Method #1: Inherit Money
This method is probably the one that is least likely to happen to most of us, and is the most likely to require little work in order to do so. While some inheritances are given after much work and provenance, inheritances are typically looked at as “gifts,” and they often are gifts.
Method #2: Work
This method is the toughest, because in a free exchange economy, it is difficult to “get what you want” when you are required to trade with others who are willing to engage in trading with you. In a free market, I don’t have the right or the ability to make you buy something from (i.e. trade with) me. In order for you to want what I have to offer, I have to be creative, innovative, or otherwise emulate and improve upon what already exists. Ask any businessman, and he’ll tell you that while he may be gifted in entrepreneurship, it’s a long road of hard knocks and failures upon failures. But after succeeding in providing goods and services others want, profit is earned, and often enjoyed, even shared.
Method #3: Thievery
While it’s certainly not the easiest of the three methods, and could potentially be more work than entrepreneurship, it’s certainly the immoral choice. Even if we acquire money through thievery at one point in our lives—perhaps by stealing at a convenience store or other vendor—it isn’t how we build a livelihood. Most of us choose to work hard and earn money that way.
What is amazing to me is the twisted and contorted explanations that are offered to us that justify Method #3. While taxation may be justifiable as a “necessary evil” (I don’t know if I agree with that, but it’s certainly not an unreasonable explanation), it is also abused frequently and to a massive extent. Yet if we think about the simplicity of how somebody (or some group) can acquire money, the only method the State has at its disposal is Method #3. On a personal level, we know exactly what method is most praiseworthy and respectable. Why not apply those same morals to collectives such as the government?
