This week, The New York Times released a long expose of the shortcomings of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. Long cherished as a crown jewel of Left-wing governmental policy, the NHS has been plagued by massive resource shortcomings, requiring rationing of critical infrastructure and care. Now, citizens are waiting up to 12 hours for ambulances. “It’s a near-crisis situation that experts say reveals a breakdown of the compact between Britons and their revered National Health Service,” the Times reported, “that the government will provide responsible, efficient health care services, mostly free, across all income levels.”
There can be only one excuse for such signal failure to serve the prosperity of your citizenry: the chimera of equality. This, in fact, is the clarion call of the Left: that human beings sacrifice well-being and prosperity on behalf of the cult of equal distribution of resources. Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, says as much in his book, “The Great Narrative”: we should dispense with economic measures like gross domestic product (GDP) in favor of “what matters most: climate action, sustainability, inclusivity, global cooperation, health and well-being.” In fact, says Schwab, “We might even find we can live with such a scenario quite happily!” The end goal will be ending “inequality and the unfairness that underpins it” by enshrining “universal provision of social assistance,” which will require that governments “rewrite some of the rules of the game and permanently increase their roles.”
Closer to home, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie says the same when he argues in favor of government nationalization of all wealth and then redistribution of that wealth on a per capita basis… every generation. This would amount to a complete rupture of property rights — and this in turn would mean the end of innovation, since societies that dispense with property rights and profit margins regress into stagnation and then economic collapse. But at least we will have achieved Bouie’s goal: equality!
Indeed, members of the political Left are constantly asking citizens to simply reframe their perspectives on prosperity entirely. Jerusalem Demsas, writing in The Atlantic, calls on Americans to rethink whether homeownership is worth pursuing, explaining, “pushing more and more people into homeownership actually undermines our ability to improve housing outcomes for all.” Indeed, rather than all aspiring to buy houses and some succeeding, Demsas calls for “public investment in rental-housing quality” as well as government “rent-stabilization policies.” None of this will make it easier for anyone to own a home, but it will make everyone more equal in their government-sponsored tenancy.
President Joe Biden’s entire economic agenda is built around the notion of economic mediocrity rooted in a self-proclaimed higher justice. Paul Waldman of The Washington Post posited this week that Biden had launched an “economic policy revolution” rooted in fighting “inequality.” This would require “more active government intervention in the economy.”
And we will all learn to love such intervention, because it will be done in the name of a higher value: equality. Not equality of rights, but equality of outcome; not equality of value, but equality of resources. The problem with this philosophy is that it removes the incentive for all that creates prosperity: work, creativity, thrift, responsibility. And removing that incentive means more misery for everyone.
Ben Shapiro, 38, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author; his latest book is “The Authoritarian Moment: How The Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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Biden, who has more money that most, has never worked a day in his life and has no concept of what it means to work hard, own a business and provide income for your workers so they can work hard and be successful up to their level of comfort. He has no concept of America and is the last person who should be President of the United States – he hasn’t earned it and he’s done nothing in his life that he brings to the table in the form of leadership and creating a better America. The saddest thing I see are the people who admire Joe Biden. He is the worst image imaginable to represent the American people.
Why do so many people support Joe Biden and his vigorous attempts to destroy our freedom and our nation? I don’t understand why people want this.
No … No….. and No Thank you. Impeach …. Impeach … and Impeach… send the idiot to a nursing home and take America back.
You can love or hate Trump, but thank heaven he built a conservative Supreme Court. We can hope the Constitution will hold until we beat back the communists trying to destroy this country, Biden? He is at the end of his life and could care less. He’s relishing in being Pres and what he leaves behind isn’t a concern. I try hard not to give up, but it is hard.
Bidens justice is not justice at all. It’s not justice to intentionally introduce policies that cause people to lose their jobs, lose their health, lose their wealth. Taking money from the hard working middle class to pay for social experiments and give away programs is not charity, it’s thievery.
Socialism is a way to take away what the common people have & then have a government that takes about 90% of all the money so they can live in luxury & tell all the people that fell into this trap what to do with their life & maybe get a loaf of bread per month. The USA was built with a system that if you work hard, you can raise a family & have a good life & not be controlled by the top govt. fatcats.
When the elites give up their homes on Martha’s Vineyard, then I will be willing to listen. Since that will never happen, the elites may feel free to go jump in the lake.
Hey Leftists, you embrace it first! But do it without taking the money we worked harder for than you would ever know!
That’s why we are called Conservatives!
What a crock! I remember stories about Russian leaders had dachas on both sides while most lived in unheated concrete block flats. Or, as George Orwell said: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
“The problem with this philosophy is that it removes the incentive for all that creates prosperity: work, creativity, thrift, responsibility. And removing that incentive means more misery for everyone.“
Enough said!!
The Democratic Party gives a Rat’s Keister about Equal Rights. It’s a tool they use to convince their Minions to help them gain more power, and control over our lives.
As happens, each and every single time it’s tried; when something is free or greatly discounted, you get much more consumption and eventually rationing! The left hasn’t figured this basic economic principle out yet!
Or they have and just don’t give a sh*t!
Klaus Schwab doesn’t give a rats-ass about people being equal, he really couldn’t care any less if he tried! All he cares about is power and money, period!
His current quest, the great reset and climate change is nothing more than a vehicle to get him there! Power and money…It’s that simple! In his eyes, we’re just insects that are in the way.
Equity is the American progressive’s word for COMMUNISM. The only way to enforce “equity” is by force. Equity doesn’t exist anyway. If I can read a newspaper faster than the next guy there is no equity. And if he can’t read to what level do we go.? Those schools that didn’t reveal national merit scholarship results to students in time for college applications should be jailed on GP. I took that as a junior and wondered why the school told me to take it because I suck at math. Even with that, I was still in the 90th percentile. Carol down below is using a big hammer.
Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984, etc… Science Fiction becomes reality! All humanity, except the elite who run everything, will live in poverty while those same elite live like kings and make excuses as to why they should be allowed to be above everyone else! Lords and serfs? Masters and slaves? It’s all coming if these clowns get their way!!! All for the lust of power! Evil is alive and well in America!
I made a positive reference to your comment in mine. To me, the scariest one is “Animal Farm” and the display of utter hypocrisy. I see the Democratic party and some Rinos racing that way.
Carol I so agree with you. Satan is alive in America, and running it. His helper are the DemonRats, and the RINO’S. He has plenty of help. We need to toughen up. Impeach OR PRISON Biden! Impeach Harris. Get Mitch out. Turn to God, and ask for help now. We are good people, and good can overcome the evil of the DemonRats and the Rino’s.
The Left always makes things “equal” by lowering the achievers instead of trying to ELEVATE those falling behind I saw where schools will not announce winners of National Merit Scholarships because it might “hurt the feelings” of those who don’t excel! What are we, a banana republic? (I know the answer!)
Tc parkinson
“You’ll get nothing and LIKE it!”
We do get something, “The IOU from this giveaway”
The current great political divide in our society has been caused by the effort of some to bring about full scale socialism in America.
Socialism is a false political theory that the elite of some countries try to impose on their people in order to enslave them into the condition of common misery while the elite enjoy privilege and wealth.
The result of the imposed socialism on the masses is always the same, i.e. the people experience a common misery no matter how hard they might labor to earn their own way. Taxes are used as a tool to make sure that everyone’s compensation is “equal”. Only the temptations of envy, greed and sloth lure the laggards and sluggards to vote for political candidates who promise something for nothing.
Socialism has been beguiling human beings since the dawn of mankind. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels popularized it in 1848 when they introduced their work: “The Communist Manifesto”.
This theory has always failed whenever large societies try to use it as a guide for governance.
The true shame? That the majority of the people never learn from the sad history of socialism.
It is not equality they are after. The term is “equity”, primarily heard in the world of finance; however, it is a reimagining of their term “fairness”.