I encounter this reasoning when listening to the environmentalists. They claim over and over again that the reason the Africans are so poor is because the West (in particular the USA) exploit the natural resources they would otherwise have been able to use for themselves. It's like they cannot get their mind around the concept of "exporting goods/resources is the same as importing cash". To hear them tell it- we take other countries' resources at gunpoint. I start to think it might be a genetic defect in some people- a missing enzyme renders them unable to reason or understand simple rules.
I see this a lot too in their discussions of resources, particularly when they cannot grasp that no resource exists until a man's mind invents it. Oil is useless without man's ingenuity, as are metals or anything else. Stones are useless until a man figures out how to use them to bash in the head of an animal. The lefties simply cannot understand how you can create new resources not by magically conjuring them out of the air, but by finding uses for otherwise useless materials.
I've been following their arguments for years and that's the one consistent thing I've noticed- they cannot grasp that concept. It's kinda like when they assume that since you have to have a college degree to succeed, if they simply pass out college degrees to "oppressed groups" they will bring success to those groups. We are always scratching our heads wondering why they are trying to peddle this snake oil- but lately I really start to believe that they believe it, they truly do not get it.
At any rate, thanks for posting this even though it has been posted a few times before. That's one of her best ones.
Exactly - the leftists are afflicted with the belief that economic activity is a zero-sum game. That is the reason their politic is based on deterimining the winners and losers in society.