Killing Your Neighbor’s Cow: The Defining Sin of Our Times

by Charles Colson:

An old Russian joke tells about a poor peasant whose better-off neighbor has just gotten a cow. In his anguish, the peasant cries out to God for relief from his distress. When God replies and asks him what he wants him to do, the peasant replies, “Kill the cow.”

The joke illustrates an important point about human nature: the line between envy and clamoring for justice can be very thin.

The subject came to mind when I read a recent column by Ross Douthat in the New York Times about the issue of income inequality and the redistribution of wealth. Douthat noted that taxing Peter more will not solve Paul’s problems. The most likely outcome of “soaking-the-rich,” he wrote, would be to “buy a little more time for our failing public institutions,” like public schools. A “public sector that has consistently done less with more” would simply have more to do less with. Listen to that. He’s right.

Despite this, many people insist on soaking the well-off because, like the Russian peasant, what they want is to see their better-off neighbors knocked down a peg. That’s how envy works.

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ht LINDA

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