Income Equality By Any Other Name...

Income Equality has had many names over the years. Marxism begat Communism. Communism developed a bad name for itself and it was diluted to Socialism--a kinder, gentler version of Communism.

When Socialism squandered its limited appeal, socialists hijacked the terms Liberalism and Progressivism (how can retrogressive policies be progressive? Puzzles the mind.) The problem with those flags of convenience is that they only fool a few sailors some of the time. Most of the sea dogs know who is really at the helm. Aye mateys.

Latter day Marxists hide behind banners that read "Social Justice" or "Economic Justice" or "Income Equality." It's the central problem with Leftists. They are fundamentally dishonest people who are dishonest with themselves. They don't like to put their cards on the table. They believe that they can change the content by changing the label and fool some of the people some of the time. They often fool themselves in the process.

Income equality has two major problems. One is history. The Soviet Union did not help in selling the program. Nor did Chairman Mao. Roughly half of the world got to experience a worker's paradise and most of them hated the experience. The record of Marxism/Communism/Socialism/Watered Down Marxism/Watered Down Communism/ Watered Down Socialism/ Flavor Of The Month Labelism or any other repackaging of Collectivism spawning economic viability for entire countries is not something the Feel-Gooders like to discuss.

The other problem with Income Equality is that no one believes in it. If Barack Obama believed in income equality he would not accept a salary larger than the worldwide median per capita income of $2,920. We could be generous and award him the worldwide, median household income of $9,733. Or we could really be kind and award him the median household  income of the United States, which happens to be about $43, 000. I don't think Barry really wants income equality.

But let us not pick on Barry. If Tom Hanks, Beyonce, Matt Damon, Oprah, Michael Moore--we could list a phone book of names here--believed in income equality, they would surrender to the IRS every penny over $9,733. If one Bernie Sanders or one Alan Grayson or one Ralph Nader or one Phil Donahue or even one NPR or PBS or Associated Press employee put their money where their ample mouths happened to be, it would result in a man bites dog story no one could ignore. But no one really believes in income equality. No one.

So if we watch the State of the Union address we will see a bullshit artist faking compassion. We will hear bullshit pundits offering their praise for the phony displays of compassion. We will be hit with focus group-tested slogans. We will hear the conflation of poverty and income inequality in a boldly deceptive display of flim flam and duplicity. What will be missing?

There will be no hope.

There will be no change.