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If a nation is diverse and if the government attempts to redistribute wealth, then wealth will be redistributed between groups.

For example, in America at the end of the twentieth century, the average white person is richer than the average black person. So if the government collects taxes from rich people and gives money to poor people, the average white person will pay taxes and the average black person will receive money.

If the both blacks and whites think of themselves as americans, then both blacks and whites will support or oppose the redistribution of wealth depending on whether or not the policy benefits America.

But if the blacks think of themselves as blacks, then blacks will support or oppose the policy depending on whether or not the policy benefits blacks. If whites think of themselves as whites, then whites will support or oppose the policy depending on whether or not the policy benefits whites.

If a group of people has a weak sense of identity, then they will not demand benefits for their group. But if a group of people has a strong sense of identity, then they will demand that the government enact policies which benefit their group. The stronger your sense of group identity, the more power you have to force the government to enact policies which benefit your group. The stronger your sense of group identity, the more money you can take from the government.

If you can increase your sense of group identity, then you will become richer and more powerful. A goverment policy of redistributing wealth gives everyone an incentive to increase their sense of group identity.

As people's sense of group identity increases, their sense of unity with other groups decreases. Thus a government policy of redistributing wealth reduces national unity.

The most powerful groups will be the groups with the strongest group unity and the weakest sense of national unity. Thus a government policy of redistributing wealth will result in taxing patriotic people and giving to unpatriotic people.

A government policy of redistributing wealth will result in taxing unselfish people and giving to selfish people.

A government policy of redistributing wealth will degenerate into multiple selfish groups of people all trying to use the government to exploit and confiscate the wealth of other groups.

The more the government redistributes wealth, the worse the side effects become.

Redistributing wealth encourages divisiveness and partisanship. A nation which does not redistribute wealth will be more unified and more stable. A nation which does not redistribute wealth can be much more diverse than a nation which does redistribute wealth.

Redistributing wealth works best in a homogenous nation with no minorities. But a truly homogenous nation will not have disparities of wealth and thus has no need for redistribution of wealth.

During the twentieth century, America did less redistribution of wealth than the european nations. But America had more socially destructive side effects from the redistribution of wealth. This is because America is more diverse than the european nations, because redistribution wealth has more socially destructive side effects in a more diverse nation.

The american left favors redistributing wealth and group identity politics. This is an unintelligent combination. If the left is serious about redistributing wealth, they should oppose group identity politics and encourage national unity. If the left is serious about diversity, the left should oppose redistributing wealth.

One way to avoid the side effects of redistributing wealth in a diverse nation is to disenfranchise minorities so that the ruling class is homogenous even though the nation isn't. But this only works if the ruling class has a strong cultural commitment to treating minorites well. But if the ruling class has a strong cultural commitment to treating minorities well, then the ruling class would probably not want to disenfranchise minorites.

I do not think that the constitution should forbid the government from redistributing wealth. There are many people who think the government should redistribute wealth. If the constitution forbids the government from redistributing wealth, those people will try to undermine the constitution, which will destablize the nation.

The best solution is competitive federalism. The central government should not redistribute wealth, and the central government should allow the competing governments to redistribute wealth as much or as little as the competing governments desire. Competive federalism makes it impossible for a competing governmnet to abuse the redistribution of wealth to exploit people because the exploited people would leave for a better competing government.

Large disparities in wealth usually occur because of a government policy of exploiting some people to enrich other people. Competive federalism makes such exploitation impossible, so great disparities of wealth would not occur, so there would be no need for the government to correct the disparities of wealth.

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