General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: No one in the world should have a net worth of a billion dollars. No one. [View all]DFW
(54,410 posts)The trouble with Marxism ("from each according to his ability to each according to his need"--from the original French, but popularized by Marx in 1875) is human nature. After the State was done collecting all the wealth, the redistribution went heavily skewed toward the ones doing the redistributing. Funny thing about that. In every so-called "people's republic" or "democratic republic" under the banner of true socialism, the governing elite became the new elite. The ones calling themselves everyone's "comrades" didn't turn out to be very comradely once they had grabbed the reins of power. I remember a group of idealistic soldiers in the bush of the future Zimbabwe singing "long live comrade Mugabe, Mu-ga-be!" I wonder if they're still singing it.
When you figure out how to re-program human nature, and to convince everyone to have it done to them voluntarily, let me know. We have little to fear from the abstract concept of wealth re-distribution. We have much to fear from those who would enthusiatically offer their services as re-distributors. I'd rather live in a country with billionaires than Khmer Rouge re-education camps.