It seems to me that this is what socialists have been trying to accomplish since the progressive movement of the early 20th century and conservatives or classical liberals believe themselves to have been trying to push back against it:
The abolition of individual property and the establishment of the Great National Economy was the final goal of the [Socialist’s]labors. But they well realized that such an order could not be established immediately following a victory. They believe it essential that [the State] conduct itself in such manner that the whole people would do away with private property through a realization of their own needs and interests. Here are the principal methods by which they believe. to realize this dream:
“To establish, by laws, a public order in which property-holders, provisionally allowed to keep their goods, would find that they possessed neither wealth, pleasure, or consideration, where, forced to spend the greater part of their income on investment or taxes, crushed under the weight of a progressive tax, removed from public affairs, deprived of all influence, forming, within the State, nothing but a class of suspect foreigners, they would be forced to leave the country, abandoning their goods, or reduced to accepting the establishment of the Universal Economy.” — Alexis de Toquivelle 1848, quotes Buonarotti, the biographer of Baboeuf, a popular Socialist in Europe in 1789
To convince someone that they’ll be better off with a different political philosophy by making them worse off or making them want to leave seems manipulative. How can one trust that the ones who should be voted by the Collective with redistributive authority have good intentions — or care to know what their intentions intend to do? We don’t trust the intentions of the mainstream media, but what about our intentions? Do we know what those intend to do?
