When leftists, such as leftist university students, are asked about whether socialism would be a good idea or not, one topic that often comes up is that they think that "wealth redistribution" is a good thing and would make things more equal.
Indeed, this concept of "wealth redistribution" is one of their main talking points. However, they don't seem to know what they are talking about.
They talk about it like "wealth" were some kind of thing, like a natural resource, that just exists on its own, like it emanated from the ground on its own, and which some people are simply hogging for themselves, stopping others from getting their share of it. As if "wealth" were like a water spring in a desert, which just emanates crucial life-saving water, and which some bandits have appropriated and taken for their own, and extorting exorbitant prices for from the locals, rather than distributing it fairly and equally with everybody.
They indeed seem to think that "wealth" is something that just naturally belongs to everybody by birthright, and that nobody should have the right to hog it for themselves in inordinate amounts, stopping others from getting their fair share of it. Thus, it's only fair and just that this "wealth" is "redistributed" among people equally.
Of course this is just complete fantasy. I don't even understand what exactly they are thinking.
The vast majority of wealth in society is a product of people's hard work, entrepreneurship, inventions, innovations, services they provide, technological advances, and so on. A good portion of wealth is based on natural resources, but these natural resources are not very useful all by themselves. It's not like you could just dig out, for example, some copper and just have a use for it in order to live and survive. Copper on its own, dug up from the ground, isn't useful as-is. Something has to be done to it in order for it to be useful.
In other words, the vast majority of wealth in society has been created by people. It doesn't just exist all of its own regardless of anything. Wealth is a product of people's work, labor, ingenuity, inventiveness and techniques.
Things like companies and corporations don't just exist on their own. Somebody, or some people, created those companies, built them, did all the work for them to come into existence, and they keep doing work to keep the company running, producing products or services, and earning money in order to sustain the functionality of the company, and the lives of the people running it.
"Wealth redistribution", thus, is not taking some kind of natural resource that exists on its own, and redistributing it more equally among people. "Wealth redistribution" is forcefully taking away the property of people who created it and worked for it, and giving it to other people who have not lifted a finger to make that wealth become a reality.
In other words, "wealth redistribution" is robbery. Theft. It's taking something someone created, without permission and agreement, and giving it to someone else who has done nothing to create that thing. It's like someone spending years cultivating a field and harvesting, preserving and storing food for himself and his family... only for some robbers to come and take the vast majority of that food away, for no other reason that it exists and they are jealous of it, and want it for themselves, even though these robbers didn't lift a finger to help that food to have been created. It's just theft.
Let's assume that this "wealth redistribution" utopia that these people want were to become a reality. What do you think will happen? Will the people who are talented and work hard to create wealth for themselves just keep doing it only for the vast majority of it to be stolen from them, for no other reason that that wealth exists?
Or will they just stop doing it? Why would they work hard to create wealth when they can't keep almost any of it? For what purpose? What possible incentive could they have to keep doing it?
It's quite clear that in the vast, vast majority of cases all these entrepreneurs, leaders, hard workers, inventors, developers and so on would just stop doing it, because there's no point in keeping doing it. There's nothing to be gained from it. Maybe a few will keep doing it for the goodness of their heart and because they are passionate about it, but those would be a minuscule minority. Certainly not enough to keep the economy running like it does.
So, what this "wealth redistribution" would actually do is to just stop the wealth from being created in the first place. The only way such a society could keep producing some kind of wealth would be by creating an oppressive regime and forcing people to work in factories and workshops. In other words, slave labor. Just like what life was in the Soviet Union, for instance. (Where, in fact, pretty much everybody lived essentially in poverty and very poor living conditions, and were oppressed by a tyrannical police state government forcing them to do menial jobs assigned to them whether they wanted it or not, and with little to no choice of job.)
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