In an Economist article called “The coming tech-lash,” columnist Adrian Wooldridge predicts that “one of the big developments of 2014 will be the growing peasants’ revolt against the sovereigns of cyberspace.” According to the article’s subhead, high-tech elites will “join bankers and oilmen in public demonology.”
In an online interview at City A.M., ARI executive director Yaron Brook commented on French economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the surprise international bestseller that laments economic inequality.
We're told that the gap between the rich and poor is growing. How should we judge that news? Should we care about it? In this debate against James Galbraith of the University of Texas, Yaron Brook, executive director of ARI, challenges the conventional assumptions about inequality, what drives it, and what should be done about it.
In this episode of The Debt Dialogues, I talk with philosopher Harry Binswanger about inequality, the motive behind egalitarianism, and why opponents of the welfare state should reject the idea of “equality of opportunity.”
We’re told that the gap between the poor and the rich has widened. Many decry the “injustice” of income and wealth inequality. But is it actually a problem and are the proposed remedies truly just? What is a fair “distribution” of income and wealth? Is “equality” a valid concept?
As a rule, Americans do not envy the successful. Their attitude is: If you earned your success, then you deserve your income. This poses a problem for the people who want to take from successful Americans in order to fund the welfare state.
