Redistribution of cake may seem like a good idea, but how will you redistribute the fat?

In “honor” of the international holy day of Socialism, I will write briefly again about why I am thoroughly anti-socialism.

Basically, socialism is a movement in which it is assumed that people should not need to take responsibility for their choices. But you can only do this up to a point. Even if we imagine that a society could exist where people will work just as eagerly for the common good as for their own – although no such society has ever existed – we would still only have come a short way. You can redistribute money, but you cannot for instance redistribute health, knowledge, happiness, meaning.

You can certainly redistribute health care. Those who are healthy can work and pay taxes which are then spent for medication, hospital stay, tests, surgery and so on for the sick. Indeed, if the government did not arrange for this, we ought to do it on our own accord. But this can only fix what is broken. We cannot transfer health itself. Health is something more than being repaired every time we break down. Living a healthy life is much more than that. To compare it to something else, even if you are not freezing to death, you are not necessarily warm. In the same way, even if you are not dying, you are not necessarily healthy.

If every person who had functioning legs decided to walk half an hour a day, we would not only save billions in preventable lifestyle diseases. People would also feel more energetic, their mood would improve, they would think more clearly, they would look more pleasing to the eye, and they would sleep better at night. This is not some revelation just I have had, this is solid scientific fact and ought to be in school textbooks if it isn’t there already. As you can understand, only a small part of the benefits can be transferred by taxing those who walk and using that money to patch up those who just sit there.

It is like this all around. If you don’t read good books, no amount of taxing me can give you the knowledge and insight and pleasure that I derive from reading. If you don’t meditate, no amount of taxing me can give you the peace and wisdom that should have been your birthright as a human. If you envy others, your frustration will never stop gnawing inside you. These things cannot be transferred by the state, or by any other human institution.

Redistribution is sometimes necessary, and we should have done so voluntarily. When we as a society did not, we were punished with socialism. But for the most part, redistribution is not possible. Most of life we must take responsibility for anyway, or suffer the consequences to some degree.