Posted by
JDComments on Thursday, January 25, 2007 1:54:34 PM
Tyler Cowen, a professor at George Mason University, has written an interesting
piece which totally disparages that great Liberal shibboleth of increasing income inequality in the US which they use as an indictment of capitalism. Surprisingly, it appears in the NYT [which proves even a broken clock is right twice a day] and is a refreshing breath of fresh air against the stale arguments which the Paul Krugmans of the world espouse.
The article is well worth reading, and includes several different arguments which prove that the "gap" in incomes is a lot more complicated, and not nearly as large, as is routinely depicted.
It ends with the following:
The broader philosophical question is why we should worry about inequality — of any kind — much at all. Life is not a race against fellow human beings, and we should discourage people from treating it as such.
What matters most is how well people are doing in absolute terms. We should continue to improve opportunities for lower-income people, but inequality as a major and chronic American problem has been overstated.
I have posted several times on the same idea, but never expressed it so well.
As much as the Liberals need and seek their "causes" to champion to justify their existence, here is something they are creating from whole cloth, and the fact that it is specious does not stop it from being a caustic factor in our society, resulting in animosity and frictions which are unjustified and should not exist.
As usual, in the name of creating a "better" world, the Liberals succeed in achieving just the opposite and we all pay the price for it.