Thursday, November 25, 2010

Why Socialism Fails: Free-Riders In The Storm

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 13:  Journalist John Stoss...Image by Getty Images via @daylife
If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free-rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty. -- Townhall Columnist John Stossel
A great US Thanksgiving day article by John Stossel.

Free-riders is a new term to me. It's a term we need to get familiar with -- it describes the problem in a nutshell doesn't it?  I'm thinking of the guy in Charlottetown who does all his work for cash -- I wonder if when his daughter is sick and he takes her to the hospital -- do you think he insists on paying for treatment since he hasn't paid into the system?  I doubt it. He's a free-rider.

Remember -- for every free-rider, there's someone carrying him on their back.

How many free-riders are there on your back?  Or, more to the point, how many do you want there to be?  The answer to this question will drive your opinion for or against socialism -- unless, of course, you plan on being a free-rider yourself.

PS -- Happy US Thanksgiving!
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2 comments:

renegade tory said...

This is the very thing Thatcher railed against during her reign as PM, it wasn't as much about the economic repercussions as it was about the lack of morality that socialism encourages. It encourages us to be lazy.

johndoe124 said...

Free riders?

You mean like the whole Green Energy Industry?

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"