Redistribution vs. Wealth Creation
The “Occupy America” groupies seem to believe that there is a set amount of wealth and since that set amount of wealth can neither be increased or decreased it is their conviction that those who are top heavy in this set amount of wealth should be forced, by the god State, to have their wealth redistributed so that those who do not have as much wealth can have more wealth.
Their are several problems with this but let us first note that when the State, as god, controls either directly or indirectly the means of production or the wealth generated by the means of production what one is speaking of also is the god State being given sanction to control the human mind. This is so because the human mind is that which took abstract ideas and translated those ideas into wealth creation. If the created wealth is not to be enjoyed by the mind that created the wealth but instead that wealth is to be seized then what is being advocated for here is not only the control of wealth distribution by the god State but also the control of the human mind that had the capacity to go from idea, to production to wealth.
Secondly, the emphasis on Redistribution over wealth creation destroys a nations citizenry by cutting the nerve that joins labor to prosperity. If, by the god State’s agency, a morality is inculcated into the citizenry which teaches that those who labor and those who do not labor receive the same wealth benefits then what is incentivized is sloth. If the indigent are subsidized by the god State and if the productive are punished by confiscatory taxation then the consequence will be creation of a citizenry that learns the Aesop tale of the Grasshopper and the Ant is a myth. “Occupy America,” is creating a social order where equality of prosperity through redistribution of wealth means the equality of the ghetto.
Again, we would note here that the very thing that “Occupy America” is demanding (redistribution of wealth) is the very thing that will ensure that they remain penniless, miserable, and discontent. Redistribution of wealth always ends up with economic equality, to be sure, but it is the equality of the miserable. Success for “Occupy America” will not be the lifting of the protesters to grand economic heights but will instead mean the descent of the wealth creators to miserable existence of the protesters.
This bring us naturally enough to our next contrast.
Property as Public vs. Property as Private
If the god State is empowered to redistribute wealth the clear implication is that all property is public and no property is private. What “Occupy America” is advocating is the abolition of private property in favor of all property being public. When “Occupy America” demands the government to take private property in order to spread the wealth what they are advocating is the end of private ownership. Thanks to generations of this kind of thing, our once strong private property rights have been abolished through regulatory oppression, bureaucratic tyranny and unbiblical types of taxation and the consequence is the creation of a social order that represents the Hive, the Borg, and the machine, where all exist for the good of the Queen Bee, or for the favor of the those who see themselves as owning the Machinery.
A Liberated America would return to a emphasis on private property and individual achievement. A Liberated America understands that the security that is sought to be guaranteed by making all property public only guarantees both a loss of personal liberty and the personal security that the belief of collective ownership was thought to assure.
Environment as Sin vs. Man as Sinner
“Occupy America” believes that the reason the some people are “have-nots” while other people are “haves” is because of the evil social order environment that locked people in their place. The belief here is that man is impoverished because of the evil cultural institutional environment that has oppressed men. The solution for “Occupy America” is to dismantle the cultural environment and the social order structures that have turned so many people into poor, and oppressed outcasts. For these protesters we find scattered throughout America the evil is located in what they call the Capitalist environment. This can only be fixed by deconstructing what they are calling Capitalism. Only by doing so, can man be free to reach his true potential.
Liberated Americans realize that if the cultural or social order Environment supports sin and reinforces sinful behavior, it is only because it is first the case that men are sinners. Liberated Americans realize that environment does not create sinners so much as it is a reflection of the culture that sinners construct.
The upshot of this is that “Occupied America” types believe that a Utopia can be reached by reconstructing man by reconstructing his sinful environment and so they demand the “New Soviet Man,” or “The New Humanist Man,” through the building of a New World Order that will so adjust future generations that those future generations will be as perfect as the environment that “Occupy America” types intend to build.
Pursuit of Anarchy vs. Pursuit of Liberty
Our last contrast between “Occupied America” and “Liberated America” is the fact that “Occupied America” crowd believes that Liberty will only be assured by anarchy. The irony in this is that if they are successful to this end the result will be Tyranny since a anarchistic social order is not possible and will always eventually result in a strong man to bring order from chaos.
Actually, as much as people hate hearing this, the only possible way to achieve Liberty is to understand that true Liberty has boundaries and constraints. Further, genuine Liberty can only thrive among a people who share a common worldview since without a shared worldview what results is each man doing what is right in their own eyes. This explains why a Libertarian political stance can only work in a social order context where a shared worldview provides the foundation for a Libertarian ethic. Finally, as it is the case that only men freed from their sins by the payment of Jesus Christ for sins on the Cross, therefore only Christians can build cultures that are characterized by Liberty. All cultures that are not Christian are by definition Occupied cultures. Because “Occupy America” descends from a non-Christian world and life view all that will result from any success they have will be only more bondage then we already have.
This final point explain why, ultimately, the problems we have in our political or economic systems will not be resolved through alterations in our social order. Men enslaved to their sins will always build political and economic systems that reflect their bondage to their sin. Liberty, then, will only be procured by men learning that the only way they can be free of their bondage is by learning Christ. Men who have learned Christ will then incarnate that learning into the free social orders that they construct.
I am adamantly opposed to “Occupy America” because I am convinced that if they are successful the consequence will a even deeper bondage then we currently are living with right now. However, for all the opposition and revile that I have for “Occupy America” I realize that the Liberty they desire will not be had through political or economic systems but only through men and women bowing the knee to a non-Marxist Christ.
