The Demand for 'Participation' Trophies

When you hear the rhetoric of wealth redistribution and “paying a fair share,” it is rooted in the belief that someone must pay for others to receive the “participation” trophy. Instead of economic policies that inspire more people to engage in the free enterprise system and the opportunity economy, progressive socialists advance policies to punish the players on the field. When you can stand up and profess in America “if you own a business, you didn’t build that,” it reflects a sense that the sweat from the brow of the individual to produce – to score touchdowns, goals, runs – is no longer regarded. The efforts of those on the field only serves to produce the required resources for some to make “participation” trophies for others.

We are slowly moving away from what the American dream truly represents – creating victors, champions. We have those who through the giving away of the little plastic trophy are making victims.

The liberal progressive governing philosophy is based upon an expansion of dependency; the welfare nanny-state. By doing so, they raise taxes on the producers, the earners, the folks scoring touchdowns for our country. They must do so in order to produce the “participation” trophy that some will place upon their mantle – and it results in a sense of entitlement, and false esteem. But the givers of the little plastic trophy feel good about themselves, at the expense of those from whom they take, by way of redistribution. The result is a reticence by those who are on the field, in the market, because they recognize the diminishing return on their commitment to excellence.

The progressive socialists embrace this principle of egalitarianism and call it “social justice” and fairness. We see it when schools begin to eliminate the recognition of valedictorians and salutatorians to protect the esteem of others because they did not achieve similar excellence. When we punish those who embody Jefferson’s assertion that we have an unalienable right to pursue happiness then we erode the fundamental aspect of the equality of opportunity.
It is then replaced by a government guarantee of happiness, which must be resourced as the goal becomes equality of outcomes.

In the end, the “participation” trophy becomes that which some long for and worship as they lose their sense of individuality, and the ability to seek out their own personal accomplishments.

Allen West, “The Fallacy of the Participation Trophy”