Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day…and he'll vote to re-elect you.
Take away half of all the fish a man catches and use them to buy other men's votes, and the man who catches fish will quickly learn to catch only enough to live comfortably, no more.
But, what motivates the man who catches fish to catch as many as possible, so that he needs to hire fishermen, invest in boats and nets, and has a surplus to sell, thereby lowering the price of food and increasing the disposable income of the consumers of fish, leading to a general improvement in the standard of living?
It’s simple actually. You have to let him keep more of the fish he catches. Although simple, this is quite unpopular among politicians, because doing so will inevitably reduce the number of people who need a fish given to them, in turn diminishing the incentive to vote for the man who gives away the fish that another man caught.
