The defining narrative of the last 30 years is the way the world has been dominated by the free market ideology of of Milton Friedman and the 'Chicago School' of economics.

The loss of manufacturing and the move to financial and service 'industries' (for want of a better term) is the result and it reveals the hollow way of trying to generate wealth without adding very much to the real economy of a country. It's a rapacious and short sighted model with the idea of generating quick profits for shareholders or to fund mergers and empire building; hence the inexorable rise of the corporation.
To all the Americans here who deplore 'big government' I say this: your corporations are your government, pure and simple, as they are in all the supposed 'free' world. You do not have a democracy, you have a plutocracy as we do in the UK and most of the capitalist world. Accept that as the problem and you can begin to deal with it.

But lets address for one last time the idea first put forward, that redistribution of wealth harms or penalizes the strong, the different, the talented and the achievers and favours only the weak, the dependent and those who willfully do not contribute. (with the emphasis on the wilful non-contributors as if they defined the classification a whole and as if the deserving poor should have to lose out because of them).

I cant but see this idea as anything other than the social/philosophcal equivalent of the very sort of Darwinist 'survival of the fittest' imperative you as a Christian country would surely deny even exists let alone encourage. But there you are, perhaps in denying its existence in the natural order you inadvertently allow it greater hold over your subconcious than if you were to acknowledge that without due diligence it can account for much selfish human behaviour. I would say the proper place of religion is to act as such a tempering force with the full knowledge of our tendencies towards partisan 'group selection'.

The biologist Richard Dawkins , who is Darwins self-appointed 'enforcer' of course, has stated that ...'There is nothing in natural selection and Darwinism for any of us, only pain and suffering. We should not seek to build our socities on those principles'

If he can state that then think about what you're saying here in the context of your avowed Christian ethic. If Jesus were here now what would he say to the original hypothesis posed here? I think that just as he surprised the self-appointed guardians of the faith in his time, so he would rebuke those who thought this way in the strongest possible terms.

To which you'd perhaps reply ... 'but Jesus they are the lowest of the low, the least amongst us, the sinners, ..why do you bother with them......' or words to that effect.

And you know of course, or should do, what his next line would be.


Regards


Alan