Met Gala attendees have been rightly slammed for their stunning hypocrisy. It’s ridiculous for rich and powerful people to pretend to be Marxist freedom fighters, and that line of criticism goes a long way in the conservative Twitter world. But can we talk for a minute about the idiocy of their economic position? When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wears a dress that says, “Tax the rich,” she’s proposing a specific economic philosophy that goes against history, common sense, and the basic realities of the physical world. Value is created by turning raw materials into a product that is worth more than the sum of its parts. When I take five pieces of wood that cost $10 and turn it into a chair that you’ll buy for $12, I’ve created value. That’s the only way this works. In every society and economic system, wealth is created and accumulated by this simple process. This is how rich people get rich. They take raw materials and turn them into a good or service that’s worth more than the sum of those materials—whether it’s a chair, a car, or an app. SEE ALSO: Empathy Is Not Leadership The government doesn’t create value. As the stunning waste of our federal agencies demonstrates, they have no incentive to make sure that they’re developing products or services that are worth more than the sum of the raw materials used to make them. Federal agencies like the Post Office can run deficits year after year after year because they know that taxpayers will bail them out. In other words, Representative Ocasio-Cortez is suggesting that we should take money away from the people and organizations that create value and give it to the people and organizations that waste value. In the process, she’ll drive out all the profitable and valuable businesses and attract those businesses that can’t exist apart from the government teat (I’m looking at you, clean energy corporations). At some point, there won’t be any money left for AOC and her ilk to steal. All the efficient corporations will have fled the country, and she won’t have any money left to fund her socialist dreams. At that point, we’ll be in the same position as every other socialist country in history—broke, hungry, and dependent on the charity of the rest of the world for survival. That’s what AOC’s dress really means. It’s hypocritical, sure, but it’s also idiotic. I’m told AOC received a degree in economics from Boston University. If I was her, I’d want my money back.
