Margaret Thatcher on Socialism

Margaret Thatcher famously said that "the problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."  Here she makes another great observation about Socialism.

Real After Tax Income Growth from 1979-2007

"All levels of income are better off than in 1979... he would rather the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich."

She's absolutely right.  Whenever Socialists talk about income inequality, what they're really saying is that they'd rather everyone was worse off as long as the gap between rich and poor was smaller.  Socialists made their desire most obvious when the Congressional Budget Office released the report that includes this chart on the right.

I look at that chart and think, "Great!  Everyone's income increased over the last 30 years.  The rich got richer, but so did everyone else."  Socialists see it and think, "Those evil rich are even richer than the poor than they were before!  It's not fair!"

The problem is that Socialism is based on envy, and envious people can never be happy with what they have.  What they think will make them happy is for no one to have anything they do not.  In reality, not even that will make them happy.  Besides, as Dan Mitchell explains...

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.