{"id":301,"date":"2004-01-08T04:41:22","date_gmt":"2004-01-08T04:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:27","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:27","slug":"im_still_defending_redistribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=301","title":{"rendered":"I’m Still Defending Redistribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instapundit asks the question “What’s love got to do with it?”…sorry…”What’s so bad about income inequality?” in a TCS column yesterday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He seems to drift a bit as he makes his points, but I’ll take that as exploring-out-loud. Here’s what he says:<\/p>\n

If we’re all getting richer, why is it bad for the richest to be getting richer faster?
\nHe replies that a) some may argue that it’s unaesthetic; b) it places – at the end of a long term of wealth concentration – civil society at some risk; and c) he makes the case for B) by pointing to George Soros and suggesting that increased concentrations of wealth could create a situation where<\/p>\n

the imbalance in political power between the super-rich and the rest of us might become colossal. Of course, campaign finance reform might conceivably land Soros in jail, but the point still holds: if the super-rich become rich enough, they’ll become laws unto themselves. And if that happens, it doesn’t matter that the rest of us are getting richer, too.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll agree, suggest that we’re already seeing that to a great extent, and further, that what we’re already seeing is having serious negative consequences on civil society.<\/p>\n

I’ve defended redistribution<\/a> in the past<\/p>\n

There is a critical level of diffusion of power that has made the American model work. Not too diffuse, for there we get the demos, and ultimately the mob; and not too concentrated, for there we begin to stratify as those with privilege erect barriers to make sure that they can keep it.<\/p>\n

My biggest concern is that we are near a tipping point where that delicate balance will be at risk. I, and others like me, want to shove the pendulum back the other way.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glenn thinks that the tipping point is in the far future. I don’t; I think that the kind of isolation and stratification that we’re talking about is here, now, and that the values of those who would toss out equality<\/a> as a social good and replace it entirely with a reified hierarchy of power and wealth frighten me.<\/p>\n

…I’ll also suggest that there is also an even more significant distinction between a society that holds equality – any kind of equality – as a foundational belief, and one that does not. I used Dickens’ England as an example of a class-driven society; one in which the accepted reality of inequality – in every form, political, legal, economic, and moral – is itself one of the organizing principles of the society. I could have used Elizabeth’s England, or the Persia of Cyrus, but there are more people that know Dickens – and the point is more clearly made by a society closer to us – than either of those. <\/p>\n

Those are fundamentally different kinds of societies than those that hold equality as a value, regardless of what kind of equality is being discussed, and that difference ought to be obvious. If it isn’t, imagine for a moment a Persian artisan making an appeal to Cyrus or Darius based on their common humanity, and on some body of common rights. Having trouble?? No kidding…<\/p>\n

The notion that people are equal in any way, and that societies should be organized on that principle was a revolutionary one, and one that we sadly take for granted. We shouldn’t.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instapundit asks the question “What’s love got to do with it?”…sorry…”What’s so bad about income inequality?” in a TCS column yesterday. He seems to drift a bit as he makes his points, but I’ll take that as exploring-out-loud. Here’s what he says: If we’re all getting richer, why is it bad for the richest to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}