Comments on: Response to Jonathan Chait on Inequality

By: lewisklim

lewisklim — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:19:50 +0000

Mr. Chait's argument about wealth-as-virtue is his most persuasive argument yet because it rests upon one unassailable and largely documented fact: the transfer of wealth to the have's from the have-not's is unprecedented in our nation's history.
I think his point is not that liberals have a huge difficulty with captains of industry(like Rush Limbaugh) tooling around in their Maybecks and fancy cigars. Rather those who defend the prosperity of the uppermost quintiles assume their wealth doesn't come at the expense of the lowermost quintiles, where, as most economists agree, real wages have flat-lined.

By: lewisklim

lewisklim — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:19:50 +0000

Mr. Chait's argument about wealth-as-virtue is his most persuasive argument yet because it rests upon one unassailable and largely documented fact: the transfer of wealth to the have's from the have-not's is unprecedented in our nation's history.
I think his point is not that liberals have a huge difficulty with captains of industry(like Rush Limbaugh) tooling around in theri Maybecks and fancy cigars. Rather those who defend the prosperity of the uppermost quintiles assume their wealth doesn't come at the expense of the lowermost quintiles, where, as most economists agree, real wages have flat-lined.

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By: uknowbetter

uknowbetter — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:56:04 +0000

Frequently what I hear from liberals is that income inequality is a problem because the dirty masses might rise up. It's like one friend said to me the other day: “I'm a liberal because I have conservative ends.” I laughed and said I'm a libertarian because I believe that is the best way to achieve liberal ends.

By: thoughts on Wilkinson’s views on income inequality | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:38:10 +0000

[...] Wilkinson has done yeoman’s work in his recent posts regarding income inequality, and in articulating some of my own dissatisfaction with certain [...]

By: Brian Moore

Brian Moore — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:31:37 +0000

Will, It seems like Chait is arguing with someone other than the person who wrote your paper. Your rebuttals aren't exactly rebuttals, they're pointing out how he's misinterpreting what you're trying to say.

"I don’t sense in Chait’s piece much of a defense of of the idea that income inequality really is important. He seems to me mostly concerned to defend the permissibility of redistribution. "

Yeah -- I think he would really like to believe that you're an evil right-wing free market fundamentalist who only wants to crush the poor and minimize their suffering while you're at it. Why are you disappointing the poor guy?

By: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Response to Jonathan Chait on Inequality

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:45:10 +0000

[...] Will Wilkinson is always worth reading. [...]

By: Brian O'Reilly

Brian O'Reilly — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:35:58 +0000

It seems to me that Jonathan Chait winds up agreeing with Will in the final sentences of his piece. He writes:

"How are a poor, inner-city kid's life chances affected," asks Wilkinson, "by the fact that some Web entrepreneur makes billions of dollars as opposed to just millions?" They're not. But if the Web entrepreneur has to pay a slightly higher tax rate so the inner-city kid can afford to attend a decent college, or so the kid's parents can see a dentist, how are the entrepreneur's life chances affected?

He's saying large disparities in income are not a problem but poor access to health care and education are and might be solved by redistribution.

By: Brian O'Reilly

Brian O'Reilly — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:35:58 +0000

By: Simon K

Simon K — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:21:08 +0000

Latin America has institutions that promote, or at least don't prevent, the accumulation of property in the hands of the rich, often at the expense of the poor, because the property rights of the poor (or what we'd consider property rights – they don't function as such there) are either not protected or inadequately protected. You can argue about whether the institutions that promote unequal distribution or the unequal distribution itself are the “deeper” problem, whatever that is, but it certainly seems to me that changing the institutions is a prerequisite for changing the distrbution in any meaningful way,

As a side-point, note that “distribution of economic resources” and “distribution of income” are very different things. In the developed world, at least, lots of people with substantial incomes own very little in the way of economic resources.