Posted on 01/18/2020 3:25:45 AM PST by Kaslin
Editor's Note: This piece was authored by Young Voices contributor Nate Hochman.
During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate in Iowa, long-shot billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer made the case for a tax on the wealth of the richest Americans, explaining that he finds “the income inequality in this country” to be “unbearable, unjust and unsupportable.” The rest of the politicians on the stage — almost all millionaires themselves — nodded along in blissfully unironic agreement.
The issue of income inequality is practically a raison d’être for candidates like Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but a similar sentiment regarding the immorality of the nation’s wealth distribution is often echoed by a wide range of progressive politicians. This indictment of America’s wealth distribution is relative rather than absolute. Meaning it’s not just that there is something objectively wrong with the living conditions of the working class, but rather that there is something unconscionable about the way that some live in comparison to others. For those who subscribe to this view, a particular level of inequality in a society’s economic distribution is wrong simply because it is. Subsequently, there’s a certain level of individual wealth that is inherently immoral. As the Twitter handle of a senior policy advisor for congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reads, “Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure.”
But exactly how much wealth, relative to the mean, is too much? And what exactly would a “just” distribution of income look like? These aren’t just hypothetical questions — they reveal a fundamental defect in the relativist view of the economy. The anger over the concentration of wealth at the top of the income distribution relative to the middle and working classes often stems from the notion that the economy is static, and that every dollar gained for Bill Gates is a dollar lost for less wealthy Americans. To view the economy in this way, however, would be a grave mistake.
Market economies are far from static, and the accumulation of wealth by the most prosperous individuals does not amount to a theft of income from the working class. To be sure, some people become wealthier more quickly than others during periods of economic growth, but the beauty of the free market lies in its ability to create value for everyone. Success in a market economy often stems from one’s ability to create a product or service that motivates consenting individuals to willingly part with their economic capital. Subsequently, many of the most affluent members of our society acquired their wealth by creating enormous value for others — and not just those in the top quadrants. It’s no wonder, then, that standards of living have continued to improve for Americans in every income bracket, even as the gap between the rich and the poor has widened.
Ironically, this is the exact argument that Senator Sanders made when confronted with the fact that his personal wealth now situates him in that oft-denigrated top 1% of the country’s income distribution. How did Sanders become a millionaire? “I wrote a best-selling book,” he explained to the New York Times. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” Of course, this is an inadvertent recitation of the argument often made by Sanders’ fiercest critics: he created a desirable product, which he then traded in exchange for money to consenting individuals in the market. It’s difficult not to be astounded by such an impressive exercise of cognitive dissonance: the Vermont senator continues to be unabashedly convinced that the wealth of his fellow one-percenters is damning evidence of an unjust, unfair system that needs to be corrected through massive redistributionist policies. But when it comes to the significance of his own income, he suddenly becomes uncharacteristically charitable. How odd.
The eccentricities of septuagenarian socialists notwithstanding, those who are concerned with the lot of the American working class should center their energies on material prosperity, economic mobility and wage growth rather than becoming mired in concerns over relative wealth distribution. There is still real work to be done in these areas, to be sure, but attempting to punish the successful rather than expanding opportunity for the least fortunate will likely exacerbate such issues. Contrary to what many contemporary progressives seem to believe, punitive wealth redistribution is not the key to a more prosperous or just America. Instead, policymakers should focus on increasing the polity’s ability to lead lives of purpose and dignity — something that’s rarely, if ever, provided by a massive new government program.
Anyone who has more money than I do is too wealthy.
Any billionaire who bemoans income inequality but hasn’t already become an ex-billionaire for having given his money away is obviously a fraud.
I have kids and grandchildren who I would rather have my earned money rather than the government. I’m not wealthy but if I was I would have the same feelings.
Good morning, Kaslin-!
It’s amazing, isn’t it how instead of just quietly giving away almost all of their money the politicians and actors and activists want to make it a government right to steal money? Meanwhile they make sure to take the tax deductions for donating monies and they have their foundations set up to employ their family members?
They could just quietly give monies to the government and go about their daily life, but no...they are greedy with their money and want to freely rob us.
A billionaire who decries income inequality lives a lie, and is trying to buy power without paying for it.
Has he ever written an extra check payable to the US Treasury? I promise, they’ll cash it if he does.
I suggest that the best thing for the "working class" would be a focus on full-time jobs with predictable hours. People complain that younger adults spend their spare time watching Netflix or playing video games instead of something more valuable, but how can a person join a sports team or sign up for an activity with his child if he doesn't know when he'll be called to show up at work?
If he hasn’t voluntarily drained himself down to the national average, whether by giveaway to the guv or many private individuals, I don’t want to hear him yapping about income inequality.
You know if I had a billion dollars or ten billion or whatever, yeah, I’d probably show it off for a year or two.
But basically I’d be embarrassed by it and try to live my life pretty low key after that.
Blue collar jobs advocate and all around great guy Mike Rowe commenting on one of the earlier Dem debates:
“Look, in the end you’ve got millionaires arguing with millionaires over who hates the millionaires the most.”
Only libtards would spend 100 years aggressively indoctrinating children until the public is too dumb to reliably function as a half decent employee and then bitch about “Wealth Inequality”.
Unless they are pirates, politicians or obtain their fortunes through government-enforced schemes, like Steyr.
“Can’t enter into Kingdom of God” Wealthy
Matthew 19:24
Here’s my question: would said wealth have existed if said individual did not create it?
I read about a factory under construction near the large shale deposits in the Pennsylvania Virginia area, a factory miles wide, hundreds of jobs. Abundant, inexpensive energy is a main factor in improving and maintaining economic vitality. China is gathering coal, oil and natural gas all over the WORLD. They used to ridicule the phrase Drill Baby Drill. The Creepozoid Environazifascists still do ridicule it, preferring to send all of humanity, and especially the West, back to the Dark Ages. We have no idea just how much oil and natural gas are under the surface of the Earth. We have only drilled a few short miles into the Earth. There are oceans of hydrocarbons on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Hydrocarbons are naturally occurring, not pollution.
How healthy is too healthy?
How smart is too smart?
How talented is too talented?
How good looking is too good looking?
If we force the wealthy to give up much of their wealth, then we must also:
Force healthy people to donate organs
Force smart people to tutor and/or marry the stupid
Injure the talented for the sake of talent equality
Give the good looking a choice, facial scars or pity sex with uggos.
Harsh, bizarre, outrageous?
Sure.
But how are any of those really different than seeking to significantly extract funds from those who achieve or are even born with the benefit of great wealth as opposed to any of those other valued attributes.
Steyer has a lot of money but whoa Nellie does he have one butt ugly scary looking wife. I wouldn’t trade places with him for all the money in the world.
Who will be the ARBITERS of “Too Much”? This has always been the key difference between the earners and the takers! Stalin(?) I believe to have said that it matters not who votes but rather it matters who counts the vote!
A near constant refrain from the takers, and this is an excellent example, is that their proposed taking is only from the ‘rich’, so all of the rest of us need not worry about it! Once the taking (aka tax or garnishment) is in place, it is ‘discovered’ not to be bringing in the envisioned revenue desired by the takers, so the minimum taking level is adjusted downward just a bit. Keep that up and the BYTE of wealth confiscation becomes the primrose path.
Moral: Don’t let them start!
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