State of Class Warfare

Last night's State of the Union Address was rather dull. The President offered little in the way of anything new. He continued to spin his usual bombast and, while trying to portray himself as a cross-aisle conciliator, continued his divisive rhetoric and class warfare. He even went as far as to acknowledge (and failed to deny) that many might perceive his proposals and language from a polarizing perspective.

As the State of the Union Address and Obama's past record both indicate, class warfare is a key ingredient in the Left's worldview. It is a perspective that relies upon separating Americans into groups—classes—where the supposedly more fortunate have certain responsibilities to members of other classes. The Left tries to portray itself as the defender of the lower- and middle-classes, against the excesses of the uppermost classes. Accordingly, the Democrats attempt to cast the Republicans as defenders of the rich. Naturally, a dynamic develops, a divisiveness and a sort of warfare, of two-sides where the Democrats, from their perspective, try to claim the mantle of defending the average American against Republican-backed elite.

Unfortunately, this plot line is often successfully bought by the media and many in the electorate. But it unfairly distorts the Republican position. The Republicans (at least most) are not defending the rich, but are defending every American's right to own and keep their property.

This is an inclusive agenda. All Americans should be treated the same, regardless of one's income level. Each has the same claim to the product of his work or investment, whether labeled low-income, middle-class, or rich. In fact, the Republican ideology, if allowed, could completely do away with all of these labels. From the perspective of the government and its laws, there should be no class separations. All Americans should be afforded the same rights and should be treated equally under the law.

This stands in direct contrast to the Democratic worldview, which relies upon labels and divisiveness. The Left loves to classify and categorize individuals, grouping them by economic background, race, or other arbitrary division. Each group is then offered unique treatment, privileges, or responsibilities. This separates Americans and creates undue tensions between truly artificial groups.

Grievously, many accept this portrayal of American society. They cannot help but view America through this lens of autonomous and distinct groups, even though there are far more cross-cutting similarities among Americans than there are Balkanized group identities.

Nevertheless, many other Americans see through this distorted worldview. The low-income Republicans that many academics and pundits like to claim consistently vote against their economic interest are a prime example. It is not necessarily true that the so-called rural social conservatives choose social policy over economic interest. Instead many see the Republican economic position for what it is meant to be—a defense of every American's economic interests.

Whether one is rich or poor, it is in one's interest to have a system that believes that the product of each American's work is his or her own property. The government does not, as the Left likes to believe, have an a priori claim on one's income, thus graciously allowing individuals to keep the residual amount after "proper" [arbitrary] redistribution has occurred. Instead, our income and wealth are our own property and we have the right to do with it as we please. Taxes are to be paid to support the essential services that a government must provide, but these should be based on the proper needs of the system and our responsibilities as citizens to meet these needs, not on some arbitrary definition of "having too much."

Obama and the Democrats continue to distort this message, attempting to confuse Americans into believing that somehow some Americans owe something to others. This is simply not true, yet deeply divisive. Americans are in this together. We have one country in which we must share responsibilities and we should have one set of laws that treats everyone the same.

Class Warfare and the Social Yard-Stick

Class warfare is becoming a full-blown storm on Capitol Hill. It is not really anything new – a time-tested strategy frequently relied upon by the left, but also used by the right. President Obama’s latest deployment was during his announcement of the bipartisan tax deal with Republicans.

Presumably, such a cross-aisle deal is a time to rejoice at actually finding middle ground in the exceedingly divisive Congress. Instead, the “class card” was thrown about. Obama likened the deal to one made with hostage-takers [Can a deal really be enforceable if made under duress?!]. He stated, “I’ve said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed.”

Now, the merits of Republican tactics aside, the interesting issue is the continued desire of American politicians, particularly on the left, to sow the seeds of class warfare. The storyline is familiar – greedy fat cat CEOs, those over $250k not “paying their fair share,” and “tax-cuts for the rich.” Republicans feed right into this game, defending the economics of high salaries and bonuses (needed to incentivize performance), arguing for low tax rates (high rates stifle economic growth), claiming that some “rich” just really are not all that rich, and pointing to all the good that some wealthy do for the community.

All of this is probably true and these arguments need to be made. However, they miss the fundamental point and allow the political game to be dictated on far-left terms. The left loves class warfare. It plays into a multitude of arguments defending wealth redistribution and increased government involvement in the lives of private citizens. But it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what income’s purpose is.

The left looks at income as a sort of social yard-stick, a tool to measure one’s value to society. By this logic the more one makes, the more good they should bring. However the argument goes, there is quite a bit of injustice in the system! Greedy CEOs do not help the country and yet they get rich, while struggling laborers barely make ends meet! The natural solution? Take from those who undeservingly make a lot of money and give to those who deserve it, but do not get it.

Implicit in this argument are at least two assumptions. The first is the particular standard regarding who deserves what. The left has come up with some arbitrary criteria of what is “deserving” and thus how wealth needs to be redistributed. Enter the Republicans – who try to challenge the left’s definition of “deserving.” This is where the class warfare is generally fought. Republicans, for instance, argue that CEOs, for better or worse, do deserve at least some of their recompense.

However, by playing the game of “what social value do [insert: CEOs, top 5% of income earners, those who make over $250k, etc] have,” Republicans are tacitly acknowledging the deeper assumption in this leftist [daresay socialist] argument – that there is even a relationship between social value and income.

The fact of the matter is that income is a measure of one’s services in a given line of work. It is the market’s determination of what value an individual provides for a certain occupation. Income, like the price of nearly every other good, is motivated by a host of factors, including, of course, supply and demand.

However, it is not – and should never be – a measure of one’s value to society. This is too arbitrary of a claim. Society – government in particular – has no right to pass judgment on an individual’s value or their associated income. [Beyond the issue of right – government simply has no, non-arbitrary means to determine value outside of the market-mechanism.] The rich are no more or less deserving of their wealth, than the poor are of their dearth. “Deserving” just simply is not a concept that the government is fit to act upon.

It is time to cut the class warfare. It is far too divisive and harmful for our country. Not only does it lead to strife between individuals and groups, but it creates an environment where the government feels even more compelled to meddle in the private affairs of citizens. One may not like that someone else makes more than him, but that never justifies arbitrarily taking it from him. Why should it be any different for the government?