A response from the dispossessed poor

For those who have been reading Troy Smith’s series on “Dispossessing the Poor” waiting for my response, here we go. Troy’s representation of history is accurate but skewed by his personal beliefs. Let me unpack this by starting with the title. Dispossessing is the act of taking something away from someone or some group. In this case, I believe Professor Smith is talking about how wealth was taken from the poor. The only problem is that the poor generally don’t possess wealth, lands, or anything else our rich and powerful overlords are interested in attaining (that’s sarcasm). His series could have been more accurately titled “How the man has kept the little guy down.”

First, if socioeconomic improvement could only be gained by causing the downfall of others, wouldn’t desiring such improvements be evil? “Dispossession” is a common talking point for those who support socialism, communism, collective bargaining, and reparations. It is often used by those jealous individuals looking to blame their lack of success on the success of others. These individuals believe economics is a zero-sum endeavor. Zero-sum means for someone to gain, others must lose. Those ascribing to the zero-sum theory believe wealth can only be transferred. They seldom believe that wealth can be transferred by honest means and do not believe that wealth can be created at all. They feel that if I invent a product, organize its manufacture, publicly sell it, and gain wealth from the process, it can only be due to my unfair practices and greed. I either needed to pay my workers better or charge my customers less. It doesn’t matter if my employees are happy with their terms of employment and my customers are satisfied with their purchases. I became wealthy, so I must have cheated others out of their “fair share.”

I, like most Americans, dream about life-changing wealth. At 55, I have little faith I will ever attain such economic status. Besides, I spend most of my money on others anyways. Having more would allow me to give more, but that would be my choice, not an ethical requirement. According to the zero-sum believers, we should all want to achieve an equilibrious state where we each have the same level of wealth. This state was Karl Marx’s idea he wrote about in the “Communist Manifesto.”

Marx dreamt of a world where everyone would contribute equally and receive an equal share of everything. Marx’s vision wasn’t evil. He just gave human beings too much credit. Humanity is incapable of maintaining such a romantic fairytale. Besides, that sort of society is a breeding ground for mediocrity and stagnation. Troy is an author as well as a professor. I bet he has dreamt of having a bestseller. In Marx’s utopia, bestsellers wouldn’t exist because all books would have the same worth. That is an oversimplified exaggeration of communism, but it is the basic theory.

Troy likes to mention how some use segregating “us” into groups to maintain power. He is accurate in his writing but stops short of admitting that both sides do it. When liberals talk about the “little guys” needing to stick together, it is because they know most of us feel we are the “little guys.”

I trust that Troy knows the history he writes about, but I believe he finds an entirely different lesson from that history than I do. I enjoy reading Troy’s articles and discussing various topics with him, but, despite our similar childhoods, we have vastly different socioeconomic beliefs. I know history contains examples of human atrocity. I also know there are examples of individuals who created wealth without dispossessing others. A “free economy” means the possibility of abuses is present. It also means creating wealth is possible. Perhaps, in the future, I will address some of Troy’s other skewed observations over a multi-week period. For now, I encourage you to think for yourself.