georgephillip
Diamond Member
Do the richest among us owe their wealth to hard work and high IQs or government monopolies like patents and copyrights, minimum wage laws, or campaign finance contributions?
Should We Have Billionaires?
"The basic story is that if we have a market economy, some people can get very rich.
"If we buy the right-wing story, the super-rich got their money from their great contribution to society.
"If we look at it with clearer eyes, the super-rich got their money because we structured the economy in a way that allowed them to get super-rich..."
"This is a point which seems very obvious, but for some reason is largely ignored in policy debates.
"Most typically these debates take the market distribution of income as a given, and then ask the extent to which we might want to redistribute to have less inequality...."
"But it is completely absurd to treat the market distribution of income as given.
"The market is incredibly flexible and it can literally be structured in an infinite number of different ways."
Instead of arguing over a redistribution of income, restructure markets in such a way that vast private fortunes never come into existence in the first place.
Should We Have Billionaires?
"The basic story is that if we have a market economy, some people can get very rich.
"If we buy the right-wing story, the super-rich got their money from their great contribution to society.
"If we look at it with clearer eyes, the super-rich got their money because we structured the economy in a way that allowed them to get super-rich..."
"This is a point which seems very obvious, but for some reason is largely ignored in policy debates.
"Most typically these debates take the market distribution of income as a given, and then ask the extent to which we might want to redistribute to have less inequality...."
"But it is completely absurd to treat the market distribution of income as given.
"The market is incredibly flexible and it can literally be structured in an infinite number of different ways."
Instead of arguing over a redistribution of income, restructure markets in such a way that vast private fortunes never come into existence in the first place.