Redistribution

Over and over, the left tells us that economic inequality is unfair.  Our government must do something to right this wrong.

Yet, econ professor Donald Boudreaux writes of another type of inequality.

On the same day that Paul Krugman agonizes over data that show high American income inequality (“How Fares the Dream?” Jan. 16), Bill Knapp offers in the Washington Post a data-rich argument that questions the basis for this agony (“Middle class is moving forward, not backward“).  Data on this matter clearly are unclear.

So ignore questions of ‘what the data say’ and grant, arguendo, Mr. Krugman’s case that income inequality in America is excessive.  Ask instead: why focus on inequality of monetary incomes?  What about other inequalities, such as the inequality of influence in public-policy debates?  Mr. Krugman is certainly a one-percenter on this front.  (Indeed, he’s a 0.001-percenter!)

Shouldn’t government ‘redistribute’ parts of Mr. Krugman’s New York Times column to me and other pundits who (according to the theory) can’t help but seethe with soul-shriveling envy at Mr. Krugman’s good fortune – good fortune that (also according to the theory) has less to do with Mr. Krugman’s merits as a columnist and more to do either with chance or with his pernicious and unfair influence with the Powers-that-Be?

Surely every ‘Progressive’ believes that those of us who now possess far less access than does Mr. Krugman to the opinion pages of the Times deserve to enjoy more of the access that he currently “controls.”  And no ‘Progressive’ would let mere bourgeois obsessions with property rights and freedom block the state from forcibly redistributing such private property in the name of “social justice.”

Do not hold your breath waiting for the left to start protesting for this cause....

 

Comments

[John Pepple]

Thanks for the link, Peg.

When I think of all the schemes I heard from various socialists down through the years such as job-sharing, I have to wonder why people like Krugman just aren't interested in that sort of thing. It's pretty clear he wouldn't want to give up that influence and have it shared.

I see this in academia all the time. Their attitude is, "The outside world needs to redistribute income, but we tenured profs in academia deserve everything we get, even though lots of other would-be professors don't have much of anything."

It's one of a number of reasons why I now vote Republican.