When
caught red-handed, what is your favorite defense plea: (a) Guilty,
with an excuse? (b) Guilty, with no excuse? (c) Run from your
accuser? (d) Pin the blame elsewhere? (e) Obscure the issue with
irrelevancies? (f) Other? Cite a case in point. (Serendipity Bible
10th Anniversary Edition, page 1249).
What
we must come to understand flat-out is that mankind has never gotten
it right. In the United States today 20% of the people own 85% of the
wealth and 80% of the people own 15% of the wealth. This is an
egregious situation and cannot be considered fair or right. Yet like
other societies we obsequiously worship “ism’s” rather than
remain open-minded under the Lordship of God and humbly seek fairness
and justice.
Yet
after this long night of darkness even in America we obscure the
issue with irrelevancies. We mystify and glorify entrepreneurship and
impoverish those who make through their labor entrepreneurship
possible. What would I do about it? That is the question that must
confront each one of us who would see the end of humanity’s long
night of injustice. We must pray for courage and boldness in
confronting this issue.
First
off, we must put entrepreneurship in its place. It is an essential
talent and gift, but it is no more essential than many other talents
and gifts that underwrite any healthy society. The entrepreneur who
brings pork bellies to market is unquestionably more valuable than a
Beethoven..... Really? The man who conceived the idea of fast food
should be a billionaire while those who do the work that realize the
dream should receive poverty wages..... Really? We have to take a
long and hard look at presumed entitlements.
One
reason no one wants to tackle this problem is its immense complexity.
Every case is different. Laws related to the distribution of wealth
it is thought would require millions of pages of regulations covering
each and every possible case and scenario. None of us want to proceed
down such a bureaucratic and legalistic nightmare implemented by an
intrusive and (because of the complexity of the task) an inescapably
dumb governmental bureaucracy. There would need to be a
classification system covering each and every job in America and a
listing of what is presumed to be the fair wage for that job – and
to hell with any subtle distinctions, market realities, intangibles,
or the cantankerous continuum from mediocre to stellar performance.
Deliver us from such regulatory enslavement!
So
we must face the simple fact that determining what is fair on a micro
level is an impossible task. Yet on a macro level the current
distribution of wealth in America is clearly unfair. Taxation
(really a method of payback) of the wealthy is the most direct route
to the redistribution of wealth. Yet, wealth so confiscated cannot be
redistributed by welfare payments for this would not provide
incentives for work and creativity but rather instill dependency and
slothfulness and redound with a sense of entitlement as harmful as
that currently presumed by some of the wealthy. It seems to me that
an effective means of redistribution would entail investments in
societal infrastructure including health services and education (to
include higher education and research) as well as the public goods
infrastructure. Thus, for example, though I am a minimum wage worker
at a fast food restaurant without benefits from my employer, I yet
would receive from other sources health benefits and affordable
educational opportunities and enjoy the use of first class public
goods.
America
has nibbled at this idea. It is my belief that this is doable on a
much larger scale. (Yes, I do look forward to everyone who wants
to getting a higher education!!!) With a wider distribution of
wealth, the level of economic activity of our land will greatly
increase. The solution to unfair (and perhaps in some sense
unavoidable) aggregations of wealth can thus be attained.
Let
us in conclusion return to Beethoven. Nature is unfair. It endowed
Beethoven with musical talent that only a few ever have. Yet, his
music—as a public good—enriches us all though cascades of majesty and beauty.
That is what I would like to see in America—a scintillating
fountain of public goods cascading the creations of diverse and
widespread talents and abilities within and among all members of the
American Family—and by extension—even the Family of Man. We can
be the City on the Hill, we can indeed be the Last Best Hope for
mankind. But we must extricate ourselves from our current mental
imprisonments and pyrrhic defenses. We must, in the end, raise our
sights from the current morass and humble ourselves in petition and
prayer before Almighty God.
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