The Irony of Athletes Supporting Socialist Policies

 The Irony of Athletes Supporting Socialist Policies

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Sports provide us with a perfect parallel to economics, and there is something particularly baffling about multi-millionaires overwhelmingly supporting a socialist agenda.

Success in athletics is the result of a complicated function of traits including athleticism, size, strength, speed, endurance, and most importantly work ethic. Financial success in the free market is the result of a similar equation with the physical traits replaced more with mental ability, while athleticism would be replaced with something like family well-being. Work ethic remains the constant, and the most heavily-weighted variable of each function.

Over the years, many high-profile athletes have held-out because they felt they deserved more money. The specific details behind every hold-out is different, but generally hold-out athletes believe they produce more than others and should be compensated. The list of notable hold-out athletes include Bo Jackson, Joe DiMaggio, Mark Messier, Juwan Howard, and many others. Hold-out athletes have a variety of success following their financial tussle, but the idea behind a hold-out makes sense to me- my production is worth more than what you are paying me. While this seems like a basic and reasonable concept, many professional athletes fail to recognize this concept’s relevance to economic policies, and tend to support leaders who fail to recognize production as well.

 Socialism, or forced redistribution of wealth, fails to reward those who have succeeded in business and financial theaters. Instead, it rewards those who lack success, and in most cases, lack the mental capability, discipline, and work ethic to produce. (It is important to recognize there are a lot of reasons for economic struggle, and in many cases people need and deserve a helping hand) If an owner compensated his or her athletes socially, every athlete on the team would make the same amount of money regardless of their production. The starting tailback who scores 20 touchdowns would make the same amount as the backup defensive end who has three sacks and 15 tackles. That does not seem fair, and certainly would not inspire the tailback to work harder to achieve success. Eventually the more talented and productive players would stop working hard because they know they will make the same amount of money regardless of their success on the field or court. The less talented players, while still important, are unable to make up for the production of the stars and the team would be unlikely to win any games. Athletes obviously recognize this, since they hold-out when they feel they deserve more money. So why do they not recognize this with regard to the economy?

There are a lot more issues than just economic policy in the upcoming election, so it is important to recognize that the athletes who have voiced support in one direction or the other have likely made their decision based on more than finances. That being said, there is little more important in any election than economic policy, because of the significant impact economic policy has on the everyday life of all citizens. Regardless of their reasoning, highly-paid athletes who support socialist economic policy, either consciously or subconsciously, are hypocrites for not personally redistributing wealth across their team. It takes a lot of hard work and sweat equity to make it into the professional levels of any sport, but it also takes hard work and equity to make it economically, and athletes who fail to realize this connection relinquish their credibility. And if athletes are wise enough to recognize this connection, but still support a particular platform, they would also be wise to acknowledge their unwillingness to support the economic aspect of that platform. Maybe then, athletes will gain more trust from the common population.