Among the surplus of annoying, demagogic talking points put out by the class-warfare crowd, one in particular consistently stands out, in my mind, as a thorn in the side of reason, and which seems to be perpetually accepted by a great number of the followership in our culture. That statement is, 'The rich are always getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking.'

There is not a shred of honesty to the statement and a moment's consideration could expose it as an outright lie, if only such consideration were given a chance.  After all, that is half the reason for having a 'talking point', that declared notions are accepted readily and without question.

So, why does this statement grate me so much? I suspect some of my frustration stems from overexposure to this nonsensical, bilge but I will set that aside for now and focus on the meaningful reasons.

The rich are always get richer... This statement cuts right to the core of the need for law. It is stated that 'The rich always get richer,' as though this is a problem, as though people putting forth effort to improve themselves is somehow bad. In a free market economy, in order for a person to acquire wealth, he must please someone! Many people, noting objectivist libertarians, hold that the greatest charitable act anyone can undertake is to provide for oneself and thus avoid ones own 'burden to society'.

And the rich, generally speaking, do, indeed always grow their wealth. But how do they go about it? Do they break down doors and steal from bank accounts? No, they engage in market commerce, most often investment in businesses, which employ people to create products and services that other people want and want enough to trade the performance certificate of their effort (money) in exchange for those goods.

Notably, in a free market economy, everyone gets richer. A rising tide lifts all boats. You don't see America's poor still traveling the nation by equestrian means. Cars were once a luxury. Now, almost anyone can get a car and through many different means. Pick any area of American life and you'll see how free market economics has improved the quality of life for everyone. This is an example of wealth.

So, perhaps the statists do not speak merely of the rich getting richer so much as they mean to refer to the rate. It is true, the wealthy in America grow their fortunes at a faster rate than most other people, but there are reasons for that as well. Principally, it becomes much easier to invest in one's own businesses and in other businesses, as a greater amount of generated wealth becomes available. You can hire experts to analyze the markets for you, hire business consultants to streamline your businesses, etc.

But once again, that's not a problem in any way, shape, or form. Businesses almost always employ people and ALWAYS provide a mutual benefit to anyone with whom they engage in transaction. The simple fact remains indisputable that no transaction would take place otherwise. Any transaction which takes place without the impetus of a perceived mutual benefit has taken place against the will of one party, is therefore force, a violation of law, and to be redressed in the courts.

As citizens of moderate means, or even poor means, slowly work to improve their circumstance, it is most common that their effort will pay off in greater amounts over time. The more money they set aside to invest, the more likely they are to reap greater amounts of interest from those investments. Of course, this is risk taking, but on the whole, the average is a benefit when the market is left to the decisions of individuals rather than bureaucrats and commissars.

The poor always get poorer... Many reports have indicated that poverty in America is not poverty as would have been accepted in the eyes of citizens even 50 years ago, much less 150. The poor do not get poorer. They benefit from the rising tide. Products which were once luxuries in the extreme, to be experienced only by the super-wealthy elite, are now available to the lowest earning members of our population. Computers, cars, prescription drugs, air conditioning.... Look around your residence and pick any item you see. Study the history of that item, it's availability in the past, it's function. You will find a quality of life increase in every case. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Now, many poverty stricken people in America never rise from their location in America's supposed 'classes', but the reasons for that point very blatantly to government redistribution. A person whose life is provided for, at the basic level, and as we're doing at the entertainment level, will never see the need to rise out of it, to put forth effort. Welfare programs and redistributionist programs were declared necessary in order to get people out of their dire circumstance. Yet, every year these programs expand their dependents and their budgets.

As far as the "shrinking middle class" goes, I reject the notion entirely that the middle 80% is somehow no longer 80%. But seriously, this comes down to the mutation of analysis. Instead of associating people's quality of life with their circumstance, demagogues have sought to stack the 'rich' against the rest.

Here's what happens; the wealthy invest and as their holdings increase, the growth curves more steeply upward. In America, that upward curve happens very quickly because of the enormous opportunities afforded by a largely free market (which is quickly seeing chains form, unfortunately). As the top 5% begin to reap rewards which are at new levels, the entire graph must suddenly accommodate greater heights of value. So, the 'middle class' is pushed lower on the page, despite being higher in quality of life, opportunity, and even personal wealth. It is noteworthy that people in America have electric power in their homes. This is an example of the bottom of the graph falling off, though the falloff happens at a slower rate than the gain at the top, thus the perceived dominance by the uber-wealthy. Remember that the accelerating growth of wealth is multiplied as available value increases, not only when referring to different people but within a person's own achievement.

This sort of 'stacking' is an emotional argument. It tries to pit one earner against another, as though the two have to assault each other to achieve greater production. Leftists try to show how much more wealth one person has than another while ignoring several key issues, such as, choices made, opportunity available, and quality of life within it all. In those respects, every American is richer, across the board, and specifically because of the right of individuals to keep whatever they produce, in Bradfordian simplicity. Once again that proper, and natural arrangement is being attacked by the demagogues.

Statements referring to people in 'classes' are useless as well. Such an analysis of population is unAmerican. It disregards the notion that people can travel between levels of prosperity based upon the choices they decide to make. Well, does anyone really think that the wealthy simply always were wealthy? Is that even historically possible? The left uses a term quite often, 'robber-baron', to describe the top 5% of wealth holders in America, as though the mere fact that they have more than others can only mean they assaulted those others to have it. But the wealthy do not steal from anyone, by and large. They create that wealth by engaging in productive commerce which would not have been produced otherwise.

Next time you hear the statement that the "rich are getting richer", ask the demagog/sheep why that is. Invariably, he will state that it's 'obvious' because the wealthy 'have so much more than everyone else'. Then point out to him, that is a result, not a reason. When it comes to war, no statist makes the case that the ends justify the means, and yet, in economics, they try to state that unequal ends make injustice of the means.

I submit this; in economics, the means always justify the ends. ALWAYS. When people engage in free commerce, the results are theirs to decide. They have only to set a goal and find a way to achieve it by mutually agreed upon transactions. Or even no transactions at all. Suppose I wanted corn. I don't necessarily need to buy it from anyone. I can buy some land and grow my own (barring the court's decisions, anyway).

Jason Lewis once pointed this out, and it really stuck with me. There are two types of equality which cannot be combined. There is equality under the law and equality of results.

Equality under the law is civil protection from force and fraud and national preservation from both. Equality of results is a perfectly equal divvying up of all valuable items amongst a given population, and is absolutely mythical at best (See Getting Specific on Material Equality). Thus, equality of results demands an inequality under the law, because the certainty of property rights has to be tightened for some to provide for those who have less and loosened on others to extract from those who have more.

I am not a wealthy man, far from it, in fact. I have a great deal to gain by stealing from those who have more than I do. But then again, those who have less than I, namely most of the world, would have a great deal to gain by stealing from me, following my own example. Sound familiar? I hope it does. Take a look at this quote. "Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another but let him work diligently and build one for himself thus, by example, ensuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." Words of wisdom from Abraham Lincoln.

Violence is done to those who are savaged in Marxist fashion, by demagogues and politicians. It is very concerning that we have covered chains in velvet 'benevolence' to soften the bite of slavery; forcing one man to work for another. I do not stand for such tyranny and insist that every citizen of this nation awake from the slumber of ignorance and roll back the truly despicable systems which are set up to subject some men to the whims of others.

Behavior is regulated by results. Do not stand in the way of those who wish to increase their lot in life from reaping the rewards they've sown, else they will not effort to sew any seeds of prosperity or at best they will sew foolishly. Productivity exists for the sole purpose of prosperity and is best encouraged on an individual level.