A Primer on "Social Justice"

Bruce Walker today has an article on the American Thinker entitled Social Justice and Fair Taxes. It is a good introduction to the entire issue of "social justice," which, as is usual for the Left, turns out to be no justice at all. Go read the whole article.

I have wondered all of my working life how the "progressive" income tax system can be termed fair? I have wondered how taxing one person at a higher rate than another can be justified by the equal protection of the law? Wouldn't equal protection require that everyone be treated...well...equally? Mr. Walker delves into these questions:

The snarling face of social justice lies behind the mask of fair taxes. Why should those who earn more pay higher taxes than the rest of us? Do we have some moral claim upon the wealth they create? It is just the opposite: they who produce more have a claim on the rest of us, who consume more than we produce. The titans of industry a century ago -- Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, and the rest -- turned out cheap and high-quality products which were a principal reason for our rise as a great nation. Their personal wealth represented a miniscule part of the national wealth they created.

Men like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, and others lived more to create scientific and technological breakthroughs than to earn money. Indeed, for many of these men, money was simply a tool to allow them to do more good. The same is true today. Microsoft, FedEx, and Wal-Mart created wealth that we consume. These creators, in the equations of economic advantage, owe us nothing at all. We, instead, owe them much. The left's love of social justice does not rest even on the hoary, dull tomes of Marxism. Producers, not consumers, are the exploited in Marxist mythology, and huge chunks of American consumers -- the ones crying for fair taxes -- produce almost nothing.

In these two paragraphs, Walker states both the correct, and the incorrect attitudes towards money. Money is a tool, to be used to create more good. But those who envy others have a perverted sense of the use and value of money, focusing instead on the luxury it may buy, rather than on the use of it to create more good. 

Take a look at this video by Steven Crowder over at Theo Sparks site. It is an interesting look at a typical rich person. Note in the closing lines, where he discusses how his inventory is treated for tax purposes. He has not made a nickel on that inventory, and many things may happen along the way to ensure that he doesn't, yet he has to pay taxes on it in advance. Notice too that he started off making furniture by hand, but discovered that he couldn't feed his family on it. But rather than complain, he looked around and figured out how to do what he loves and feed his family, and the families of 25 other folks as well. This is an excellent film clip that really brings together what it all means.

The idea of a flat tax or now they have reworked into the "Fair Tax" has been around for a long time.  Isn't it time we all took a serious look at it, and applied its principles?