Once the welfarist’s view that all individuals’ talents should be treated as shared goods is accepted, the entire system of public discourse is altered for the worse. Each person is viewed as having an inchoate lien on the labor of everyone else, so that it nows [sic] pays to cut back production and plead poverty. In this environment, the tax system does not enhance individual productivity; instead, it becomes a powerful and serious barrier against the system’s development. As long as the prospect of having others take care of a person exists, it reduces the need and the willingness for family members to take care of each other. Not only is there less production, but also family structure becomes more fragile. Pervasive state support allows individuals to turn aside pleas for personal assistance on the ground that these are properly addressed, not to them as a matter of charity but to the state as a matter of obligation. The constant stress on redistribution spurs attacks on the rich on the ground that the earnings of the rich are illegitimate. Taxation is seen as a way to impose punishment on those who escaped their “fair share” of the tax burden, even if, as is probably the case, the flat tax redistributes wealth away from persons with very high income. The net effect is to encourage people to advance themselves by tearing down the achievements of others: a zero-sum game. This corrosive effect on public discourse breeds and rewards cynicism. It is a mistake to assume that classical liberal thought is indifferent to questions of public discourse and morale. These ideas matter enormously, but typically they are best achieved by creating a sensible economic and political framework that rewards people for their successes and penalizes them for pretending to be victims.
(Richard A. Epstein, "Libertarianism and Character," chap. 4 in Varieties of Conservatism in America, ed. Peter Berkowitz [Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2004], 75-102, at 87-8)
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 