{"id":980,"date":"2013-12-13T13:52:43","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T18:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=980"},"modified":"2013-12-13T13:52:43","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T18:52:43","slug":"the-fallacious-origins-of-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/12\/the-fallacious-origins-of-socialism.html","title":{"rendered":"The Fallacious Origins of Socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to his profile, Darren Hutchinson is a professor of \u201cConstitutional Law, Critical Race Theory, Law and Social Change, and Equal Protection Theory\u201d at the University of Florida.\u00a0 At his blog, Dissenting Justice, <\/i>Hutchinson takes yours truly to task for a recent article of mine in which I contend that the enterprise of rectifying \u201cincome inequalities\u201d is antithetical to individual liberty, for the former demands an intrusive, activist, all meddling government\u2014i.e. a government as diametrically opposed as any to that delineated by the U.S. Constitution. <\/span><\/p>\n

The title of Hutchinson\u2019s post is essentially self-explanatory vis-\u00e0-vis his position: \u201cTown Hall Author Jack Kerwick is WRONG: States Also Help to Combat Income Inequality.\u201d Hutchinson thinks that since the individual states have been busy at work implementing one redistributive scheme after the other, he has disproven my thesis.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, he has only reinforced<\/i> it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hutchinson notes in boldfaced print that \u201cthe national <\/i>government often partners<\/i> with states and local governments to ameliorate the conditions of income inequality and to subsidize poor households\u201d (emphasis added). <\/span><\/p>\n

It is telling that Hutchinson\u2014a professor, mine you, of Constitutional<\/i> law\u2014refers to the \u201cnational\u201d government, for the men who ratified the Constitution did so precisely to insure that America would not <\/i>have a national <\/i>government, but a federal <\/i>one. The latter, constrained as it is by numerous \u201cchecks and balances\u201d\u2014including and especially that of the sovereignty of the states that gave birth to it\u2014cannot address income inequalities without transforming itself into something\u2014a national government\u2014that would\u2019ve been as unrecognizable as dreadful to the Framers.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hutchinson also disingenuously refers to a \u201cpartnership\u201d between \u201cthe national government\u201d and the states designed to \u201ccombat\u201d inequality.\u00a0 First of all, there is no such partnership.\u00a0 Over quite a stretch of time now, the national government has been laboring tirelessly to subvert the Constitutional design by usurping the sovereignty of the states. Courtesy of just the sort of redistributive projects that Hutchinson and his ilk encourage, it has been remarkably successful: the \u201cfederal\u201d government is supreme.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, the national government no more \u201cpartners\u201d with its tributaries, the states, than it \u201cinvests\u201d in \u201cpublic\u201d enterprises.\u00a0 It bribes and coerces the states to do its bidding. <\/span><\/p>\n

But let\u2019s just say that this isn\u2019t so.\u00a0 Hutchinson nevertheless acknowledges that, whether with or without the states, it is indeed the national government that is working away to rectify inequalities. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hutchinson\u2019s response to my position not only goes no distance toward undermining it. It strengthens it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Hutchinson\u2019s post still supplies much food for thought. Like other leftists, he equates income inequality <\/i>with income inequity.\u00a0 <\/i>It needs to be noted that this is a classic instance of question-begging or circular reasoning, for whether differences in income are inequities is exactly what needs to be determined. \u00a0By equating the two from the outset, Hutchinson cooks his position, for he assumes as a premise that which needs to be proven. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the problem with redistributionist reasoning runs even deeper than this. The whole outlook can even be said to be rooted in a fallacy, what logicians call the argument ad populum: <\/i>an (emotional) appeal to the masses.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just that inequalities aren\u2019t necessarily inequities.\u00a0 \u201cInequalities\u201d in income aren\u2019t even necessarily inequalities; they are differences. <\/i>There is, though, a good reason why the Hutchinsons of the world wouldn\u2019t think to trade in the word \u201cinequality\u201d for \u201cdifference\u201d when advocating on behalf of redistribution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEquality\u201d is a moral <\/i>ideal with a storied history stretching back centuries in Western culture. In America specifically, equality has figured to no slight extent in informing our collective moral imagination\u2014even if equality has by and large referred to equality before God<\/i> and\/or equality under the law<\/i>. \u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Socialists know all of this, but so as to invest the raison d\u2019 entre<\/i> of their ideology with moral legitimacy, they resolved to exploit the concept of equality for all that they could bleed from it.\u00a0 Hence, differences in income\u2014regardless of how these differences came about\u2014are transformed into \u201cinequalities.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Differences, you see, are what we expect to witness in an open and free society.\u00a0 Of differences, the Hutchinsons of the world are indefatigably telling us, we are supposed to be, not just \u201ctolerant,\u201d but enthusiastic.\u00a0 <\/i>Differences are supposed to be celebrated. <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This is another reason why socialists never want to call income differences for what they are. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The champions of redistribution must resort to rhetoric and logical fallacies to defend their ideology, for they realize that the only argument that can be given for it, if stated openly, would promise to offend the sensibilities of ordinary folks.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As John Rawls, perhaps the most influential political philosopher of the last half of the 20th<\/sup> century, once put it, no one is entitled to gain or lose \u201cfrom his luck in the natural lottery of talent and ability, or from his initial place in society, without giving (or receiving) compensating advantages in return.\u201d Since we deserve neither our natural talents nor the opportunities we\u2019ve had to develop and showcase those talents, no one deserves to keep the fruits of their labors\u2014unless compensation is made by \u201cthose who have been favored by nature\u201d for those with whom it has just as undeservedly burdened with \u201carbitrary handicaps [.]\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What this means is that people\u2019s natural talents and challenges are to be treated as \u201ccommon assets.\u201d And common assets are to be controlled by the government.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren infamously said to entrepreneurs about their businesses that \u201cyou <\/i>didn\u2019t build that,\u201d they weren\u2019t misspeaking.\u00a0 A person\u2019s talents and opportunities are not to be treated as his; <\/i>they are common assets to be used for the common good.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Only on such an assumption, an assumption from which the lover of liberty must recoil in horror, can income \u201cinequalities\u201d be judged \u201cthe defining issue of our time,\u201d as Obama described it. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to his profile, Darren Hutchinson is a professor of \u201cConstitutional Law, Critical Race Theory, Law and Social Change, and Equal Protection Theory\u201d at the University of Florida.\u00a0 At his blog, Dissenting Justice, Hutchinson takes yours truly to task for a recent article of mine in which I contend that the enterprise of rectifying \u201cincome…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Fallacious Origins of Socialism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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