Friday, June 19, 2015

On the Hard Left's Answer to Income Inequality

I'm still not entirely sure what it is. I mean, if it's taking money from the wealthy and redistributing it to the poor, that (at least theoretically) wouldn't alter it one iota in that a) the income statistics are almost always displayed on a pre-tax basis and b) transfer payments likewise are rarely included. Now, if these folks are willing to concede that that there is a deadweight cost to taxes and that they cause folks to want to earn less (why work more if the state is simply going to confiscate most of it?), yeah, maybe they'd be on to something here (though, yes, less earnings equals less revenue and a cat chasing its tail scenario).

6 comments:

dmarks said...

The hard left's answer to income equality always involves the lion's share going to the state. The rulers, the elite, the nomenclatura. Who then drop crumbs for the poor.

I'd listen to them more if they required the rich to directly cut checks for the poor.

It's as if their real goal is making the state a lot bigger, instead of doing anything about poverty.

BB-Idaho said...

It's not like wealth and it's distribution is some newly discovered phenomenon:
''we conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial re-distribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation.'' Will Durant-lessons of History

Les Carpenter said...

For capitalism to survive it must adapt. Present reality, one that includes, corporate welfare and a skewed logic for growth will ultimately fail.

dmarks said...

I think corporate welfare is only going to get worse, RN. You get weak at best opposition from Republicans (but at least there is some). But time and again, when I say we shouldn't give handouts to banks, auto companies, or politically-connected energy startups, I get the most angry, fear-mongering, knee-jerk defense of them from the leftists I talk to.

20 years ago, I think those leftits would have opposed this all, instead of moan about how necessary it is.

Les Carpenter said...

Republicans do not oppose corporate welfare; they benefit by it. Lip service is however a wonderful political tool.

To stop it requires significant and deep structural changes. Fact is once the damage was done in 2008 GWB and
BHO had little choice but to respond as we did. The alternative probably wouldn't have been pretty.

Fixing the problem going forward is something no one seems to have the political will for.

dmarks said...

Obama's "choice" was to shed millions of jobs and boost the debt as to make G.W.Bush look responsible in comparison.

The alternative would have been a lot prettier.