Progressives?

I always hear people on the left referred to as "progressives" (or, more accurately, referring to themselves as progressives.) So I ask myself: progressing toward what? Fairness? How is it fair to take something someone has earned and give it to someone who hasn't earned it? Equality? We're equal in a spiritual sense, we're equal in the sense that we should all have an equal opportunity, but the fact is we don't PERFORM equally. Bill Gates and I are not equal financially. I didn't start Microsoft, he did. Good for him. I'd better come up with a great idea too. Are we progressing toward a government that takes better care of us? Government is the least efficient, least adaptable, and most corrupt possible way to take care of anything, and even people on the left, when they have to actually interact with government, think it's a bureaucratic nightmare (yet they keep wanting more... go figure.)

So what are they progressing toward? More power over more people's lives is all I can really come up with. I don't think they're evil for that, because I'm certain that they have good intentions (most of them). The problem is that the basic assumption of that is that there is an elite that can make better choices for people than they can make for themselves, which diminishes the people, and puts power in the hands of a few that, by definition, are superior to the diminished masses.

The other problem, of course, is that rule by an elite has NEVER WORKED. I don't care how smart they are, life happens, and especially economies happen, in what could be called a positively directed chaotic state, where new things are created unpredictably, and things have to adapt nimbly to the new creations. No group of "wise people" can control it. Note how successful centrally planned economies were and are. Lots of new inventions and creative solutions coming out of the old Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea (not). Are the people there stupid? No. They're just not free or motivated because an elite is in control. Everyone's equal... equally miserable, except the elite because they're so wise... er, they have the power.

When someone says they're progressive, ask what they are progressing toward. It seems to me that what they're really doing is regressing toward what has never worked. Rule by an elite that sees all the peasants as the same didn't lead to progress in monarchies, facist states, or communist states. Freedom, and competition, has led to progress.