Comments on: Why the Redistribution of Wealth?

By: Chris H.

Chris H. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:42:29 +0000

Thanks Greg. This post is also at my current blog. We surely do not share the same interpretation of Nibley, but maybe we just come from way too different perspectives. I also do not think that you and I have a shared understanding of what socialism is. This make this discussion difficult. In general this is the problem with trying to discuss anything related to equality in the United States.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:09:31 +0000

I didn't see this post until recently, but had I been aware of it, I would have linked to it. I thought some may want to review Nibley on the Redistribution of Wealth for additional commentary on this subject.

By: Tom Rod

Tom Rod — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:43:58 +0000

Interesting….

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/11/vernon-smith-on-barack-obama.html

By: New Book of Mormon Text Discovered! « The Sunday Page

New Book of Mormon Text Discovered! « The Sunday Page — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:28:40 +0000

[...] socialism and the redistribution of wealth have championed the authenticity of the SBoM text, and some have used it to scold those hesitant to embrace government-enacted economic [...]

By: Tom Rod

Tom Rod — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:14:41 +0000

Clark

I think we disagree on whose responsibility GPA is. I say it’s not wholly the student’s fault if the GPA is lower or higher. Part of it is the difficulty of the classwork and the feasibility of giving 80 hours a week to one class. Work responsibilities, family responsibilities, Church responsibilities, etc. can interfere with the ability to achieve high grades. Some students getting the high grades get them from natural talent alone, independent of their attitude towards responsibility.

By: clarkgoble

clarkgoble — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:24:14 +0000

Tom, that’s partially why I talked about responsibility. Having intelligence and making use of it in a responsible fashion aren’t the same thing. So some intelligent students won’t get scholarships precisely because they refuse responsibility.

By: Tom Rod

Tom Rod — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:18:24 +0000

Well I won’t belabor the point Chris. I’d just say that it seems undeniable that governments are functionally able to do income redistribution based on merit. If someone gets a scholarship for a 3.7 or higher GPA that is merit based income distribution.

From my personal observation, most of the truly intelligent students don’t achieve a 3.7. They instead spend the time taking classes and subjects they may not necessarily be academically prepared for since they are invigorated by intellectual challenge. Thus, some of the most needing students aren’t receiving the scholarships they need.

By: clarkgoble

clarkgoble — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:43:29 +0000

Figuring out certain kinds of merit is far more difficult. In which case I don’t think we should use such nebulous categories. You have to only limit in terms of what you can objectively measure.

By: Chris H.

Chris H. — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:37:07 +0000

clarkgoble,

Global inequality is clearly the problem. That is actually more my area of research.

I do not think that it is possible for political economy to actually take into account merit. I personally do not really believe that there is such a thing. We will have to leave it at that. Thanks for you comments on health care as well.

By: clarkgoble

clarkgoble — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:25:52 +0000

Chris, as I said I think the real debate isn’t and has never been about redistribution. Rather it is about the kinds of redistribution. What I think many (rightfully) object to is just a raw redistribution of funds regardless of merit or responsibility. However I’m not aware of any major US leader seriously advocating such things. Even Obama, who has been getting all the press, is really talking about tax cuts. i.e. change how money is collected. But that’s hardly a British style dole.

I think that’s a somewhat positive step although I also think the practical effects are going to slight and I disagree in the details somewhat. But what we really have to do is figure a way to get many Americans into become productive workers. Robotics and offshore manufacturing simply have destroyed many of the high pay jobs that people could take in the 40’s through 80’s. They’re gone and they are never coming back.

The dirty little secret Obama doesn’t like to talk about is that the income inequalities are largely driven by world wide structural issues that he simply will have very minor abilities to change. Simply suggest we can salvage the issue with income transfers seems highly unlikely and is a way of covering up the central problems. We have to figure out how to get more people capable of dealing with our new economy.