Plundering the Plunderers
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

If we as a nation ever hope to be once more the land of the free, it will take but one thing. People simply need to understand where wealth comes from. It's not that complicated really. What you do is you take what you have, whether it be a plot of land, or a gift or talent, and you turn it into something someone wants. Nobody, with the possible exception of a few crazed PETA-heads, ever sits down for a nice plate full of dirt for supper. The idea is that someone takes that dirt, a few seeds, adds the sun and rain provided by God, and out comes something someone wants, say, carrots. Somebody else takes a bunch of dirt, cooks and distills it, and eventually out comes a nice metal fork with which to eat the carrots.

The importance of this fundamental truth isn't so much so that people will get out there and work. But if people understood this principle, they would probably also understand this fundamental truth about government—it has nothing because it produces nothing. Government is carrion. It feeds off of others. What it has learned, however, is that it will feed better off of others if it can convince some that it feeds them.

Because governments do not produce, all that they spend must first be taken from those who do produce. There are at least two ways of doing this. The first is through taxes. With taxes the state says to those who produce, "I know you produced this, but you must give some of it to us. We will decide how much. If you do not, we will lock you away and take it anyway." The slightly more subtle variation is when the government merely siphons value off of money by printing more.

There are three schools of thought about what dominion minded servants of the king ought to do about the state consuming what we produce. The first, and most common, is, of course, the same school of though that dominates the world. We say, as the state offers us a piece of our tail that they just cut off, "Great! We'll take it. Please, go and plunder my neighbors some more so that I can have more." We then spiritualize our theft by calling it, "plundering the Egyptians."

The second school of thought has slightly more going for it. In this view what we ought to do is carefully calculate how much has been stolen from us. We then make a commitment that we will steal from others no more than has been stolen from us. These folks don't want to profit from plundering; they just hope to break even.

The third school of thought is the rarest of all. With this view you recognize that the state does not produce, and so can only give what it has taken. It recognizes the true nature of taxation and/or inflation. And it refuses to play along. This school of thought figures the only way to get the government to plunder less is if we all accept less plunder. This view alone truly understands that there is no way to punish Pharaoh for his taxing us. We cannot take what he does not have.

With the first school some figure we can really put the squeeze on Uncle Sam if we feed from his trough. The more we consume of Pharaoh's wealth, the more it will hurt Pharaoh. And how does Pharaoh respond to this demand for his plundering services? He rises to meet it. He cannot meet this demand from his own pocket, because he doesn't have pockets. All he can do is reach more deeply into our pockets. When you mug a mugger all you do is encourage him to go out and mug some more.

The second school operates on the same principle. Suppose the government has been robbing you of 5% of your paycheck for the last forty years. It calls this mugging "Social Security taxes." Now you have determined to retire. You figure that you could receive roughly ten percent of your average salary for the next twenty years, and your hands will be clean. When the money is gone, it's gone. The trouble with this is that the money is already gone. Social security is not a savings program for old age. It is instead a wealth transfer program from those who produce to those who no longer do so. It is plundering. That they promised you the money makes no difference. What they promised to do was to rob your children. Don't ask them to keep that promise. By the time you pay this month's social security tax, last month's tax has already been passed on to a recipient, minus, of course, the hefty handling fee for Uncle Sam. It's gone.

We are being plundered. It is a frustrating, maddening, moral outrage. So why would we even think of encouraging the government to do it some more, but taking of that plunder? I'm not asking the outrageous. I drive on their roads. I fly on airplanes that are directed about by federal employees. I even use the local library. But one good place to draw a line is with cashing their checks. If the state is paying for your small business, subsidizing your child's or your own education, making your retirement more comfortable, propping up your mortgage, then do not try to pretend that you are plundering Pharaoh. Instead you are plundering his slaves. And as one of his slaves, I don't appreciate it.

When we are robbed, our calling is to turn the other cheek. Instead we turn around and rob someone else to make it all even. There is something far worse than being plundered, and that is being a plunderer. Get out of that game, and get to work. If you want more stuff, produce more stuff. I know their thieving ways make it harder. But joining them in their thievery only makes it worse for all of us.