Speaking to Piers Morgan (who hosts a morning TV show), one of Britain’s most successful businessmen explained on Tuesday why socialist Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is so toxic for his party.
As Sir Alan Sugar, host of “The Apprentice” on British TV, put it,
It’s a well-made point. Jeremy Corbyn promises to redistribute money from the most prosperous in society to less productive citizens. This is not to say that some measure of redistributive taxation isn’t necessary, but to damage productivity would be disastrous for any economy. And Corbyn’s promises of massive nationalization and entitlement expansions would necessarily require him to drain Britain’s wealthiest of their money.
Understandably, a lot of wealthy Britons aren’t going to put up with that. Contrary to Corbyn and his supporters’ claims that the rich don’t deserve their wealth, most wealthy Britons weren’t born into privilege. Instead, like Sugar, they chose to forgo easier choices in order to earn more money from their harder work. They chose to take risks in pursuit of a profit. And they rightly believe they deserve to keep most of that money.
That’s a great challenge facing far-left figures such as Corbyn and his friend across the pond, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
In a globalized economy that offers capital mobility and numerous opportunities for high living standards, it’s not difficult to simply pull up roots in one place and put them down in another. But it’s worse than that for Corbyn and AOC. After all, if you tax the rich into leaving, you lose the revenue you need to fund government. Here we see socialism’s circular fallacy.
Sugar’s words are a warning. Ultimately, this is a battle Corbyn and AOC can’t win.
