Redistributing Wealth From the Poor for the Greater Good is Still Socialism...

polifrog

In all fairness where I am about to go has nothing to do with the article referenced but a portion of the article does dip into a topic of interest; the scope and morality of socialism:

... in 1994 with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened the American-Mexican border to more economic activity. To encourage foreign investment in Mexico, its government started to strip Indian landowners of a long-held legal protection from privatization. The resulting conflict awakened ethnic tensions that dated back centuries, and spurred a populist support of indigenous heritage.

What interests me here is that the Mexican government recognized a social benefit for Mexico in increasing foreign investment. Whatever the merits, Indian landowners retained legal protection from privatization that hindered much needed foreign investment. Mexico's solution was to strip the Indian landowners of those legal protections that stymied foreign investment for the greater good of the state.

It seems to me this redistribution of "wealth" from the poor (rights of the poor were removed) for the greater good.... is socialism. All but the most socialist of us would rightly recognize this as a wrong. However, many of those individuals who see it as wrong to redistribute wealth from the poor for the greater good see no wrong in redistributing wealth from the productive for the greater good. But if all individuals are inherently equal then where is the morality in treating the poor differently from the productive?

The extreme socialist, of course, has the answer; that the greater good is always moral and that there is no wrong in redistributing wealth from the poor.

The moderate socialist, though, chooses to completely deny that redistribution of wealth from the poor for the greater good is socialist. They prefer, instead, to lay blame on those who benefit; corporations are for them the usual bogyman and, of course, the perennial favorite, America.

The fairer and more moral answer is to understand that socialism is fundamentally immoral and therefore no morality may be gleamed from it.







H/T to Ed Cone for referencing the linked article.
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