Who is Causing Income Inequality?
You are. Taking off on a post by yours truly, Walter Williams writes:
I’d ask Krugman this question: Who’s putting all the money in the hands of the few, and what do you think ought to be done to stop millions, perhaps billions, of people from using their money in ways that lead to high income and wealth concentration? In other words, I’d like Krugman to tell us what should be done to stop the millions of children who make Joanne Rowling rich, the millions who fork over their money to the benefit of LeBron James, and the hundreds of millions of people who shop at Wal-Mart.
This is an interesting concept. We willingly give our money to Walmart because it provides goods and service cheaper than its competitors. Then we complain that Walmart’s owners became too rich and we want the government to redistribute some of their money to us. Yet, if the government takes away some of Walmart’s money, it cannot — or will not — expand into the cities and neighborhoods where we can access its goods and services.
Arrrgh. I’m feeling guilty already.
I like Walter Williams’ final paragraph. We posits the following question…
Alas, I suspect Professor Williams knows the answer; his well-reasoned book is probably not as fun for school children to read as the Harry Potter novels.
I understand the argument, and nothing about the logic is flawed, but I do think it’s not confronting what the 99% are protesting.
My understanding of OWS is they aren’t protesting the rich, per se, but rather the people they perceive as having gotten rich by ill-gotten means. It isn’t Occupy Harry Potter or Occupy NBA, it is Occupy Wall Street. I think they believe the financial sector to be largely a bunch of Bernie Madoffs who aren’t paying for the ills they have wrought.
When Mike Vick and Plaxico Burress (millionaire athletes) committed crimes, they went to jail. But thanks to regulatory capture, the SEC will let firms off with a small fine and no admission of wrong doing.
Then again, I’m not an occupier, so I’m probably mistaken…
Very interesting perspective!
Let me see if I have this concept correct… The way for me to reduce income inequity is to patronize business establishments that provide bad service, sell poor-quality products and watch boring entertainment or read boring books that are not particularly interesting? That all sounds like a lot of effort on my part – just so the 1 percenters enjoy a little less of my money!
Whoever puts in place policies that favor Wal-Mart against smaller retail stores because they recieve fat checks from Wal-mart for their political campaigns causes inequality.
Perhaps some sort of anti-dog-eat-dog rule would prevent destructive competition and create income equality.
Good points but you may want to read Senator Tom Coburn’s report at http://ow.ly/7LCC0.
Taking from the labor of one and giving to another- taxation/redistribution by any other name, is the basic economic principle in the arsenal of the DFL at present. (Some would suggest it’s the only economic principle they practice well.) This was the essence of “i” fair and balanced, fireside lecture a few months past. His lecture was intended to appeal to one of Man’s most destructive notions about himself and others- envy.
Envy, as described in the writings of Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora’s “Egalitarian Envy,” is the driving force of those who wish to convince the public that there are those who have acquired “too much.” The subtle insinuation is that it was acquired dishonestly through exploitation of the “people” in some manner. Therefore, it’s only “fair” that those who have “too much” give an ever-increasing share to those who have “too little.” Envy in the Left lexicon is packaged as populist rhetoric and dressed in the seductive attire of “Social Justice.” It is one of the only forms of envy that people speak of openly in the public square and demagogue as a political theory on the stump.
The Left has become masterful practitioners of this populist rhetoric and the underlying appeal to envy. The antidote to such destructive speech in what de la Mora states is “emulation of success.”
“The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State.” – Bertrand de Jouvenel
Yet the complaint of the “99%” is that the “1%” is the problem? That seems odd, as the “99%” doesn’t write tax policy- Mr. Coburn and company do. I think it would be foolish if these “millionaires” didn’t take the exemptions that Coburn and company provide.
I think Coburn’s explanation is like the snitch in grade school that rats out someone else to divert attention away from his own culpability. Is it any wonder that Congress’ favorability rating is in the tank and has been that way whether Pelosi (D) or Boehner (R) was at the helm.
“Occupy whatever” are ignorant children who merely desire to extend adolescence, and aspire to obtain a different variety (college tuition forgiveness, etc.) of the very same government largesse discussed in Coburn’s article. Our problem as “We the People” is that everyone wants a shot at the trough of government beneficence.
“The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception.” – Fredrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)