GUEST POST by Sen. Steven Thayn (Gem County, Idaho) —
I am interested in seeing my fellow man and woman become and enjoy prosperity. When a child is asked what they want to be when they grow up, no one ever says "I want to grow up to be poor." They want to be firemen or policeman or a doctor or farmer. They want nice homes and fast cars with plenty to eat.
Do you know what the greatest health threat there is? You might say smoking or obesity; but, the greatest health threat is poverty. The opposite of poverty is prosperity. So what causes prosperity and what causes poverty. Creating prosperity and avoiding poverty is the simplest social problem known to man; yet, the world has not yet figured out the cause of prosperity nor have they figured out the cause of poverty. So let's spend a couple of minutes on this important topic.
In the dictionary, we find that prosperity is the condition of being successful or thriving; especially economic well-being. Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.
Stated simply, prosperity is the state of having abundant stuff while poverty is the opposite; the state of not having abundant stuff.
The question then becomes; how is stuff made? The cause of prosperity is productive work while the cause of poverty is the absence of productive work. This means that poverty can be cured by work. In fact, the only cure of poverty is work. When was the last time you heard the director of a food bank showing people how to work? When was the last time you heard a politician telling the poor they needed to work?
The answer is probably never. Even though any anti-poverty effort that does not require work is destined to fail this fact is rarely mention because poverty is a big profitable business. If poverty where to be eliminated by work, many social workers and politicians would be out of a job!
The accepted modern treatment of poverty is redistribution of wealth or ROW. ROW operates on a very simple principle. It says that poverty is a lack of stuff. Some people have too much stuff; therefore, government needs to take the stuff from those that are prosperous and give it to those that are poor. How foolish! This is like the old practice of taking the blood out of a sick person to make him better. George Washington died from this practice. He got sick so the doctor removed some of his blood. Taking wealth from the prosperous and giving it to the poor without a requirement to become productive increases the number of those that take and reduces the number of those that produce.
If poverty is lack of stuff, then the cure is to have the person produce his own stuff not take the stuff from someone else. Poor people consume more stuff than they produce while a prosperous person produces more stuff than he consumes. If social workers and politicians were really interested in ending poverty which requires the production of stuff, they would make a study of production and help everyone produce more stuff. The main reason big government types do not make a study of production is because production takes place in private businesses and for profit companies. Production does not take place in government. To focus on production would mean the expansion and praise of private businesses, the expansion of factories, the increase in mining, oil drilling, and use of natural resources on federal land.
Prosperity or production requires three components: labor, natural resources, and capital. Imagine a logger cutting down a tree with a chainsaw. The man is the labor; the chainsaw is capital (capital increases the efficiency of labor); and, the tree is the natural resource.
Modern society is making three critical mistakes that are going to lead to widespread poverty unless these three policies are not reversed.
I am interested in seeing my fellow man and woman become and enjoy prosperity. When a child is asked what they want to be when they grow up, no one ever says "I want to grow up to be poor." They want to be firemen or policeman or a doctor or farmer. They want nice homes and fast cars with plenty to eat.
Do you know what the greatest health threat there is? You might say smoking or obesity; but, the greatest health threat is poverty. The opposite of poverty is prosperity. So what causes prosperity and what causes poverty. Creating prosperity and avoiding poverty is the simplest social problem known to man; yet, the world has not yet figured out the cause of prosperity nor have they figured out the cause of poverty. So let's spend a couple of minutes on this important topic.
In the dictionary, we find that prosperity is the condition of being successful or thriving; especially economic well-being. Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.
Stated simply, prosperity is the state of having abundant stuff while poverty is the opposite; the state of not having abundant stuff.
The question then becomes; how is stuff made? The cause of prosperity is productive work while the cause of poverty is the absence of productive work. This means that poverty can be cured by work. In fact, the only cure of poverty is work. When was the last time you heard the director of a food bank showing people how to work? When was the last time you heard a politician telling the poor they needed to work?
The answer is probably never. Even though any anti-poverty effort that does not require work is destined to fail this fact is rarely mention because poverty is a big profitable business. If poverty where to be eliminated by work, many social workers and politicians would be out of a job!
The accepted modern treatment of poverty is redistribution of wealth or ROW. ROW operates on a very simple principle. It says that poverty is a lack of stuff. Some people have too much stuff; therefore, government needs to take the stuff from those that are prosperous and give it to those that are poor. How foolish! This is like the old practice of taking the blood out of a sick person to make him better. George Washington died from this practice. He got sick so the doctor removed some of his blood. Taking wealth from the prosperous and giving it to the poor without a requirement to become productive increases the number of those that take and reduces the number of those that produce.
If poverty is lack of stuff, then the cure is to have the person produce his own stuff not take the stuff from someone else. Poor people consume more stuff than they produce while a prosperous person produces more stuff than he consumes. If social workers and politicians were really interested in ending poverty which requires the production of stuff, they would make a study of production and help everyone produce more stuff. The main reason big government types do not make a study of production is because production takes place in private businesses and for profit companies. Production does not take place in government. To focus on production would mean the expansion and praise of private businesses, the expansion of factories, the increase in mining, oil drilling, and use of natural resources on federal land.
Prosperity or production requires three components: labor, natural resources, and capital. Imagine a logger cutting down a tree with a chainsaw. The man is the labor; the chainsaw is capital (capital increases the efficiency of labor); and, the tree is the natural resource.
Modern society is making three critical mistakes that are going to lead to widespread poverty unless these three policies are not reversed.
- First, the current entitlement system pays people not to work. They can only receive Food Stamps or Welfare if they don't work.
- Second, the environmental movement and laws in place restrict access to logging, mining, and farming. Think of the Spotted Own rules that destroyed over 100,000 jobs in the 1990s.
- Third, deficit spending, tax policies and regulations destroy the ability to create capital needed to build productive capacity such as factories or tools.
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