No One Got Rich On His Own

[filkertom]

Elizabeth Warren, Senatorial candidate (D-MA), says succinctly what I was trying to say yesterday.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Yep. This is similar to my longtime answer to all the "self-sufficient" glibertarians, which I always posed as "How many people did it take to put your last meal on the table?" If they don't mention the farmers, the farm equipment manufacturers, the road construction crew, truckers, truck manufacturers, oilfield and refinery workers, manufacturers of the tableware, table, house construction crew, I can start counting them off.

The key is that we're not independent, we're interdependent, and bear some responsibility for seeing that the system keeps working.

Warren is one of the out-of-state candidates who's getting my money this election cycle (along with Alan Grayson and perhaps one or two others).

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Warren for President in 2020!

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Harding's dead, surely?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I hear all this, oh this is class warfare, no! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. 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. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... 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.

It's the underlying social contract libertarians conveniently forget about and/or dismiss. I would go so far to say that no one has ever succeeded on their own. No one has even gotten by on their own either. Being on your own means one thing: death. Always has, always will.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Libertarians, alas, don't believe in the social contract.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Fortunately for them, however, the social contract believes in libertarians. (Though there are times we may wish it didn't, for demonstration purposes only.)

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Always remember that life in the state of nature is like a dwarf with a hangover.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Heh, was wondering who'd catch that first.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Hoping we'll get to vote for her...