Moms and Marx

I was thinking of obsessions today, my Mom's is sex and Marx's was materialism.
Like Marx my Mom thinks the thing she is obsessed with is a bad thing.  "How do I know they are obsessed with those things?" you may ask, because they talk about it all the time.  Mom can't watch it on TV or talk about it without saying something negative, even though it is the thing that gave her the things she is most proud of and loves the most in the world.

Marx's thinks one person having more material things than another is bad because you are hording happiness.  His writing say to me that we should share until everyone has the same amount of stuff without end or regard for our own desires and that to do otherwise is a personality fault. 

Well Jesus said that too, but it is the way they seek to enforce that is different.  Marx wants to use the coercive power of government and Jesus wants you to do it on your own. Obsession is where Marx and Mom are the same, but love and envy are what divides them.  Carl was driven by envy and his wish to take away envy.  Mom is driven by love.

Moms can give everything and more to their young because it is a two way street of exchange in a free market economy with few restrictions and in a commodity that has the weird property of being a catalyst and the more you make of it, the more there is to give.  Mom wants to see her children succeed and grow she has given freely her body and time to see that end accomplished.

Mr. Marx is dealing in a consumable, rare commodity that only becomes more difficult to produces as consumption increases.  The worst part of Mr. Marx's plan is that leads to the biggest creators and producers to do less because they are penalized, by the envy of those around them.  Worse yet is the petty bureaucratic power mongers that hide behind the pretense of fairness to make a never ending maze of rules and regulations to redistribute that fairness.

He talks of the needs of others, but I know my needs only grow when someone else is paying the bill.  I only need one, but if it is free then I will take two.  Envy is like love in that it knows no bounds and changes from person to person, and like love it is a poor tool to use when making comparisons because it is biased.

What is worse is that many people confuse envy and love.  That is a wish to hold on to something and keep it only for you is some great expression of love.  Here is my simple rule to decide which emotion I am feeling: love wants to give and envy wants to take.

 Governments take, a person gives.  Maybe that is what the Army means by "An army of one".