Wealth inequality translates into imbalances of power (of employers vis a vis employees and in myriad other ways). At least some of these power relationships may be bad consequences in and of themselves.

You may say: “We shouldn’t care about it unless it effects individual utilities? To do so would be arbitrary.”

But in practice judgments like this have to be made all of the time on the basis of presumed common sentiments or on whatever bases. Certain dogmas claim that information in “the price system” tells us all we could wish to know about individual well-beings, so much in fact that we ought to dispense with any other information about social states. But even among (possible) devotees to such an approach, there seems to be skepticism about whether “the market” does take into account certain interesting things, for example the costs of preference changes. And that difficulty is still located within welfarist analysis!

Moreover, as most people (including Will) believe, welfarism is not the end all be all of policy analysis. So most will continue to find discussing the axiology of power inequality and the role wealth inequality plays in bringing that about perfectly justifiable.

Of course, it may be that any efforts to reduce power inequality by reducing wealth inequality will do more harm than good. But one should not assume this. And assuming it is no good reason to not care about wealth inequality and the consequent power imbalances. Even if you could change your preferences regarding power their may be good reasons not to want to. The existence of all these libertarian blogs protesting otherwise might seem to indicate that these reasons to have some force.

What is the surest way to get rich in America these days? Spend some time working a government job, then cash in on your connections to become rich.

Bush’s choice for the supreme court is a perfect example of this. Judge Roberts has spent the 26 years since he got a law degree evenly split between government service and the “private” sector cashing in on his connections. In that time he has amassed a personal fortune in excess of $10 million.

I don’t advocate taxing the rich out of fairness, rather, to force them to change the rules of the game…

The system is pretty fair, although not perfect. The policies you advocate make it less so. Using imperfection as an excuse to go still further doesn’t seem…um…fair.

I’m not sure you’re right about median income falling, or what you think Bush has to do with it, or why you should care about CEO pay.

I agree that much government spending is wasted. That’s one reason why I’d like to reduce such spending rather than increase it as you seem to want to do.

I don’t think popularity contests are a good way to measure philosophical merit, and I would suggest that anyone who still thinks taking Marx’s advice is a good idea is tragically mistaken.

All kidding aside, it really seems like you have an interest in hurting people who are successful. Do you honestly think this will help the less successful in the long run, or do you see hurting the successful as something that’s valuable for its own sake?

It seems like a simple game theory problem:

If the system is fair, people should be fair.

If the system is corrupt, people should take what they can get.

Is the system fair?

Median income continues to fall under Bush, yet CEO pay is skyrocketing.

Little of the additional federal spending spent in the name post-9/11 security has gone to anything that actually makes us safer. Rather, it has gone to hundreds of companies run by Republican cronies that generate nice reports but nothing else…and our troops have to buy their own body armor.

What would Marx, the greatest philosopher in history, say to people in the lower income brackets in the U.S.?

Tax the bastards until they bleed…hehe.

It’s interesting that you first justified redistribution as serving fairness, and now you say there’s no such thing anymore. I suspect you realize that the initial excuse was BS.

Many CEOs today are doing what they think is in the best interest of their shareholders. Some aren’t, and some of these are getting fired, and others are going to jail.

Society has always been a place where some choose to take what they can steal while others choose not to.

If this society does become one where nobody chooses to be what you call a sucker, I think you’ll find that it will shortly become much less pleasant for just about everyone.

I guess I’d rather be a sucker than a clever rat on a sinking ship.

If you think CEOs today are doing what is in the best interest of their shareholders, I’ve got some Enron shares I can let you have cheap, hehe.

There is no such thing as fairness anymore. We live in a take what you can steal society now.

Whether or not you think taxes are theft..the poor would be suckers not to take the rich for all they can.

None that you can see?

You can’t see a fairness-related difference between spending money that people have voluntary paid or invested because they judged that they were getting a good deal, vs. people spending money that has been taken under threat force and without consent?

Call it “fairness” if you prefer that to “distaste for inequality”, but either way, your conception of these things is very different from mine. I think inequality of results is completely consistent with fairness; I’d be shocked if the fair outcome was otherwise. I think the concepts of fairness and equality of results have been confused by a large number of people (you included).

I think it’s “unfair” to people like me who are willing to leave people like you alone to the greatest extent feasible, that people like you aren’t willing to extend us the same courtesy.

I take it from Will’s latest posts that he has been moved off the looting SS portfolio and onto preserving the illusion that America is still a meritocaracy by his wealthy patrons. Fair enough.

What is the difference between politicians handing out lucractive contracts to their cronies, or a CEO voting himself a huge bonus and the poorest 80% of Americans voting for a huge transfer tax on the wealthiest 20% of Americans?

None that I can see…if their are no rules anymore, why shouldn’t the poor soak the rich?

As Will points out, studies don’t seem to support that the happiness of the poor is greatly affected by changes in inequality.

The thing that’s driving this is the leftist distate for inequality. Not their own low status, personally, but inequality in general.

They seem to care about this much more than about the absolute welfare of the people they talk about helping. Even if they seem to understand that if everybody is getting better off, we should expect the spread between the top and bottom to increase; they keep coming back to describing this as a terrible problem, and are willing to make everyone worse off to “solve” it.

I don’t know if this is a fundmental moral precept that they picked up as small children, or if it runs even deeper than that; but many people I’ve tried to reason with just can’t get past the possibility of inequality of results.

Do you think that all people can change their concern for their relative position?

If so, do you think it’s easy?

It appears to me to be a pretty fundamental thing to many people.