Have people in a democracy EVER voted themselves all the money? [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Fri Feb 14, 2014, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

Ayn Rand types believe that democracy is a process wherein people vote to take other people's money until that mechanical redistributive process reaches the communist end that is inexorably advanced by the system.

Like so many nut-right notions, this crashes on the rocks of reality.

I don't know of any mature democracy ever voting in communism, or even coming close.

In fact, stable democracies always seem to feature some extremely rich people.

And, amusingly, we even have cases where people screw up by voting themselves too much more money (services) without taking enough away from the rich (taxes). (eg. Greece, Prop 8 California) Even when desirous of services people are quite reluctant to vote to take away other people's money. People will even oppose taxes they will never in a million years be subject to personally.