Original Welfare Queens

To keep her looking pretty
Buy her dresses that shine
While the rest of them dudes were making their bread
Buddy, beg your pardon, I was losing mine
--Mountain

Southern slaveholders were the original welfare queens of the United States. This group engaged in relentless pursuit of redistribution of wealth by force by instituting a 100% tax on the labor of slaves.

Southern artistocracy's pretentions of sophistication and refinement can be viewed as fronts for large quantities of leisure made possible because they didn't have to work--others were producing for them at the point of a gun. Slaveholders were using government force to advance their interests on the backs of others. They were using the strong arm of government to get more for less, or, in this particular case, to get something for nothing.

All welfare states require a fundamentally similar arrangement.