Thursday, June 21, 2007

Wealth and Redistribution

What do you think of this statement?

We don't take steps to redress inequalities of looks, friends, or sex life. We don't grab a kidney from you to save someone's life, even though that health difference was unfair brute luck. Redistribution of wealth has some role in maintaining a stable democracy and preventing starvation. But the power of wealth redistribution to produce net value is quite limited. The power of wealth creation to produce net value is extraordinary. Most of America's poor are already among the best-off of all humans in world history. We should be putting our resources, including our advocacy and our intellectual resources, into wealth creation as much as we can.


This is not an unusual belief among many conservative and libertarian bloggers (and economists). I do find the argument that wealth redistribution is limited in creating value quite circular. I find many people in society place a great value on the redistribution of wealth.