I have written about how Rome fell, and just by mapping the population of Rome, you can see the fate of many current nations and states operating under poor fiscal policies – people sell and just leave. It is different this time because, under socialism, the government has become abusive. When it came to integration, they sought to implement it by sheer force.
You can’t legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. Jobs are created by the wealthy who become wealthy because of their innovative vision – i.e., Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on. Henry Ford’s vision created the auto industry. Bill Gates, in bringing DOS to life, created the personal computer industry, as did Steve Jobs. How much employment did just those three men create? Far more than government.
Government creates nothing to advance society or to increase GDP in any positive manner. It is a natural human response not to pay taxes and this is why taxes have been the number one reason for civil war and revolution. It is always resentful to pay taxes, whereas giving money to help someone is rewarding. Taxes tend to support politicians and their pensions. If they must sell some assets to take a government job, it is tax-free. Few leave government without growing their net worth far beyond what one could typically earn through income or investments.
The great welfare state has produced a large segment of fraud and kept many people down since they would rather be taken care of than work to take care of themselves. Even in prison, many people are sentenced to 10 or 20 years, and the first thing they do is commit a crime to get back in, where they do not have to pay taxes, and they are taken care of. You destroy people’s lives for such a long period for non-violent crimes, and then expect them to have a fulfilling life thereafter?
In the United States, we have witnessed a significant shift in the population since the COVID-19 pandemic. People are continuing to flee authoritarian states with high taxes like California, New Jersey, and New York in favor of financially friendly states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida.
New Zealand once had a program where if a woman was pregnant and she had no idea who the father was, the government provided everything right down to a free home. They ended up with the highest percentage of women who had no idea who the father of their child was. Naturally, they did know the identity of the biological father, and he would jump out the back window when the social worker visited. They got everything for free then.
Any of these types of programs employ a divide-and-conquer strategy. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government doesn’t first take from somebody else. When you reach a state where 50% of the people depend upon the other 50% to pay their bills, you end up with class warfare and bitterness. This is the cycle where civilization rises, peaks, and then crashes when government becomes the enemy of the people.