In general, the more of a person’s life is guaranteed by someone else, the less incentive that person has to earn and be productive. After all, if some or all of your needs are taken care of, and if someone else picks up the tab whenever something goes wrong, why would you worry about such minor details as work ethic, productivity, financial responsibility and family obligations?

I’m sure that many socialists, especially union people, would be thrilled if workers could get away with working less and being much less productive. However, they’d also be turning a blind eye on where all the money to fund their more leisurely lifestyles really comes from, and who really ends up paying for it all.

The usual socialist selling point is that the rich will pay for it all. However, even if the socialists are capable of keeping the promise of raising taxes only on the rich, which they never do because there isn’t enough money in it for them, socialist life guarantees, such as health care, child care, education, retirement benefits, etc., mean less productivity.

And less productivity always leads to the following:

1. Slower economic growth and technological development, which hurts the poor and middle class much more than it does the rich.
2. Lower wages as employers cannot pay employees more than their productive worth. And if wages are artificially kept high by government and union mandates then we get …
3. … higher prices.

As you can see, you will be paying for it, I’ll be paying for it and so will everybody else! It’s never just the “rich.”

A decrease in productivity also necessarily means a smaller economic pie for the government to tax.

• Social Security – Since people know they would be receiving a social security check upon retirement, they are less likely to fully save for it on their own. Why would they? It would be completely self defeating to save for a portion of your retirement if you know it’s going to be covered by the government.
• Child Welfare Payments – If a mother on welfare receives additional money for every child born, why wouldn’t she have more children, costing the taxpayer even more?
• Unemployment Benefits – Unemployment benefits decrease the motivation for someone to save and plan for job loss. Why would anyone want to save for 6 months of expenses if given unemployment benefits, they can do with 3? In addition, studies show that job search efforts decrease with increasing generosity of unemployment benefits, and recipients of unemployment benefits tend to step up their efforts as those are about to expire.

Therefore, social programs create more people who need and rely on the government, leading to further demand for social spending. And if you try to cut those programs, then you’re just a big old meanie, because what are old people to do, what are welfare mothers to do, what are the unemployed to do, etc.

However, the very existence of social programs is responsible for much of the need for them.

This self-inflating positive feedback loop, creates a constant pressure for increases in social spending. And you can never spend enough because the more you do, the greater the need to do so becomes.

This leads to an ever expanding class of people who depend on the government for their livelihood. And this situation is just perfect for socialist politicians, because more government dependence means more votes for the politicians who promise to preserve the benefits.