“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005), was an American pastor, conservative, author, and a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1979-1980 and 1986-1988).
If the Great Society worked it would now be out of business. Instead it has grown and grown and grown. Why? Because it can’t work.
Was it Pastor Rogers who got in trouble for saying “I believe slavery is a much maligned institution; if we had slavery today, we would not have this welfare mess”. Nice role model.
Pastor Rogers is wrong about wealth too. History tells us the American Experience is all about multiplying wealth by dividing it. From the start of the industrial age we have tried hard to avoid the concentrations of wealth that fixed Europe into stagnant classes.
From Theodore Roosevelt onward, we broke up monopolies, instituted progressive taxation, estate tax etc all for the purpose of dividing wealth. We created the world’s first vast middle class, the world’s most prosperous economy precisely because we divided wealth. This is not something to argue about, it’s something to be proud of. It is our American heritage.
Why worship imaginary values (like dividing wealth is bad) when America has so many real time tested values to be proud of? Dividing wealth was invented in America. It is a good thing.
I do not believe that half of Americans would quit working to sponge off the other half. What an anti American view.
Bill: I don’t know about his other quotes — I just liked this one.
As for quitting work to “sponge”, history points the other way from your position – USSR, Cuba, employment rates in France, Sweden, growth in welfare in the US until 1993 reforms, etc. I’m not sure I’d use the term “sponge”, however. I view it more of giving up — having individual initiative beaten out of you.
As for busting monopolies, I agree with you. I believe in competitive markets. But, you & I know that that wasn’t the point of the quote, either.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
I have never heard a better argument for increasing the minimum wage.
I’m glad you sound more mellow than the good Pastor.
I took the message to be pretty much the standard issue conservative “we gotta look out for those lazy poor people thinking they can spread the wealth by taxing the rich”.
You mention Cuba, and – after spending 40 years hoping Castro would get his – now I’m thinking I wonder what Cuba would have been if we had not cut them off all these years. I never paid much attention to what we did down there when we ruled Cuba preCastro. The Cubans ended up hating us enough they supported an anti-American communist like Castro. Years ago all I needed to know was he was a commie. End of story.
noman:
I supported an increase in the minimum wage when the economy was good. So, your complaint misses the mark.
Of course, the left gets the good sound bite for minimum wage – “No one can live on $16,000 a year.” But no one is supposed to. Minimum wage was intended to be a training wage. 9% of the economy is “under the table” and the more you raise the “minimum” the more you drive under. So those employees have no legal protections and aren’t putting money into social security. Good policy. Note also those “conservative” Clinton appointees who were hiring their nanny’s under the table. Didn’t want to pay the minimum or the taxes.
So, while companies are shedding jobs, let’s raise minimum wage. Good thinking.
billholt:
I’m sure that the tens of thousands of Cubans that have fled their country for the US also blame Uncle Sam. They just came here to lobby for an end to the embargo and will be going back, soon. Did the US prop up Batista? Yep. Eisenhower and Truman were such right-wingers, and what was Kennedy thinking with that whole “Bay” thing…
Charlie: tens of thousands flee their country? Maybe we should embargo Mexico. You don’t get communism until a substantial percentage feel they are getting screwed. That’s why a lot of what hardline conservatives preach is so counterproductive.
On minimum wage, glad you voted for it, so why make the old wives tale argument about minimum wage screws things up “under the table”. You voted for it, but don’t like the concept? At some point the anti-government militia faction of the GOP will finally have come to grips with things like speed limits and minimum wage I hope?
As for Mexico, didn’t you notice, President Obama and the Democrats did. Pesky conservatives. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/17/obama-faces-trade-war-mexico-truck-ban/
But you’re right. Speed limits. It’s all about speed limits.
If we could just get those Mexican truck drivers and conservatives to obey the speed limits, nobody wants to do what the government says anymore.
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.”
So true! The working middleclass pay out the butt in taxes and contributes big $$$ to their employee sponsored healthcare at the same time their taxes supports free healthcare for the poor and lazy, for teachers and school administrators, state employees, federal employees and even legislators. The weight of the healthcare crisis is on the backs of the working class who end up with inferior healthcare than those not paying their share or going for a free ride.
Many of the poor are poor because they refuse to pull themselves up and work or go back to school to better themselves. My opinion every person on welfare that doesn’t have a high school diploma should be required to attend night school or GED classes!
If I had it my way, all those men in jail for non child support wouldn’t be there. I would require them to work at Del-dot at minimum wage picking up trash and at the end of the week their pay goes towards child support! After an eight hour day at Del-dot they can work a second job to support their crusty ass! Mom gets more money and welfare pays less and jail space is open for criminal.
Prosperity is an individual sport that cannot be legislated!
Kilroy says “prosperity is an individual sport that cannot be legislated” but curious minds want to know the meaning of these conservative soundbites.
If a person owns a chain of successful car washes along interstate 95, would that prosperity be possible without the legislation that created the highway system? We could not have success or prosperity without public private partnership. It’s really egotistical to think prosperity is an “individual” sport. We have built a wonderful society that collectively provides all the tools an individual needs to succeed.
Your worry about the poor and lazy is way exaggerated. 90% of Americans work most work more than one job most work very hard. The small group of freeloaders at the bottom of the barrel cost us less than the small group of white collar criminals at the top of the barrel. Interesting how conservatives have been conditioned to look down for fraud than look up to see the big guys robbing them blind.
The whole conservative vision of an America teaming with lazy rotten people just looking for a handout is a turnoff. You never mentioned Bernie Madoff or AIG, just that lazy little poor guy costing you money eh?
Actually I wasn’t clear enough. I was using ‘minimum wage’ as an example of legislation that would allow people to receive what they work for, instead of having the profits of their labor go to another individual. Perhaps collective bargaining laws or prevailing wage rules would have been a better example.
Minimum wage was intended to be a training wage.
Do you have any historical references that would back that up? Seriously – I would be interested in learning about that. My understanding of the rationale for the minimum wage is more in line with the wikipedia article.
I would be thrilled if a “training wage” lower than the minimum wage were created – provided employers were required to deliver actual training, as in an apprentice program. And yes, I would measure the success of the training wage by its outcome – how many people successfully entered the workforce with new skills and a higher standard of living?
I think employers would balk at a sub-minimum training wage, once they realized they would be required to deliver actual training. And of course, without the “training” component they would be bound by the regular minimum wage.
All I know is that since the New Deal with minimum wage, social security, unemployment benefits, insurance on bank accounts, the GI Bill FHA the whole works has done wonders for America.
The alternative argument is things would be even better without minimum wage and all the rest? We got to be the most prosperous place on earth with all the stuff, why mess with success?
The minimum wage was put in place because as FDR observed back then American families were slowly being subjugated by a privileged few. It was meant to reduce the number of Americans working for slave wages.
Billholt you are obviousluly naive and not living in the real world. Wages of any kind are not a God given right nor is it the func tion of government to dictate what a person who risks his capital to provide goods and/or services must pay for someone else’s skills or services. An entrepreneur risks capital and says that he is willing to pay ” X ” dollars for someone to help him develope his business. You should not take the job if you are not satisfied with the offered wages. Instead, find a job that will pay for your level of skills or further your skills by improving your education or training. Don’t take a job as offered and then bitch that you are not being paid enough. It is true that there are some unscrupulous entrepreneurs. You are taken advantage of only if you allow yourself to be. Take responsibility for your life. Quit blaming someone else. That is the best part of being an American. You can do that without fear.
The paragraph is written as if the first four sentences prove the fifth one. They do not. Even if you accept the premises of the first four sentences, there is nothing in them that implies, let alone proves, the conclusion. The “logic” is fallacious.
Moreover, the second and third sentences are not even true. They are generalizations from a small number of data points, extrapolated to universal truths. (The second sentence assumes that all systems are zero-sum, because some systems are. The third sentence not only rejects the concept of the common good, which puts it on shaky enough ground; it says that people who pay taxes do not benefit from government services, which is obviously untrue, even in the case of “welfare”.)
In addition, whether or not the first and fourth sentences are true, the point that each makes is trivial, and therefore not really relevant. (The first sentence opposes a proposal that nobody is making: nobody wants to use welfare to make the poor “prosperous”; nobody wants to tax the wealthy to the point where they are no longer “prosperous”. The fourth sentence makes a (very dubious) assertion about a 50/50 situation; but in the U.S. today, we have more like a 10/80/10 situation, or even 5/90/5.)
Finally, the concluding 5th sentence is either trivially irrelevant, or patently false, depending on how you interpret it. If the author means that redistribution of wealth does not, in and of itself, increase wealth, he is correct; but I don’t know of anybody who would claim otherwise. If he means that redistribution of wealth prevents the multiplication of wealth, he is ignoring the economic facts of American history.
I would say that Mr Rogers sentences are 100% correct. I know little about the history of Cuba Other than I was there while in the service in the 60’s. All I can say with all certainty is what I have lived for 75 years, and there probably isn’t enough ink to write it all.
I’ll only tell of one instance the was probably the most disheartening to me.
On my way to and from work I passed by a welfare office where the checks were picked up, the ones that were not mailed. The place I worked was hiring and even training people with on the job training.
I saw this one gentleman get out of his NEW car and start for the office so I stopped and told the man our Co. was hiring and even training and the wages would be much more than welfare, and he should go and check it out. His response was “oh no, I got it made. I’m not going to mess this up”. He went on into the office. I’ve seen people standing in line for a block to get their checks, while Co’s were hiring 3 blocks away. My tax dollars paying their welfare checks. Makes me sick. I retired well, but I’m still supporting those to lazy to work, and it’s getting worse and very close that 50% (Half Of the people.)
“All I know is that since the New Deal with minimum wage, social security, unemployment benefits, insurance on bank accounts, the GI Bill FHA the whole works has done wonders for America.”
Typical liberal argument, mention good causes but leave out the details of the poor implementation. The Secular Progressive use all these good causes as a shield to allow the Federal government to grow the size and power of the it’s Bureaucracy, without raising public ire. Because who can argue against a good cause like retirement for everyone, housing for the poor and rewarding our troops with education.
The hidden side of all of this is what all Patriot’s should learn. There are many ways to improve all of these good causes without having the Federal government administrate the solution. This is not the world view of the typical Socialist though, the view is only the Federal government by the nature of being the ultimate collective in the Country can ideally and fairly solve the ills of society.
This idyllic view is at the root of Marxist philosophy. The sad part is how few modern Liberals realize the true end goal of their good causes because they typically just move from one cause to another without really looking at the ramifications of the solutions to last years cause.
It is disingenuous argument against the Founding Father’s principals of small Federal government and ignores completely how poorly solved good causes are when we allow the Federal Bureaucracy to manage them.
The GI BILL – “It served as a model for how politicians can grow the government without provoking public revolt, and caused an entire generation to regard government as a benefactor.” A myriad of other State level and lcoal charity programs already existed before this massive Federal power grab that would not have had the negative impact on the education system that the Federally run GI BILL did.
Social Security – Virtually Bankrupt because of government mis-management. Socialists are unwilling to look at using private options to make the program permanently solvent . (Much like many State Pension plans are government managed but based on private sector investments.)
FHA – Government mis-regulation of this program is the cause of our current major recession. AKA “The mortgage bubble.” Fann Mae and Freddy Mac were used as tools to coerce lenders into making “subprime” illogical loans to people who could ill afford to pay them back. This program has been extended far from just helping a poorer citizen to obtain financing for a home loan.
Unemployment benefits – Once again, this is basically unemployment insurance. So don’t look to the private sector to compete to offer insurance to the pool of working citizens.
Medicaid, Medicaire, SSI
Cobra
The litany goes on and on of good cause programs. The end result is more power to the government and less to the people. The current good cause is healthcare. Instead of looking at logical reforms to the phenomenal system we have in place that could make it more cost effective. The Socialists once again are trying another massive power grab by proposing a public “option”. An option that other Countries have shown will be the only “option” after very few years in practice.
The problem is, Americans are finally paying attention. They’ve said, Hey, I agree we need to make this better but I no longer agree that the only way to do it is for the Federal Government to once again grow larger and take more of our freedoms away.
We are quickly approaching a cross roads in America where our traditional values of freedom are going to more directly come into conflict with the end goals of the Socialist movement in this Country. The old tried debate techniques of calling someone a racists or evil because they don’t support the daily “good cause” aren’t working anymore. People are starting to say, wait a minute and I think that the Socialists are starting to show their true colors.
Calling normal Americans un-American simply because they don’t want to live in the USSA.
Let me guess billholt, you are not weathy. It is usually the “have nots” that begrudge the “haves” I worked hard for what I have and I took risks. I worked hard in school for my “A’s”. I certainly didn’t want to give my “A” away to the “C” student so that he could have a “B” and my grade would be a “B” and we would all be equal. I certainly do not want to do the same with my wealth. I have no problem giving it to those tha are disabled or down on their luck, but not to the next guy just so that he could be more equal.
Hey Capitalist, the man (billholt) is just stating historical fact, that the USA just works well with the programs he’s talking about; not some new Obama-crap on redistributing wealth so that noone is motivated to work; just a shade of gray blend of “socialism” AND capitalism mix , which seems best to me anyway. Actually are you one of those “unearned” income types? 16% tax rate is almost immoral vs 38% for us working jerks…I guess that’s a Reagan “peace dividend” to be enjoyed by just the top 1%? Europe, with it’s over 50% tax rates is moving very close to the soviet failure mode…”they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work”. Oh, BTW, I do quite well with my dental practice. I’m sure you have some ideas for constructive change? I do quite a bit of charity work myself,
but not to my real detriment of course. If you give it all away, you become part of the problem, the world loses an icon of success, and the very means by which it could pull itself up by it’s own bootstraps with the attendant skills and pride at having done so.
[…] https://resolutedetermination.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/you-cannot-multiply-wealth-by-dividing-it/ […]
billholt: “Dividing wealth was invented in America. It is a good thing.”
LOL @ you. You can not be serious? Study history bill, and don’t make idiotic statements in public.
@ BillHoit
Cecil Sherman writes in his autobiography that he once questioned Rogers about biblical inerrancy with reference to New Testament passages that seem to support slavery. Sherman reports that Rogers replied: “I believe slavery is a much maligned institution; if we had slavery today, we would not have this welfare mess.”[2][3] In a later sermon, Rogers spoke in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln, which restored freedom to the slaves in the United States[citation needed]. On the same occasion, he described slavery as it was practiced in the United States as “unspeakably immoral. – Wikipedia
Just like an attack dog to either disregard for for opinion, or simply fabricate something to destroy your opponent. If Mr. Sherman’s contention is correct provide the evidence. Otherwise shame on you. Oh wait, don’t think shame would work with you.
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.” But you can legislate the playing field. When CEOs get 80% of their annual compensation in stock options, those millions of dollars worth of stocks will make hundreds of thousands of $ worth of dividends that are taxed at 10% less than what the salary is taxed. While the average employee of the corporation makes 344 times less than the CEO, doesn’t get stock options, can’t afford to buy stocks, and can barely afford to pay for rent and groceries.
“Typical liberal argument, mention good causes but leave out the details of the poor implementation.”
The implementation wasn’t really that poor. Here are some summary facts I have put together.
1. Republicans have been running on a platform of low taxes and low regulation for 100 years now.
2. The economy has grown by 118% under Republicans in 48 years and 767% under Democrats in 50 years after inflation (1914-2010).
3. There has never been a Republican President who left office with unemployment under 5%
4. Republican second terms have seen less growth than Republican first terms while Democrat second terms have seen more growth than Democrat first terms.
5. There have only been two Republican third terms – 1929-1932 (The Great Depression) and 1989-1992 (1980-1992 saw the Debt/GDP ratio go from 30% – 65%)
6. 1980-2010 included 20 Republican years and only 10 Democrat year and saw GDP growth of a bit over 40% per capita.
7. The 10 years of Clinton/Obama saw GDP growth of almost 40% per capita.
8. Prison populations have grown from under 500k to almost 2.5 million since 1980
9. We now have 7 people in prison per capita for every 1 in Europe and 2 people in prison for every 1 in South Africa.
10. The top .01 percent of the population now earns over 1000 times as much as the bottom 90%. The last time we saw this big a difference was in 1928 right before the Great Depression started.
I don’t think anyone is saying that someone who manages to save up half a million by retirement should carry the poor on their backs. But there is a strong argument that someone who made 10-50 million by profiting from education created by the public using roads created by the public employing people with health care augmented by the public pay some of it forward to help the next guy become a millionaire.
Believe me…I live in Panama (central america) and our government now days is doing exactly what this quote says… media class people are paying a lot of recently increased taxes, rich people are getting richer and low class economic people are getting wealth directly from the government without doing en effort (populism). That will be the end of our nation if this continues. Media class has to do the effort everyday while the other class just simply receives a lot of subsidy from government.
Victor – Have you looked at GDP numbers before and after the changes to double check or are you just taking the word of mainstream news on that?
I was pretty shocked when I looked at the biggest Republican period in the US, 1920-1932 and discovered under 10% total growth and the biggest Democrat period, 1933-1945 (while enough people with personal memory new better than to listen to corporate media), and found a tripling, or 10% per year for the period. Quite literally everything you learn about rich and poor people on TV stations owned by rich people is biased and suspect.
Then maybe it is time to divide the concept of “wealth” itself, it is a socially constructed concept; the categorizations of “wealthy” and “poor”, the items used to define the rich as what they have and what the poor lack (Such as money), and the defining of what these classes do as work vs not-work as indicators as “class” only have meaning because we collectively allow them to. The sooner we realize this and become the constructors instead of the constructed, the better.
Responding to the foolish & ignorant comments here:
1) The entire quote is Rogers actually quoting Gerald Smith in a sermon, & he attributed the quote to Smith.
2) Rogers taught (as Jesus did) that individuals & churches ought to help the poor very generously. Jesus never told any secular government to help the poor. And Rogers was an incredibly generous man.
3) Rogers never endorsed slavery.