The politics of legalized theft

What does Marx have to do with it?

One day while coming home from work, you notice a someone appearing to burglarize your neighbor’s house. You stop him as the perpetrator is stuffing his pockets with a handfuls of silverware, jewelry, and loose change.

“It’s OK,” the burglar assures you. You’d next expect that he’d swear that he’s your neighbor’s boyfriend, close relative, or that he had been given permission to gather the items. No, instead he says, “I mowed the lawn, washed all the dishes, walked the dog, and cleaned the refrigerator.”

He then shows you his very thorough notes of his activities, as well as photos — before and after pictures of the lawn, the sink, and the fridge’s sparkling vegetable drawer, and produces a video from his walk with Daisy the Doberman — to back up his claims. At $20 an hour and 5 hours’ worth of work, he figured that he was entitled to $100 in valuables, but the silverware and jewelry (which he found on Amazon) only came to about $95. He found an extra $2.50 in nickels, dimes, and quarters and figured the homeowner would just owe him next time.

Photo by Ali Hadadi Kia on Unsplash

Naturally, you gather half a dozen other homeowners to rule on whether the behavior is criminal. They ask the interloper (as the neighbors’ first vote was that he should not be called a thief), “What will you do with the money?”

He answers, “I have a doctor’s appointment. This will cover the cost of the appointment and the medicine I expect to be prescribed, which will probably save my life.”

The neighbors agree that the burglary is justified, but also that there should be rules — sideboards, really — for how burgles are to be conducted henceforth: only during certain hours of the day, only to cover the cost of healthcare, and most importantly, that the burglar must conduct work for in order to receive someone else’s valuables.

The final point was the most contentious. Some of the neighbors believed that if a person needed healthcare, they should be able to take what they want without having to put in some amount of work. But the majority prevailed and decided that it was only fair that the work is a valuable tool in helping people climb the economic ladder. They even insisted that the work should not necessarily cover the cost of the care; a half hour of dog walking worth $10 should been enough to justify the taking of $100 of valuables, a point to which they all agreed.

---

It would be unseemly for the government to authorize a burglar to come to your house to steal some amount of property to cover the cost of healthcare or food. It would also be unseemly for government agents to do this themselves, going door to door, aiming a gun at you and threating your life if you don’t cough up the funds needed for someone to buy something they consider important or lifesaving.

So instead, the scheme is developed to say that for every dollar collected in the form of taxes, some of that will go to someone who didn’t earn it, and that money will be used for medical welfare, food stamps, housing, or education. To make it seem less unseemly, the government might dictate that the person receiving the benefit has to work to receive it. But it doesn’t negate the evilness. Stealing is wrong.

Politicians support the idea of work requirements for government programs not because work requirements serve the public interest but rather because it serves their interest. It allows them to avoid the hard questions about whether the programs actually work, should exist at all, or represent a form of legal theft. A vote for work requirements is seemingly less impactful on a politician’s reelection prospects than a vote to get rid of someone’s access to food stamps or medical welfare benefits.

Center-right think tanks back work requirements, too, playing into politician risk aversion. When politicians put work requirements in place, a think tank gets to claim victory for their far more easily obtainable policy recommendations enacted, tell their donors about the victory, and raise more money toward their efforts.

Now let’s talk about how this applies specifically to Idaho, starting with the story of a key Republican legislator who wondered whether Karl Marx would approve if Idaho’s decision not to expand Medicaid some years ago: