The fallacy of "giving back"
You hear the trite injunction from both liberals and conservatives alike: “Give back to the community,” they tell profitable corporations and wealthy individuals. That tired, worn-out, old command keeps getting repeated. You hear it over and over again. Nobody ever seems to question it. It is merely accepted as a kind of self-evident truth: that successful, productive and able individuals must “give back.”
It is almost as if the successful had a bona fide moral obligation to naturally give back–as if they had a debt to repay to the greater society, or to the local community, whichever the case may be. Indeed, the “give back” mentality falsely implies that the wealthy individual somehow took more than his fair share and therefore had to return at least part of it.
Yet, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth–at least in a free market economy and in a free society. For in a free market system, the wealthy businessman earns his wealth by his own effort and merit. He competes for the consumer’s dollar. Therefore, to accumulate great wealth, he must offer a service or produce a product that people wish to purchase. In other words, he must exchange value for value.
The good capitalist cannot rob the consumer, because his customers are not forced to buy his product or service. The customer can go elsewhere, to a competitor (unless the government establishes a monopoly).
Why, then, should the successful capitalist “give back”? For that matter, what should he “give back”? Exactly what did he steal in the first place?
Bill Gates gave us the Windows operating system. He gave us various office software programs. He gave us the Microsoft Internet browser, Hotmail, and the MSN Internet service provider, among many other valuable products and services. Gates gave us improved technology, and we gave him our dollars in return–a fair trade.
What’s more, the Microsoft stock has made many of us rich. MSFT has made many millionaires. Despite the Justice Department’s shenanigans, many Americans still own Microsoft stock. Bill Gates has also paid plenty of taxes, more than his fair share–in fact, far more than he consumes in government “services.”
So why should a man like Bill Gates feel obligated to “give something back”?
In a free society, no one has to give anything to anyone, except by free choice. Obligations only arise from voluntary contractual consent. Anything else would probably amount to robbery or extortion.
As Economist Walter E. Williams put it: “Income earners owe nothing else to their fellow man . . . If ‘giving something back’ means anything, it should be the admonition to thieves and social parasites: people who have taken and given nothing in return.”
