From the Right
It isn’t always a bad thing for the rich and poor to clash. Such conflicts are responsible for many of today’s working standards, such as child labor laws and safety regulations. At the same time, class conflict isn’t something that can be swept under the rug.
Despite what many of us are led to understand during introduction to microeconomics class, the market doesn’t solve everything. Class conflict arises because people feel they aren’t given the opportunity to succeed. While the untamed market is a wonderfully efficient machine, it does little to equally distribute opportunity.
Many people born in poor neighborhoods with struggling schools are ground out by the market; left with gangs or the military as their only legitimate opportunity. While life will always select winners and losers no matter what we do, it is within society’s best interest to give everyone the opportunity to succeed.
Those who understand this erroneously conclude that taxation and redistribution is a legitimate solution to opportunity disparity, and thus, class warfare. The well-known problem with this is it destroys the engine of capitalism: incentives.
While I don’t believe that entirely, people who receive welfare or unemployment checks are society’s leeches. I do know it’s hard to stay motivated when there are enough safety nets to ensure you won’t fail.
There is a much more effective solution to class warfare that occupy protesters and bickering presidential candidates seem to miss. Investing in public institutions and infrastructure, rather than redistributing, will go a long way in alleviating class conflict.
Generally speaking, people do not jump between classes. If you were born a middle class American, odds are you will remain middle class. The same is true if you are poor or wealthy.
The reason for this is people generally have access to institutions that are reflective of their economic conditions. The wealthiest families send their children to the best private schools and are raised in environments that foster economic success.
Conversely, America’s worst schools, hospitals and parks, are generally in the poorest regions of cities. From birth we are set up for success or failure based largely on the economic status of our parents.
What would happen, however, if we built public schools that were good enough the wealthy wanted to attend, and accessible enough the impoverished could attend? Suddenly, the opportunity gap becomes a lot smaller and there is less segregation between large and small bank accounts.
Alleviating class conflict isn’t about the redistribution of wealth, but the redistribution of opportunities. Under our current taxation system the wealthy are robbed. Their money is taken and redistributed to people they will never meet, or it is used to build infrastructure they will never use.
If we used tax dollars to invest in mutually beneficial projects — particularly ones designed to help the rising generation — we would all be better off. Better opportunities will open up to those who had few options, and the wealthy will no longer feel as if the government is robbing them.
The beauty of this type of investment is it can be done without destroying incentives. We would, in fact, be creating incentives. The inner-city child whose only option was gang life may now see that he or she has a legitimate chance to earn a degree and be prompted through incentives to become a productive member of society.
What the Occupy movement and current tax system doesn’t reflect understanding of is solving class conflict isn’t about punishing those who succeed in the market. It’s about creating opportunities that enable everyone to succeed.