Leveling has a variety of meanings in the dictionary. For the purposes of this topic, let's look at it as meaning
to bring to a common level or plane: equalize or
to bring persons or things to a level.
Leveling could also be defined as wealth re-distribution. Taking money or goods from those that have it with the express purpose of giving it to those that do not.
EditSpeech Relevance
In '
Encroaching Control' Reagan says the following regarding the tax system:
We have a tax system that in direct contravention to the Constitution is not designed solely to raise revenue, but is openly and admittedly used to regulate and control the economy and the level the earnings of our citizens, aiming again at that mediocrity which is the utopian dream of the socialists.
A clip from a 1902 history book discusses an early colonial attempt at leveling.
The trouble with leveling is it removes the incentive for anyone to achieve. Those that have know that some of it will be taken, so there is no incentive to achieve at a level higher than what is taken from them. Those that do not have are receiving something for which they did not work and thus are encouraged to never put forth any effort. It is one of the essences of
Communism. While
Communism, in name, didn't appear until
Karl Marx, the ideas behind it are far older. Our
Founding Fathers were not only against the practice, they knew how it had been tried
and failed in the early American colonies.
"The Utopian schemes of leveling [re-distribution of the wealth] and a community of goods [central ownership of the means of production and distribution], are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional."
— Samuel Adams
"That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest."
— James Madison
"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
— Thomas Jefferson
EditSource Links
Leveling (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)Redistribution of Wealth (Wikipedia)The 'Your Money Is Not Yours' Crowd (American Thinker)EditSome Available Texts
History of the United States by William Davidson can be found in e-book form thanks to this Wiki's Administrator. It has been restored and made available to purchase through Amazon.
A History of the United States for Kindle