How Socialism Works: Part Two — A Primer for Economic Idealists and Others Who Just Seek Goodness – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

How Socialism Works: Part Two — A Primer for Economic Idealists and Others Who Just Seek Goodness

Dov Fischer
by

When you give someone welfare handouts and food stamps, you help him or her until the cash soon runs out. But when you create conditions that enable such people to obtain employment and to work gainfully, you help them and their future generations for life, even as you imbue them with dignity. People who live off public assistance know in their hearts and souls that they are not keeping up their end of the social bargain. As long as they have any dignity, they are burdened with shame. They are told not to be ashamed: “These are ‘entitlements’! You are entitled!” But people with self-respect know better. People who work and who pay income taxes, however modest those income taxes be, take pride in knowing that they are part of society’s solutions, not its problems. To be sure, some people lack those abilities because of physical or psychological impairments that leave them unable to contribute, and conservatives commit to to their assistance. “For the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore I command thee, saying, ‘Thou shalt surely open thy hand unto thy poor and needy brother, in thy land,’” says Deuteronomy 15:11. Indeed, it is part of the personal responsibility that a conservative bears to assist those truly unable to help themselves. On its face, socialism sounds so fair: To each according to his or her need — and why not? Equality of results. Equality of incomes. No homelessness. Medicare for all. Let us briefly look more closely. Guaranteed Equal Income and Taxing “The Rich” at 70 Percent When people who perform services and tasks are guaranteed a certain income level, with certainty that they will not be fired or reduced in pay, they devote less intensity to their work because they know they will not face consequences for mediocrity. If this phenomenon is problematic at the supermarket checkout counter, it is dire when it reaches air-traffic controllers, commercial-vehicle drivers, and even school teachers entrusted with training the minds of the yo...

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Dov Fischer
Dov Fischer
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Rabbi Dov Fischer, Esq., is Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values (comprising over 2,000 Orthodox rabbis), was adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools for nearly 20 years, and is Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit before practicing complex civil litigation for a decade at three of America’s most prominent law firms: Jones Day, Akin Gump, and Baker & Hostetler. He likewise has held leadership roles in several national Jewish organizations, including Zionist Organization of America, Rabbinical Council of America, and regional boards of the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation. His writings have appeared in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Federalist, National Review, the Jerusalem Post, and Israel Hayom. A winner of an American Jurisprudence Award in Professional Legal Ethics, Rabbi Fischer also is the author of two books, including General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine, which covered the Israeli General’s 1980s landmark libel suit. Other writings are collected at www.rabbidov.com.
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