EricHoefler.com

I got an email the other day that contained the content of this post. In the post, the author creates an analogy that’s supposed to explain the problem with Obama’s "spread the wealth around" statement to the now (in)famous Joe the Plumber. Take a minute to read the analogy before you continue …

Here’s my response:

The problem with this analogy is that it’s a strawman. If this were an accurate analogy of what Obama intends, then it might have some merit. Unfortunately, this analogy isn’t accurate.

This might improve the analogy a bit:

• The waiter is a single dad of two who works at the restaurant as a second job because he wants to put his kids through college.
• The homeless man is, for the sake of this argument, just a distraction from the actual position.
• The patron is only visiting this town because he owns a second home here, and he’s only in the restaurant because his friend owns it and promised him a great meal, on the house.
• The owner informs his friend that, by local law, if a patron eats for free, he must pay a 30% gratuity on what the cost of the bill would have been. The patron can easily and obviously afford this (given that he didn’t pay for the meal and that he has at least two houses, etc.). Furthermore, if the patron can’t afford this tip, he shouldn’t be hanging out with his friend at his second home … he should be managing his wealth better.

But the other problem with this analogy is that it suggests this is about taking money from person X and giving it to person Y. It also suggests that "redistribution" of wealth is some new idea. Neither of these positions are accurate, either.

All governments work by redistributing wealth: taking money from the people and using that money for various purposes. Bad governments use the money to make themselves and their friends rich and send themselves on expensive vacations (where they then eat for free). Good governments (ha!) use the money for the common good. Either way, money is being redistributed. The question isn’t "if" this is happening, but "how." And for the past eight years, the redistribution has gone to the wealthiest 5% of Americans (who already own more wealth than the other 95% put together).

Obama’s position is that the people who make significant amounts of money can afford to contribute more to the common good than those who don’t make significant amounts of money. However, both groups still contribute. And no one group benefits from this directly. How that money gets spent, though still important, is an entirely different issue from the argument of this analogy.

On the other hand, McCain follows the principle that if we allow the people who make more money to keep more of that money, then they’ll do things that benefit the common good (like create jobs, etc.). The problem is, this relies on the good intentions of the wealthy and ignores the influence of greed. Furthermore, if the wealthy don’t use their wealth to contribute to the common good, there’s not much that can be done about it. In contrast, if the government uses the money in ways that don’t contribute to the common good, then there are methods of redress (public denunciation, legal action, impeachment, or simply not re-electing those political figures).

To change the restaurant analogy to fit McCain’s position, the patron wouldn’t be paying for the meal and would not be asked to leave a tip. Instead, everyone would just hope that this wealthy man would go back to his first home and, since he’s been keeping all those tips for himself, open his own restaurant so more single dads could pick up second jobs and, sometimes, get nice tips from other wealthy people who could afford to tip well and who might actually do so … though it wouldn’t be required.

Greed and the corrupting influence of power are well-established (and the past month is just more proof for the pudding). This is why a rule by law that is accountable to the people (democracy) is preferable to a rule by the powerful (fascism), the privileged (aristocracy), or the rich (oligarchy). Democracy isn’t perfect, but it sure beats everything else we’ve come up with so far.

Notice, too, that this is not "socialism." Obama is not arguing for government control of the production of wealth, nor is he arguing for government control of how all wealth is distributed. He’s simply saying that the very wealthy can afford to contribute more to the government which should, in turn, use those funds in ways that will benefit everyone. Charges of socialism are, again, distortions of his position and more "strawmen" for the burning.

Before I close, it’s worth noting that the bailout that Bush just approved (and that McCain and Obama both supported, unfortunately) does push us further in the socialist direction in that it moves more of the production of wealth into the control of the government and, incidentally, "redistributes" more wealth into the pockets of the already-wealthy. Of course, a deregulated economy (the opposite of socialism in many ways) is what led to the need for this bailout in the first place. This should make it obvious that what we need is not X or Y, black or white, but a balanced approach to government that recognizes the extremes of ANY position are problematic at best and dangerous at worst. I believe Obama has a better sense of the need for balance than McCain, and since I believe in balance, I will vote for Obama. He’s not a savior, but we need to re-balance this country. The extremes of the Bush administration have done nothing but harm us politically and economically, have weakened our constitution, and have hurt our standing with the rest of the world.