The Cabin and the Mansion: What Socialists Never Ask
The Two Brothers
Two brothers, Alex and Bob, each purchase identical 20-acre lots in their hometown. At the time of purchase, both have well-paying jobs and are married. Each brother holds a different philosophy about life, as do their wives.
Bob believes life is about enjoyment and experience. While he works hard, he spends most of his income on fast cars and expensive clothes. He meditates daily and spends considerable time contemplating life’s meaning. His priorities are immediate gratification and personal exploration.
Alex is a saver. He works hard, takes his lunch to work every day, and picks up overtime shifts whenever possible. He invests everything he earns into savings. He and his wife drive an old Ford pickup. His wife stays home, caring for their children and managing the household.
The Divergent Paths
After purchasing his lot, Bob begins building a small cabin—simple and functional, meant primarily for meditation and as a retreat from daily life. Given his spending habits on cars and luxuries, he has little money left for property development. But the small cabin suits his purposes, and he’s content.
Alex purchases his property with the intent to build a family home. As he accumulates savings, he begins buying materials for construction. He and his wife carefully design their dream home and budget every detail of what they’ll need. Year after year, they work on the property—pouring footings, framing walls, installing systems. Eventually, their beautiful home stands complete. The most significant accomplishment: they own it outright—no bank loans. No financing. No debt. Just years of disciplined labor and deferred gratification.
The Unraveling
Through these years, Bob remains content with his simple cabin. But problems emerge. He loses his job and can no longer afford the cars and clothes. He and his wife declare bankruptcy. They’re going to lose their primary residence. While Bob is perfectly willing to live full-time in his cabin, his wife grows tired of the reduced circumstances—and tired of Bob. She divorces him and seeks a more prosperous partner. Relieved to be free of her complaints, Bob moves into his cabin alone.
The Politics of Envy
Many years pass. The political environment grows increasingly collectivist. College graduates march in the streets, protesting inequality and demanding “fairness.” One day, a protest march passes the two brothers’ properties. The organizers pause, observe, and decide to make an example.
”It’s simply not fair,” they declare, ”that this wealthy family with their beautiful home and pool should live such a luxurious life while this poor man next door has to live in a shack.”
Knowing nothing about either man—nothing of their choices, work ethics, priorities, or life philosophies—the activists take action. They run advertisements in newspapers. They pressure government officials. They demand legislation to correct this “injustice.” Not a word is mentioned about the two men as individuals, their decisions, or the consequences of those decisions. The focus is purely on the perceived disparity in outcomes. The existence of inequality is treated as self-evident proof of injustice.
The Fundamental Flaw
This is the central problem with socialism (a category that encompasses democratic socialism, communism, and Marxism): it treats unequal outcomes as prima facie evidence of unfairness without examining the choices and behaviors that produced them.
Why These Systems Always Fail
1. Destruction of Incentives
Once people understand that hard work, sacrifice, and deferred gratification will not yield better outcomes than idleness and immediate consumption, the incentive to produce disappears.
Why take the risk of starting a business? Why assume debt to finance an enterprise? Why endure the stress of meeting payroll and managing employees if your compensation will be the same as those who assumed no risk and contributed no capital?
2. Moral Hazard
When the consequences of poor decisions are socialized—spread across society rather than borne by the decision-maker—people make worse decisions. Bob’s choices to prioritize consumption over saving and to spend rather than invest carried no meaningful consequences once the system stepped in to equalize outcomes.
3. Requirement of Authoritarian Government
To establish and maintain these redistributive systems requires an enormously powerful government with authority over every aspect of citizens’ lives:
– The government must determine what constitutes “fair” distribution
– The government must assess and confiscate wealth from some citizens
– The government must redistribute that wealth to others
– The government must prevent citizens from re-creating inequality through voluntary exchange
– The government must suppress dissent from those who object to confiscation
4. The Illusion of Equal Sacrifice
Rest assured: those wielding governmental power do not share your ideals of equal outcomes. The political class becomes instantly wealthy by controlling the redistribution system. They determine who gets what. They grant exemptions and privileges to allies. They live in luxury while preaching sacrifice to others.
It is always—always—the “people” who suffer under these systems, never the political elite who administer them.
The Constitutional Perspective
The Founders understood this dynamic, which is why they protected property rights as fundamental:
Fifth Amendment: “No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Property rights are not a secondary concern—they are foundational to all other rights. Without the right to the fruits of your labor, you have no liberty. You are a serf, working for the benefit of others, with your compensation determined by bureaucrats rather than by voluntary exchange.
When the government claims the authority to equalize outcomes regardless of effort, merit, or choice, it claims ownership of your labor. It asserts that what you produce belongs not to you, but to “society”—meaning the state, which distributes it according to political calculations.
The Real Injustice
The protesters who marched past the two brothers’ properties believed they were fighting for “fairness.” In reality, they were advocating for theft:
– Alex worked overtime for years – Should his labor be confiscated?
– Alex and his wife sacrificed immediate pleasures – Should their deferred gratification be punished?
– Alex took no debt and risked his own savings – Should his prudence be penalized?
– Bob chose consumption over investment – Should his choices be subsidized by those who chose differently?
The protest signs should have read:
– “We demand that those who worked harder give their earnings to those who worked less!”
– “We demand that those who saved be forced to subsidize those who spent!”
– “We demand that the government confiscate the property of citizens who made better decisions than we did!”
But these slogans are less politically palatable than “It’s not fair.”
The Lesson
Equality of opportunity is just. Equality of outcome is tyranny.
If Alex and Bob had been denied the opportunity to purchase land—if the government had restricted property ownership to a favored class—that would constitute genuine injustice requiring remedy.
But both brothers had equal opportunity. Both purchased identical lots. Both had the same 20 acres, the same freedom to build, the same years to develop their property. Their outcomes differed because their choices differed.
Punishing Alex for Bob’s choices:
– Destroys the incentive to work, save, and invest
– Rewards consumption and discourages production
– Requires authoritarian government intervention
– Violates fundamental property rights
– Creates moral hazard by insulating people from consequences
The outcome disparity between Alex and Bob is not evidence of injustice. It is evidence of freedom.
In a free society, different choices produce different outcomes. Some build mansions. Others build cabins. Some work overtime and save. Others meditate and spend. The right to make these choices—and to experience their consequences—is the essence of liberty.
When the government intervenes to equalize outcomes, it doesn’t create fairness. It destroys freedom. It punishes the prudent to subsidize the profligate. It treats citizens as resources to be managed rather than as sovereign individuals with rights.
Conclusion
The protesters marching past Alex’s beautiful home and Bob’s simple cabin saw inequality and assumed injustice. They never asked:
– Why does one brother have more than the other?
– What choices did each make?
– What sacrifices did each endure?
– What risks did each assume?
– What value did each create?
They saw only the outcome and demanded government intervention to change it.
This is the politics of envy masquerading as the pursuit of justice.
And it is the road to tyranny—paved with good intentions, enforced by state power, and resulting inevitably in the enrichment of political elites at the expense of productive citizens.
”The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
— John Adams
”Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”
— James Madison