Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been roundly and rightly mocked for her recent claim that "you can’t earn" a billion dollars.But with respect to my fellow conservatives and free-marketeers, the real problem with her latest anti-billionaire broadside isn’t that it’s economically illiterate.
The bigger issue — by far — is that AOC is subtly dismissing the innate human drive to strive and succeed.She isn’t just saying that billionaires are illegitimate.
She’s effectively saying that becoming a billionaire is impossible, so don’t even try.This fundamental rejection of entrepreneurship’s power is the greatest danger of the socialist worldview rising on the left, of which AOC is the foremost tribune.By now, every American knows what policies and programs the socialists want — more wealth distribution, more government welfare, more care and feeding at the benevolent hand of Big Brother or Sister.But the heart of this ideology isn’t simply the idea that people should get more from others.
The corresponding belief is that people should also give less to others.While it’s tempting to chalk this up to laziness or envy, the real message is one of self-doubt.
Socialism teaches its followers that entrepreneurship is doomed to fail — that entrepreneurs themselves are deluded and in denial.Who would want to take a road they’ve been told can only dead-end?AOC CALLED OUT FOR CLAIM THAT BILLIONAIRES 'CAN'T EARN' THEIR WEALTH AS SHE DOUBLES DOWN ON REMARKSThis is nothing less than a frontal assault on the human spirit.
America became the world’s most prosperous and equal country precisely because people aimed to become rich — millionaires, hundred millionaires, and now billionaires.Not by leeching off society, but by lifting up society.
The essence of entrepreneurship is the idea that you can improve your life by helping others improve their lives.The most successful entrepreneurs have done that in spades, becoming rich by enriching daily life for co...