The Revolt of the Kulaks Has Begun

The beginning of a protest movement against Barack Obama’s redistributive policies is underway. Though still small, every movement starts somewhere. While called the “Tea Party” after the Boston Tea Party, this movement is similar to movements throughout history where the producers of society refuse to have their property and income confiscated.

This movement can succeed if it does not stop at protest and includes changes in economic behavior. Obama’s redistributive plans require higher taxation, but higher tax plans (to be announced this week by Obama) are based on the fallacy that the “rich” will not change their economic behavior in reaction to higher tax rates.

History tells us, however, that economic redistribution plans fail because the producers of society would rather not produce, than have the fruits of their production taken away and given to others. Obama can raise the tax rates on income, but he cannot force people to generate income to be taxed. People may just say “no.” This resistance will not come from evading taxes, but from evading taxable income. In the end, as must all economic re-distributors, Obama either will have to resort to repressive measures, or he will have to abandon his redistributive plans.

The best example of this phenomenon is the forced collectivization of farms in the Soviet Union. At the time of the Revolution, Russia was a largely agrarian society which allowed more productive farmers (so-called “kulaks”) to prosper. Since the kulaks represented a political threat to communism, the collectivization of farming was a focus of communist policy. From the start, the kulaks resisted, requiring Lenin to resort to repression:

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