Kanye West
Kanye West is one of my favorite artists at the moment. One of his songs, Jesus walks, is one of my favorites. One of the lyrics in the song caught my attention today though,
" To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah"
What does Kanye mean by 'the victims of welfare'. I can't imagine he means the tax payers whose liberty is eroded to fund the welfare, it is quite obvious that he means those Americans who are in the unfortunate situation of relying on welfare payments. But hang on a minute, what does he mean by victim? Surely this redistribution of wealth is a benefit to those people on the recieving end?
The basis of economic benefits from capitalism are often attributed to Adam Smiths' 'invisible hand'. This invisible hand is the process by which individual profit seeking creates an economic order which is beneficial due to the economic benefits from those things from which a profit can be derived. i.e. a factory owner only owns the factory to obtain a profit from the products which it sells, a profit which he wouldn't get without the factory, in return this creates jobs, both in the factory and to other people employed by other profit seekers supplying the factory. The world is also better off because it also now has the products which the factory produces, i.e. wealth is created, not just for the original owner of the capital (the factory owner) but also to those people who recieved the jobs etc. The one arguement against this is when the capital is used to seek a profit from which no wealth is also created, this doesn't often happen, but welfare is one of those things.
In the welfare system the capital owners (the part of the population are taxed) are forced to provide capital to help the unfortunate people in the society. This 'altruistic' act is all well and good until we examine it a bit more closely. That capital which has been forcefully placed into the welfare system is now unavailable to the economy, therefore less jobs can be created through investment. Also it benefits people not to produce, as the lack of a job can create entitlement to benefit payments. Therefore at one end of the scale we have less capital to create jobs, and on the other end of the scale we have less incentive to seek a job. So who are the victims of welfare? We all are, every single one of us.
" To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah"
What does Kanye mean by 'the victims of welfare'. I can't imagine he means the tax payers whose liberty is eroded to fund the welfare, it is quite obvious that he means those Americans who are in the unfortunate situation of relying on welfare payments. But hang on a minute, what does he mean by victim? Surely this redistribution of wealth is a benefit to those people on the recieving end?
The basis of economic benefits from capitalism are often attributed to Adam Smiths' 'invisible hand'. This invisible hand is the process by which individual profit seeking creates an economic order which is beneficial due to the economic benefits from those things from which a profit can be derived. i.e. a factory owner only owns the factory to obtain a profit from the products which it sells, a profit which he wouldn't get without the factory, in return this creates jobs, both in the factory and to other people employed by other profit seekers supplying the factory. The world is also better off because it also now has the products which the factory produces, i.e. wealth is created, not just for the original owner of the capital (the factory owner) but also to those people who recieved the jobs etc. The one arguement against this is when the capital is used to seek a profit from which no wealth is also created, this doesn't often happen, but welfare is one of those things.
In the welfare system the capital owners (the part of the population are taxed) are forced to provide capital to help the unfortunate people in the society. This 'altruistic' act is all well and good until we examine it a bit more closely. That capital which has been forcefully placed into the welfare system is now unavailable to the economy, therefore less jobs can be created through investment. Also it benefits people not to produce, as the lack of a job can create entitlement to benefit payments. Therefore at one end of the scale we have less capital to create jobs, and on the other end of the scale we have less incentive to seek a job. So who are the victims of welfare? We all are, every single one of us.
posted by Dan at 7:57 PM
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