In the last article, you can find here, I raised an important question within the framework of government-management of the economy and taxation, via welfare programs etc, to effectively distribute social equality within the country. Basically the question was "how do you go about achieving social equality without wasting money of individuals/families who could help themselves?"; I also said it was a trick question.
Here is the reason it is a trick question: in order to 'right' the 'wrong' of income and property inequalities, you must steal from those who have income and property to redistribute to those without, thereby doing a 'wrong' to achieve a 'right'. And no matter how you justify it, it simply boils down to theft. Whether this theft is in the form of taxation, fees or a levy, you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. Therefore, this exposes the original question to be 'how do we effectively steal from people and redistribute it effectively'. This central fact cannot be misconstrued: government-managed social equality demands the theft of property. Social equality commits social inequality by stealing more from people who have more property than their neighbors.
Social equality is the 'god that failed'. It is a state of Marx's classless society that hopes to minimize the majority of social tensions. Governments, particularly that of the left (although the right do it to appease popular sentiment), simply believe that equalizing income and property will minimize the capability of individuals to covet each other's property and thus reduce acts of aggression to achieve their own personal 'equality' (i.e. murder and theft). On a meta-scale, this is a question of human nature: are human beings the product of their environment, that is to say that they inherently good people, but corrupted by society? Or are people inherently bad and we need laws and incentives to minimize harm?
If humans are inherently good, then the reason they are bad is due to the structure of society and local communities, which is why government intervention is necessary to shape the environment of society. However, if humans are inherently bad, then the government's responsibility is to ensure that laws are set in place to protect the rights of individuals from being violated by other individuals domestically and internationally. These are two profound world-views, and as you may have guessed, I subscribe to the latter.
Free markets (free from government-intervention) and capitalism exists to allow the opportunity for individuals to keep what they have earned by providing goods and services to their fellow man. Now before you burn me in effigy, neither Australia or America have free market capitalism (FMC) and the picture of global corporations is not a product of free market capitalism but mercantilism and other government-spawned abominations. The reason countries have prospered and risen out of poverty, formed a wealthy middle class, is due to FMC principles, not government managed welfare to achieve social equality nirvana.
The natural right to produce, own and keep property, spend or trade property and give property charitably to whoever you choose, is the foundation of a free and prosperous society that ultimately achieves a higher standard of living to every class.
God bless,
Washo