Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
To summarize: the system of the United States encouraged and rewarded innovation. Innovation benefits society by a factor of between 10 and 20 more than what the entrepreneur receives. A Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs has wealth measured in billions, but their contributions to society would be much, much more than their wealth (most of which is locked up in stocks).
Does innovation happen elsewhere? Of course, but not as much of it. Talent and genius are spread equally around the world population. Which system rewards and develops talent better? The Soviet Union certainly had talented people who were discovered and nurtured, but the average citizen still had to stand in lines for basic items because the party mis-allocated scarce resources which had alternative uses. In China's Great Leap Forward, university professors were (literally) dragged out of their houses and forced to work in the fields. Was this a wise allocation of resources? Answer: soon afterwards, tens of millions starved to death. Western Europe, which our president wants us to emulate, has much wealth redistribution, and not much opportunity to raise out of your class. Not just Greece, but Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and even France are in trouble because their governments spent too much money not on infrastructure, but on transfer payments to unproductive citizens.
In the end, professor Epstein paraphrases a quote from Abraham Lincoln, "You don't make the poor rich by making the rich poor."
Here is the actual quote:
"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves." --Abraham Lincoln
Look at what wealth redistribution has done to scores of people: it has robbed them of dignity and incentive, and turned them into feral animals with base instincts. Are the riots in Greece or Oakland caused by extreme poverty or folks on the gravy train who have been sold a bill of goods (either overly-generous government benefits or, in the case of OccupyOakland, the promise of a job after graduation from college), only to have reality smack them upside the head?
I'll write more on this topic later. But what we see in Europe, and what we see in the Occupy___________ movements is the reality of "Chickens...coming home...to roost"
