Globalisation is causing the biggest shift in relative prices (of labour, capital, commodities and goods) for a century, and this in turn is causing a significant redistribution of income.
ECONOMIST: The rich nations no longer dominate global production
The result will be a dramatic redistribution of income, a rapid erosion of the West's relative economic clout and, for many Western citizens, an end to the cosy expectations of ever rising living standards.
He finds that the redistribution of both income and employment (through shorter working hours) is essential to the project.
Welfare programmes and redistribution of land and income have brought him fervent support among poorer voters but alienated wealthier Venezuelans.
Democracies tend to evolve two political parties, a party of economic growth and a party of income redistribution.
But even on purely economic grounds, death taxes are spectacular failures as revenue raisers or a tool of income redistribution.
Only a few can be net beneficiaries of income redistribution.
More importantly, continued policy focus on income redistribution perpetuates the idea that income inequality is the root of middle class economic problems, rather than the effect, allowing for the continued avoidance of the deep-rooted structural issues in the U.S. economy.
FORBES: How Will The Middle Class Fare In The Battle Over The Fiscal Cliff?
Most of the people making the argument against income inequality are folks who were in favor of greater redistribution before the crisis, folks who see a moral argument for greater equity irrespective of the economics, and for whom the economics is just a new arrow in the quiver.
The U.S. and Sweden, countries with very different systems of redistribution, along with the U.K. and Canada show the largest increase in the share of income for the top 1%.
Instead, it is the much more Machiavellian question of how to build a case for income redistribution, which is altogether the wrong question to be asking in a free society.
FORBES: In Asking About Income Inequality, Obama Begins With The Wrong Question
Its authors note that those near but not at the bottom of the income distribution are often deeply ambivalent about greater redistribution.
ECONOMIST: The poor like taxing the rich less than you would think
Poverty is not merely a matter of minimum income thresholds or insufficient resources, nor must it be remedied only through charity or wealth redistribution schemes.
If not, they will vote for income redistribution, in an effort to assure that everyone survives so that they can enjoy the fruits of economic growth, if and when political leaders emerge who understand how to produce it.
应用推荐