Conservative Fish Parable

August 27th, 2009 |

We’ve all heard the ‘fish’ parable: “If you give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for a lifetime.” The parable is a lesson on self-sufficiency and learning. A person who is “fed for a day” will certainly be grateful, but then what are they to do tomorrow? Such generosity and compassion, if continued, only becomes dependency. It creates a burden on the compassionate and stifles the spirit of the dependent.

But, as the parable suggests, only a person who learns to support themselves can lead a fulfilling life. There is also a ‘cascade’ effect, where more self-sufficiency in a community breeds even more productivity and fulfillment for everyone. Which also greatly reduces the burdens when someone does need to be ‘fed for a day’.

The lessons of this parable translate directly to the concept of ‘distribution of wealth’ espoused by so many liberals today. I hope that relating wealth redistribution to the fish parable might help some to understand the futility and destructive reality of that idea.

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