The sinews of power

There's an old saying that when people say it's not about the money, it's about the principle, it's about the money.

Jeff Miller has a very interesting post that takes us half way to our destination. He discusses capital accumulation with a very concrete example, and points out:

Everyone benefited from my hard work . . . everyone got something in return, whether it was more time with their kids, their wives, their go-carts, whatever. I got money; they got time and leisure. Everyone was enriched by the transaction, but you only care about the money. You want to take more of my money so you can redistribute it back to my customers. But you don’t want to take away their benefits from the transaction and give them to me. You aren’t taxing their family time.

The problem, I’d argue, is that you’re only watching the money. You see enrichment only in terms of dollars. Everyone I dealt with was enriched. We are all richer. There is more to wealth than money.

Bingo. So why is income distribution so popular?

Alas, I have become a nasty, suspicious curmudgeon in my old age. I fear that the noble sentiments of social justice are window dressing for something ugly. Some people think that they're smarter than everyone else, and because of this, their opinions are more equal than others. They also suffer from a big dose of false consciousness - they see themselves as the rightful Philosopher Kings. Once again, their opinions are more equal than others.

And there lies the rub. If the Philosopher King is to rule, He must needs make a difference. Otherwise, why would you need the Philosopher King? To make changes is to require money. After all, money is the sinew of the state, is it not? So where to get it?

You get it from your enemies. People who are not as willing to be led. People who might debate the Philosopher King's vision. The Kulaks.

Miller is too kind:

Capitalists/libertarians like me … we are all unfairly pegged as being obsessed with money. But we’re not; not at all. It’s progressives/liberals who only see money. They see only the accumulation of bills, and never the value that was traded for them. They think that someone who ends up with less money is necessarily poorer; they can’t see that spending money on things can be enriching.

It's not about enriching. It's not about justice. It's about the state and its enemies, and the sinews of power