The Fallacy of Redistribution

Sometimes Mr. Obama's economic naivete and lack of history is stunning—or scary. With the revelation this week of the tape on which he says he believes in economic redistribution of wealth to some (unspecified) extent, comes the need for a history lesson. Not from me, but from Dr. Thomas Sowell, African-American economist at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He schools Obama on what happened in the Soviet Union when government began taking over the agricultural output of the nation's farmers. Guess what? The farmers simply stopped producing and millions of people died of starvation under Stalin. Sowell points out that people are not widgets that can be moved around according to a plan. If people don't like the plan, they react with intelligence and emotion. And people innately don't like what they have produced being taken from them by people who produce nothing (i.e., government). 

Dr. Sowell, author of more than 30 books on history and economics, has the perspective that our president seems to lack. If you have any inclination to vote again for this president, I encourage you to read this short piece (and others) by Dr. Sowell. (This is not a pro-Romney article. It is an article about the lack of historical perspective relative to one of Obama's stated goals.)

Dr. Sowell's article is here.