Elizabeth Warren Can’t See the Forest Through the Trees Planted by Capitalists

Elizabeth Warren certainly is popular with my Leftist connections on Facebook. They proudly copy and pasted her comments:

I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No.

Yes, it is class warfare to target the "rich" – by definition.

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own -- nobody.

Well, no, there isn't, because someone else has to buy the good and services provided by the rich. The fact is, nobody really does ANYTHING on their own, but we still need to have boundaries. There still needs to be some level of personal autonomy, private property and ownership, and personal responsibility. Should Warren be elected to Senate, she will not have done it on her own, yet she will not be forced to let more than a third of her votes be cast by someone else.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.

The rich paid for those roads, too. All of us - who buy gas, anyway - paid for those roads, all of us can use them. Even the people who don't buy gas.

You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.

Property owners, a group which definitely includes the rich, paid to educate them. But I'm for separation of state and school anyway.

You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for.

Again, the rich pay for them, too – more so than other people.

You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory -- and hire someone to protect against this -- because of the work the rest of us did.

Uh, is there a factory that doesn't have private security?

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless -- keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

And why does that have to be through the hands of D.C. politicians? Who is it that is funding charities, anyway?

No doubt unwittingly, Elizabeth Warren actually makes our point for us – that by letting free markets work, people who build wealth employ other people to mutual benefit. The wealthy got wealthy, in part, through providing jobs.

The people the wealthy hired were compensated as agreed. The customers who bought the goods or services provided by the wealthy were given that for which they paid. Now, people like Warren want to ignore the fact that the mutual, voluntary transactions were completed and use government force to make the wealthy pay more not only to those already compensated for their work, but to uninvolved people who refuse to work at all.

Are we to believe that someone who studied hard and stayed clean and involved through high school, college, and medical school to become a doctor and works long and odd hours saving lives and then practices good financial habits has less right to enjoy the fruits of her labors and risks than someone who goofed off, dropped out, abused substances, caused trouble, watches the clock at his entry-level job to make sure that he never appears to be working a minute more than 40 hours per week (minus breaks), and blows his money?

All of the things Warren lists have been available to all. It is the wealthy that used them in ways valued most by society.

You can find some good responses to Warren here, here, and here.