The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example.
In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of the society more prosperous. But when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce. As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler's Holocaust in the 1940s.
How can that be? It is not complicated. You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth  and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.
Farmers in the Soviet Union cut how much time and effort they invested in growing their crops, when they realized that the government was going to take a big part of the harvest. They slaughtered and ate young farm animals that they would normally keep tending and feeding while raising them to maturity.
It is truly mind boggling that some folks who are able to read and write are still unable to grasp these elementary concepts.
What is mind boggling is that Sowell seems to be saying that the economic system of
the Soviet Union is just about the same as the progressive taxation, which has proved pretty successful
over the years, of the U.S. Well, it's not all that mind boggling because both Sowell and Foolgle are pretty much nitwits when it comes to just about any topic. Hey since the BRN one-man nanny state isn't here, make that shitheads.
Gee, just when you get used to that darker color, it's changed around. Yeah, the new one is easier to read.
