Originally Posted by loquitur

Actually, MM, if you look at what I was saying, I was positing that there is a level of income below which we should be concerned about the person. In a rich society like ours everyone should have access to basic nutrition, clothing and shelter. But if a person's basic needs are taken care of, then no, I don't think income inequality in and of itself is a problem.

At some point, railing against the "rich" is just plain and simple envy, which is a poisonous emotion, more for the person who has it than that person's target. And then there is the question of how you define "rich" - I have yet to get a coherent definition from the redistributionists that amounts to anything other than "someone who has more than I do." And bear in mind that that works both ways: there are people who have less than you who would want some of what YOU have, too. To them, YOU'RE rich. Whatever principle you might articulate to justify taking stuff away from people who have more than you merely because they have it can also be used to justify taking stuff away from you.

Where I'm going with this is here: at least in this country, simple inequality of income in and of itself is not a bad thing, unless the inequality came about because of theft or some other kind of bad conduct. If you're talking about ancien regime France, or Tsarist Russia, with a hereditary and useless aristocracy, that's one thing. But that's not this country. Most wealth in this country is earned. Yes, there is a luck element - there always is - but it doesn't explain all the disparities even remotely.

I have yet to hear an explanation of why simple inequality of income, in and of itself, is something we have to somehow "fix", when there are so many other unequal endowments people have that no one seems to be interested in fixing. Some people happen to be very good at making money. Other people, like me, are good at other things. So?