By Douglas V. Gibbs
The Founding Fathers were remarkably prescient in their warnings about what Samuel Adams called the “Schemes of Leveling” – what we today call socialism, progressivism, and wealth redistribution. They recognized these utopian experiments as fundamentally incompatible with human nature and liberty. Thomas Jefferson understood that when government attempts to engineer equal outcomes rather than secure our natural rights, it inevitably destroys both freedom and prosperity in the process.
This collectivist impulse didn’t originate with Karl Marx – he merely repackaged ancient errors in revolutionary language. The fundamental premise has remained consistent throughout history: that individual rights should be subordinated to collective interests, and that the state should possess the authority to redistribute wealth according to some abstract conception of fairness. What was once openly called “proletarian revolution” has been cleverly repackaged as “social justice,” “equity,” and “progressive taxation” – but the underlying premise remains unchanged.
One of the most revealing truths about communist systems is their fundamentally parasitic nature. They cannot generate wealth internally because they eliminate the very incentives necessary for production and innovation. This explains China’s economic relationship with the United States – they don’t primarily produce for their own people but export like crazy because their wealth depends entirely on our ability to purchase their products.
They claim to resolve the problem of class warfare. The Soviet Union claimed they were eliminating poverty by eliminating poor people, but what they did was make everyone equally poor (except for the ruling class, of course). Venezuela followed the same pattern. The only reason China has lasted as long as they have is because they injected a limited form of capitalism into their system – but in the end, it remains authoritarian communism that simply allows a few the chance to do a little bit more than everyone else. This parasitic dependency on capitalist systems reveals the fundamental bankruptcy of collectivist economics.
Today’s wealth redistribution operates through multiple sophisticated mechanisms:
- Progressive Taxation: This communist concept (which is listed in the Communist Manifesto) at its core pretends to reduce economic inequality by taxing the rich and giving it to the poor through various programs (a twisted Robin Hood scheme), but in reality locks people into their corner of the economic plantation and kills the incentive to crawl out while also suppressing incentive, innovation and entrepreneurial growth. As a businessman once told me, “I don’t pay taxes. When my corporate taxes go up, my prices go up. Every tax-the-rich or tax-the-corporations scheme ultimately removes the tax money from the pockets of the consumer.”
- Climate Change Policies: This represents perhaps the most audacious redistribution scheme ever devised. It essentially declares that to save the planet, western wealthier countries must bear the financial burden while transferring wealth to less developed nations. Recently, even the United Nations has admitted their climate models were wrong – something conservatives have argued all along. Climate change is a natural phenomenon where human influence is negligible, but it serves as a perfect justification for global wealth redistribution.
- Tariff Imbalances: For decades, tariffs functioned as a redistribution scheme against the United States, with America paying high tariffs while other countries paid low tariffs. This wasn’t free trade but managed trade designed to transfer American wealth abroad.
What made President Trump’s approach revolutionary was his recognition that these seemingly separate policies were all interconnected components of a globalist redistribution project. His policies represented a return to Jeffersonian principles in multiple dimensions:
- Economic Freedom: Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act moved away from progressive taxation by lowering corporate rates from 35% to 21% and reducing individual income tax brackets. This wasn’t about enriching the wealthy but about recognizing that reducing taxes on corporations and higher income brackets ultimately benefits lower classes when those monies are reinvested into businesses, spent on services or products produced by “lower classes,” and puts more capital into the system.
- Trade Realignment: Trump’s tariffs weren’t protectionist in the traditional sense but corrective measures against a system designed to transfer American wealth abroad. He was busting up the redistribution scheme and leveling the trade playing field, forcing recognition that China’s “economic miracle” depended on unfair advantages extracted from open societies.
- National Sovereignty: By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and challenging other international frameworks, Trump was dismantling the infrastructure of global wealth redistribution and reaffirming national sovereignty against global governance structures.
The parallels between Trump and Jefferson extend beyond policy to their very style of governance and relationship with the bureaucracy. Both men were hated by their opposition and endured diabolical attacks. Jefferson’s struggle against the Hamiltonian Federalist Party bureaucracy mirrors Trump’s confrontation with the modern administrative state, with both men challenging the notion that unelected officials should control national policy.
Both men faced relentless opposition from what Jefferson called “artificial aristocracies” – those who derive influence from government rather than productive enterprise. They understood that economic independence is inseparable from political independence. Jefferson’s embargo policies and Trump’s trade renegotiations both aimed to establish that America cannot be dependent on hostile powers for essential goods or services.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, he meant “as created” and “as their natural rights were distributed.” No matter who we are, we all possess all of the natural rights. Our ability to exercise those rights may be influenced by government, but those rights belong to us. God gave them to us, and He existed before government.
This natural rights framework stands in direct opposition to the collectivist premise that rights are grants from the state that can be revoked or redistributed according to collective needs. The Founding Fathers understood that the less interference by central planning the better – individualism and laissez faire always seemed to be at the core of everything they designed. To control through a redistribution of wealth is a rights killer.
The sustainability schemes and ideas of command-controlled economies are retreating slightly under Trump’s policies, and we must hope this continues after he’s gone. We must continue to reject and move away from these catastrophic schemes rooted in collectivism and communist ideas.
There will be winners, and there will be losers. That is simply a reality of life. Equality or equity should not be based on outcome, but opportunity. The American experiment has been successful precisely because it rejected the collectivist premise in favor of individual rights and economic freedom. This created unprecedented prosperity while also allowing for voluntary charity and social mobility – a stark contrast to state-mandated redistribution.
As we move forward, we must recognize that the battle isn’t merely over tax rates or trade policies but over fundamental principles of human liberty. The choice is between a society of free individuals who voluntarily cooperate for mutual benefit and a society where the state directs economic activity according to some abstract collective vision. The Founders chose the former, and President Trump began restoring that vision against decades of encroaching collectivism.
The question remains whether we will continue this restoration or revert to the failed schemes of leveling that have impoverished nations wherever they’ve been implemented. The answer will determine not just our economic future but whether we preserve the liberty that has made America exceptional among nations.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
