Caution is advised when the word “justice” is discussed today. Nowadays justice is identified with material equality. So, in reality it cannot, should not be the case that there are millionaires or even billionaires while others do not know how to pay rent. Material wealth, openly expressed or at least implicitly suspected, cannot possibly arise from honesty. For socialists, the gap between rich and poor is explained by the false judgment, already refuted thousands of times, that a market economy is tantamount to a zero-sum game and one’s gain means another’s loss. Is.
However, the latter is only true if coercion and violence were involved or involve – in short – if the state’s coercive power activities justify it. The feudal prince or the (elected) president who plunders his subjects undoubtedly acquires his wealth dishonestly. The victim did not give any voluntary consent to the tax bailiff to rob him.
But what about the money that comes from voluntary interactions? Did Elon Musk, Dietrich Mateschitz or Joanne Rowling have to use force to become rich, or did they cheat their customers by fraud?
No, he simply had ideas that fit that ideology that others did not have or did not have in an equally appropriate way – and he implemented them. Whether that be in the form of producing physical goods (in the cases mentioned, electric cars and fizzy drinks) or by writing Harry Potter stories. None of the three named (and this applies to all entrepreneurial people, except some of them criminals) have used or threatened violence against potential customers in order to market their products. Rather, millions and crores of people willingly bought these products and thus made their producers rich. What is there to criticize in this?
If thousands of fans are willing to spend a lot of money on tickets to a pop concert, the star concerned will definitely benefit materially from it. is that wrong? Is it fair to characterize an artist’s economic success as “socially unjust” and demand that the proceeds of his performances be returned to “society”? Hardly a possibility!
Interestingly, the focus of those fighting for social justice is not primarily on artists or athletes, some of whom have amassed incredible wealth, but almost always primarily on entrepreneurs. Although the “super-rich” among them are always attacked in order to activate feelings of envy, in reality it is always the entrepreneurial middle class that becomes the first victim of socialist redistributive fantasies. The middle class still provides most of the jobs in the country.
Regarding the sense of equality: As already mentioned, it always means equality of outcomes. But there are also clever and less clever, capable and less capable contemporaries. Some people create something in their lives and become successful, which is reflected in material prosperity, while others do not. Physical differences, as comrades like to spread, are not simply the result of “undesirable” inheritance, but the result of different talents. So would one want to describe nature, which distributes its gifts unequally, as unjust?
At this point “level playing field” is often demanded. But for various reasons – especially the different distribution of intelligence – these do not exist. Intelligence is related to material wealth. But since no amount of wasted education can turn a fool into a Nobel laureate, the fight on this front is futile.
Conclusion: Anyone who demands freedom (which only a few do today, which does not mean putting their hands in other people’s pockets) must tolerate inequality. But whoever strives for equality will not be able to achieve it without the use of violence. Freedom and equality can exist at the same time only if equality – see Hayek – means equality before the law.
All the measures currently demanded by the Reds and Greens in the spirit of “fairness” (e.g. substance taxes, excess profits taxes or rent moratoriums) represent serious interferences in private property rights – tantamount to robbery. The fact that unlike Switzerland, where such initiatives are always rejected, a majority of voters can be found for such attacks in the country across the river does not diminish the injustice. After all, gang rape is no less than a crime committed by a single perpetrator.
Register partners in the family register: Only when the last net worth taxpayer has been deported abroad and the last medium-sized company has closed down or moved its production abroad, will it become clear that you cannot eat the tax assessment !
