Income Distribution and Manna from Heaven

Economist Thomas Sowell explains why "income distribution" is an oxymoron.

(Full interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERj3QeGw9Ok
Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1F2F9DB68693C0F4)

From "Intellectuals and Society":

The very phrase "income distribtuion" is tendentious. It starts the economic story in the middle, with a body of income or wealth existing somehow, leaving only the question as to how that income or wealth is to be distributed or "apportioned" [...] In a market economy, most people receive income as a result of what they produce, supplying the other people with some goods or services that those people want, even if that service is only labor. Each recipient of these goods and services pays according to the value which that paticular recipient puts on what is received, choosing among alternative suppliers to find the best combination of price and quality—both as judged by the individual who is paying.

This mundane, utlitarian process is quite different from the vision of "income distribution" projected by those among the intelligentsia who invest that vision with moral angst. If there really were some pre-existing body of income or wealth, produced SOMEHOW—manna from heaven, as it were—then there would of course be a moral question as to how large a share each member of society should receive. But wealth is PRODUCED. It does not just exist "somehow".

Category:

Education

Tags:

• thomas sowell
• uncommon knowledge
• peter robinson
• society
• economics
• poverty
• welfare
• talk

[Cornampoo]

@zbigniewzapora because he believes in governments protecting their citizens against violence with both force and law.

[Onieracraft]

@zbigniewzapora

He is a Classical Liberal with strong Burkean Conservative influence, so no.

However One could ask whether he sees the ULTIMATE direction of Free socieites as something that could be described as Anarcho Capitalist.

[louiethegreater]

Actually the greatest income redistributation in history has taken place here in america in the last 60 years. The wealth of the ameican middleclass has been reditributed to multinatonal corporations through outsorcing. Multinationals 400% profits is transfured to Wall Street through their stocks. So wall street ends up with labors middleclass incomes.

[zbigniewzapora]

I wonder why he is not anarcho-capitalist and if he ever commented on that personally.