leftist dogma asserts that private property is a form of theft.  The only legitimate owner of everything is "the people", who are represented by the State.  Ergo, the only legitimate owner of all property is the State.  Any private property is temporarily lent by the State to the individual.  The government owns all.

We have had enough collective experience over the past one hundred and fifty years or so to test this idea out.  It has always ended up in grinding poverty for millions upon millions of people, coupled with exorbitant wealth and power held by the officers of the State.  Ethically the idea of universal State ownership of all property is a direct assault on the Eighth Commandment--you shall not steal.  An ideology of universal state title to all property is wicked to the core.

Most leftists are pragmatic realists--at least in the West.  While believing in principle that the State owns all property, they are prepared to tolerate private property ownership for this or that--provided the State maintains the tyrannical power to step in at any time and expropriate private property for its own nefarious purposes.  It's justification is that the wealth of the individual in reality belongs to the People (aka, the State).

It is this ideology which underlies the idea, currently being toyed with by the Labour Party in New Zealand, of a universal income for all adults.
 At its recent conference, the party flew in a couple of ideological "big wigs".  One was Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour under the Fornicator-in-Chief, William Jefferson Clinton.

Former US President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary is backing a Labour Party idea to pay everyone a basic income that could be at least $200 a week.  Robert Reich, who said he once dated Hillary Clinton before she married, told a Labour Party conference in Auckland today that a guaranteed minimum income for all was "the only way of dealing with where technology is taking us". [NZ Herald]

Technology is "taking us" to a bad place.

 "When technology is going to be replacing most jobs, how do we get the money back to people so they can buy the technology?" he asked.  He said technology was heading towards what he called an "i-everything" that would be able to use 3D printing to print out anything a consumer wanted.  "The problem is no one will be able to afford that, because nobody will have a job," he said.

What?  Technology will make everyone universally redundant.  So the State will have to intervene to pay everyone an income-for-nothing so they can afford a 3-D printer.  The State will have to take money off everyone to pay everyone so Mrs Jones can buy a 3-D printer to print out cornflakes to feed her kids every morning.

Wethinks Robert Reich, unlike his former boss, has been inhaling the wacky-backy far too long.   Either that or senility has kicked in for Mr Reich.  Or, his leftist ideology has made him barking mad.

And then there was the academic from the UK.

[Professor Standing] said a basic income could be justified on the principle that most of our current wealth was created by our ancestors, and it was only fair to share some of that common wealth with everyone.  "You allow private inheritance, Mr Prime Minister," he said. "They have done nothing for something, they are given the right to incomes and wealth. Can we have a modest social amount?"

His "justification" for a universal re-distribution of wealth rests upon private property being  not really private at all.  It is the fruit of the labours of millions of millions of people in the past.  Therefore, by implication, the State is justified in expropriating it, if and when it wills.   Professor Standing is confirming the fundamental axiom of the Left: the State is the pre-emptive owner of all property.

Did the reader notice all the assumptions packed into the statement, "You allow private inheritance, Mr Prime Minister." Passing on accumulated property to children and grandchildren is permitted by the State. It is a concession by the ultimate owner of all property.  This must mean that private ownership of anything is only at the permission or pleasure of the State.

Thankfully we still live in a country with a democratic form of government.  Thankfully we can still vote the thieves out.