Can a country be too rich? 

Very funny. The answer is no!

In 1976, we went to a party at a Manhattan penthouse. They had a visiting aunt from then still-communist Romania. Her chief complaint was that  when they have several phones in different rooms, it was “too much.”

My mother-in-law was from communist Czechoslovakia—she was a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance in WWII. When she visited us, she started saving used paper towels because we were “wasteful” with them.

During the time of scientific positivism in the last part of the 1800s, professors were discouraging students from going into science because “everything to be discovered was already discovered.”

This year, the Norwegian prime minister said that they reached a high level of equality in their country and can now go on to other things.

He may be onto something, though his socialist obsession with equality may be overdone. Our 1974 Nobel Laureate in Economics, von Hayek, defines inequality as a sine qua non of a well functioning economic society, in that the inequality functions both as an incentive and a measure of self-improvement. The lack of this is a major failure of Marxism and the pseudo-scientific theory of decadent “Scientific Socialism.”

According to Marx, we were all now supposed to be in a classless society without money, as free enterprise capitalism was supposed to disintegrate because of its "internal contradiction.”

THUS, in communism it was decreed that “everybody would be working according to his abilities, whereas he would be REWARDED according to his needs.” I do not believe that there was ever any more dilettante idea of an economic society ever propounded on Earth.

Here is a simple question: Who would determine your need?

We know that. As von Hayek says, the socialist and communist systems, in their ever-increasing desire to control society and its citizens, want the need of the individual to be determined by the government. Like in communist Czechoslovakia, where we initially did have a perfect equality of outcomes (as opposed to the American equality of opportunity). Except that the communist party brass was naturally more equal than the rest of us, the unwashed masses.

And socialism will not hesitate to use terror to enforce its means, as my wife and her innocent father can attest to: “Terror must remain an important part of socialist revolution.” (Lenin, “Collected Works, Russian Edition,” page 156)

Nearly all of the prewar Czech literary and artistic legacy is either socialist or communist or Marxist. (Many Czechs would disagree.) A well known communist poet, Jiri Wolker, wrote “Poem about furnace stoker’s eyes.” He throws part of his eyes into the furnace with each shovel of coal, loses his eyes, and his coworkers mourn him.

Here is another simple question: What do you think happened after the good Czech voters voted 40 percent communist in the free elections of 1946, and thus made communists the most powerful political party in the land, so the unabashed socialist president Banes could transfer the power to the communists in the Victorious February of 1948, as my wife and her father can attest to. This unfortunate event is now described in the Czech mythology as the “communist putsch,” so the good Czech voters can absolve themselves from their culpability in this travesty.

The answer is that the stoker was now required to attend a 10-minute communist indoctrination every day; it was the only change after he was told the plant was now owned by the people. It was supposed to free him from the alleged alienation from the fruits of his labor.

Unfortunately, none of this is commonly known. Our young generation is said to prefer socialism by 80 percent. New York City just voted in a socialist mayor.

The Czechs, 36 years after the demise of communism, habitually vote former communists and communist police confidants into the highest positions in the land, including the presidency.

The well industrialised, industrious and educated country of the Czech Republic has for no reason whatsoever a standard of living that remains at 65 percent of our standard of living.

This is because there was never any decommunization of the country akin to the denazification of Germany that was performed by the Allies, and the Czechs cannot shake off their socialist habits.  A year ago, there was a debate about whether the government should raise salaries by 7 percent or 10 percent. After I said it was inappropriate to do it by the government, I was called names in a major Czech daily.

Every larger German city sports a Karl Marx Allee; Germans regard him as a great German philosopher, even though Marx was wrong about everything he said, including his decadent economic theory of “value created only by labor.” Communists have again 10 percent of the seats in the Bundestag, under the new name Die Linke (The Left).

So as I said, none of this is commonly known, but we lived through it, and that is why I am writing about it.

But how is this related to the original question of whether a country can be too rich and, by extension, the question of inequality in society?

It is simple: Neither the author of the article or the people quoted or the Norwegian prime minister are able to envision how the increasing wealth of a society, such as hundreds of percent over the last 250 years, would—qualitatively—increase the wealth of the society.

And this is not so remote that the author could not envision how simple internet communication has increased the productivity of our society and therefore its wealth, and how the quality of our lives has improved; consider the simple fact that I can order a needed car part by 4 p.m. and it may be at my doorstep by noon the next day.

And any worries about people becoming lazy because of that are just the false worries of the initiated who take no lessons of history. (1)

Winston Churchill: “The farther into the past you look, the more into the future you will see.”

And that is indeed the biggest lesson from opposing such unthoughtful article.

1. “And any worries about people becoming lazy because of that are just the false worries of the initiated who take no lessons of history.” So why isn’t moral hazard something to take into account? (I don’t disagree with you, actually, but this is an argument a friend and I have. She’s sure that people are naturally lazy and if given the chance, would stop trying to accomplish anything and just drain the government’s coffers.
   
   Von Mises is an occasional opinion column on economics, written by Ivan Orisek of Forestburgh, NY. It’ll look at money and the way money works in America, and show you the numbers behind the headlines.