I think we are getting as crazy as the French. The front page photograph in this morning’s IBD is an Associated Press photo of protesters holding a banner. Under the photo is this description:
“CRISIS, IT’S THEM” reads a banner paraded through Bordeaux on Thursday. More than a million people marched in 200 protests around France to demand the government do more to overcome the economic crisis. The French economy, sluggish even before the crisis, is shrinking at the fastest pace in more than 30 years. “We need a general rise in salaries and a better distribution of wealth in this country,” said one Paris protester.
Let’s unwrap that protester’s comment a bit. Is he asking that the French government redistribute the wealth of France? Is he asking the government to set all salaries the same? Or both? Either way, he is asking for the government to use force against the people of France. Forcibly to take away wealth from people who have worked for it, or forcibly to set the salary of the ditch digger the same as the salary of the highly trained scientist or engineer.
If that is done would a person invest the time and effort to learn to be a scientist or an engineer in order to earn a larger salary? I think not. If I could have made as much pushing a broom as I could have made during my career fixing computers or programming them, I would not have put in the many hours of study to do so.
Let’s remember Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”
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