The American Mind

>>>Let me know what I’m missing.

Not that your missing anything, just some ideas….

Income inequality is a targeted complaint. That is, no one cares about Bill Gates’ billions or Ted Kennedy’s unearned millions but let it be known that some CEO of an energy company gets a six figure bonus and the left (and its willing allies in the media) goes nuts.

There is also the notion that because Person A receives X amount of income Person B will always receive less. The idea is that there is a finite amount of wealth to be had, which in my mind is absurd.

Missing from the article cited is any mention of personal drive. While the authors praise the benefits of higher learning they make no connection between financial success and personal attitude. Yes, they rub the edges by mentioning the ability to take a chance, but they do not delve at all into what drives a person to lay it on the line and work like hell to pull it off.

That, I think, is almost, if not more, as important than education, for we all have heard the story of the 8th-grade educated millionaire. Gates was educated, but his drive is what made Microsoft.

Then too, lets face it; some ideas are simply better than others. Some have mass appeal (hoola-hoops) while others have mass real use (vacume cleaners). And I have always been amazed at how little obscure items can produce great wealth. A favorite story - it has local ties - is that of
Oscar Zerk. (As a kid, I once trick-or-treated at this guy’s mansion).

The authors also miss a one other thing that might be in play: there are simply more people around and aware to do the consuming. An idea/invention that may have slowly reached 200 million 75 years ago now reaches many times that on a global scale in a near instant. The chance of a ‘hit’ has greatly increased and it is a world where even near misses can still generate gargantuan wealth.

Hi Sean,

Two thoughts on income inequality:

Like you, I am unsure why some people have such a problem with income equality per se. Surely, what we should care about is whether people have enough (e.g. they’re not starving, dying of easily preventable diseases, etc), not that their income is only 1/100000, or whatever, of Bill Gates’.

However, there are two reasons people seem to care about income inequality.

First, they see inequality of income as being related to inequality of political power. If the rich folks have more than us, the argument goes, they’ll use their excess wealth to gain control of the political system. Call that a practical worry about income inequality.

Second, there are many thinkers who see equality (e.g. of resources) as the default, morally justified distribution of resources. An unequal distribution has to be justified. This can be done if, for example, it turns out that an unequal distribution of the pie will produce a bigger pie, so that even the people who get relatively smaller sizes still end up better in absolute terms.

But beyond this, there are many who do not think resource inequalities can be morally justified. Absent reason to think otherwise, if X has more than Y, then something has gone wrong, and justice demands that society do something about it. Call this the theoretical worry about inequality.

I find neither of these worries very worrisome. Like you, I don’t really care if Bill Gates is very, very much wealthier than I am, as long as he’s achieved the wealth in the right kind of way. While I worry about the poor, it’s because they’re poor, not because they’re not as rich as Bill Gates.

Best,

Terrence