What happens when half the population steals for a living?

Victor Davis Hanson lives in California, and he's watching the society around him approach the event horizon. Well worth reading.

Hanson makes the point that the collection of socialists, unionists, leftists, most government officials, Marxists, welfare vacuums, thugs and thieves that predominate in most Democrat-voting states don't produce anything useful/valuable but instead are a net drain on the output and wealth of productive people.

Example: gangbanger A shoots up gangbanger B, who's taken to the emergency room for tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer-funded surgery and post-op treatment by an MD and team of highly-trained, skilled people.

A day earlier the gangbanger would have been mugging the MD or ER team members, or stealing their car, or otherwise insulting or intimidating them. (Even after saving the banger's life the doctor is more likely to be ridiculed or sued by him than thanked.)

So what, exactly, do either of the bangers produce or do that the MD needs?

Exactly: It's a one-way street, with one group working to produce things or provide useful (sometimes life-saving) services, while the other loots and steals from the first. The bangers need the doc but not the other way 'round.

Hanson's next point was: Without the hard-working, productive members of society, what would happen to the looters, muggers and thieves?

As Hanson puts it, parasites need a host. But obviously those in the looting class--including socialist politicians and union execs--haven't thought that through. And even if someone were to lead them through that chain of reasoning, they wouldn't believe that their actions could possibly bring down the whole social network.

Except for the Marxists (now more fashionably called "progressives")--and they'd see the destruction of our society as achieving a major goal.

So...where does that leave us? Obviously gangbangers aren't gonna suddenly see the light and start lawn-service companies (or whatever). Nor is there any chance that Marxists and socialists can be re-educated to the evil and destructiveness of their chosen philosophy. That leaves one path:

We must take power away from government--at all levels. Return to Constitutional levels of government power. And then to keep vote-buying politicians from going right back to business-as-usual, violating the new (old) Constitutional rules needs to be made a capital offense.