Greed and Justice

“Avarice,” states a recent editorial in the Houston Chronicle, “is just a politer way of describing greed, which seems to be the fuel behind President Trump’s idea to bypass Congress to give yet another tax break to wealthy investors like himself.”

And taxation is just a politer way of describing legalized theft.

The editorial goes on to argue that, instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthy, more money should be spent on helping the poor. Apparently, it is greedy to want to keep the money that you have earned, but it’s not covetous to want the wealth produced by others.

If a poor person robbed you so that he could feed and clothe his family, virtually everyone would recognize the robbery as a crime. His poverty does not justify his theft. The principle does not change merely because the government acts as his intermediary and takes the money from you.

Wealth is earned by creating values and trading them with those who want or need those values. The greater the values created, the greater the wealth one earns. It is perfectly proper and moral to want to keep what one has earned.

To the advocates of the welfare state, producing values is a not a valid claim to wealth one creates. But being in need is a valid claim on the wealth produced by others. The greater one’s need, the greater one’s alleged claim on others’ wealth. The greater one’s wealth, the greater the supposed claim on it, i.e., the wealthy should pay higher tax rates. This is a moral inversion. It replaces justice with need.