The American Left’s Poverty/Prosperity Paradox
The American left may not understand economics. Public welfare, or wealth redistribution, is a case in point.
Per Bylund, Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, asks and answers: “What causes poverty? Nothing. It’s the original state, the default, the starting point. The real question is, What causes prosperity? […] Prosperity is the state of having created or otherwise acquired wealth. The former must have preceded the latter, both logically and historically.”
And Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, laments “Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty, you might think that the left would be as obsessed with the creation of wealth as they are with the redistribution of wealth. But you would be wrong.”
Liberals who incessantly profess their support for the poor prioritize redistribution (handouts) over wealth creation, because redistribution satisfies the left’s sense of moral superiority – and attracts votes. But, concurrently, welfare policies indemnify people from the consequences of their poor life choices, and actually encourage poor choices by making dependency a “career” option for desperate teenagers cheated by failing public schools.
The government does not have its own money, so, in order for liberals to feel morally superior – and win elections – there must be lots of poor people, and a government willing to confiscate and redistribute wealth.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ran such a government, and increased the numbers of poor.
The Heritage Foundation’s E.J. Antoni explained Bidenomics: “When President Biden took office, he was handed an economy growing at an annualized rate of $1.5 trillion. Inflation was a mere 1.4%. Yet instead of simply allowing the economic recovery to continue, Mr. Biden spent trillions of dollars the nation didn’t have and declared war on American energy.”
Today, the massive inflation caused by Bidenomics is still squeezing seniors, the middle class, blue collar workers, people living on tip income, and it’s crushing young adults.
The primary problem with inflation is that rising prices do not allow the poor or people just entering the economy to plan rationally. Inflation stresses households lacking reserve resources, reduces options, erodes hope, leads many to their breaking points and, ultimately, to dependency.
But, perhaps the left does understand and applies economics perversely.
Some economists argue that inflation is an intentional strategy to consolidate political power.
The greater the dependency on government, the larger government becomes, and the fewer the obstacles to government power. In that context, the left’s alleged concern for the poor may just be Soviet-style ambition couched in insincere, self-righteous terms.
Some of today’s Democrats have been gussying up socialism as “democratic socialism,” and others are rehabilitating “communism.” They appeal to enough under-educated, dependent voters that informed Americans must take them seriously. According to Vladimir Lenin, “The goal of Socialism is Communism.”
Adrian Rogers, a 20th Century American Baptist pastor and author, once delivered a sermon that encapsulated the flaws of communism. In it, he said:
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that…is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
Yet, that is what the American left aspires to do. Their adversarial slogans are well-known, among them, “Make the wealthy pay their fair share,” and “The 1 percent vs. the 99 percent.”
Kamala Harris’ campaign adopted thinly-disguised Communist Manifesto-type language in its advocacy for what Harris’s ads referred to as “fairness,” and “equity,” words the left reserves the right to define.
Ronald Reagan said, “Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.” Accordingly, a Harris presidency and Democrat congressional majorities would have been more Bidenomics – on steroids.
There would be no paradox, and more Americans would prosper from greater personal responsibility, fewer obstacles to wealth creation, less liberalism and, especially, far less government.
Hopefully, America has turned the corner, and that day has come.
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2025/05/12/jerry-shenk-the-american-lefts-poverty-prosperity-paradox/
