Column of the Day: George Mason Professor Cuts to the Chase on Income Inequality — in the New York Times
I would be thrilled, and very surprised, if Tyler Cowen, the George Mason University professor who blogs at Marginal Revolution, gets to provide his wisdom to the New York Times on a regular basis as he did in this column on income inequality last Thursday (link probably requires free registration).
Here is how Cowen wrapped it:
The broader philosophical question is why we should worry about inequality — of any kind — much at all. Life is not a race against fellow human beings, and we should discourage people from treating it as such. Many of the rich have made the mistake of viewing their lives as a game of relative status. So why should economists promote this same zero-sum worldview? Yes, there are corporate scandals, but it remains the case that most American wealth today is produced rather than taken from other people.
What matters most is how well people are doing in absolute terms. We should continue to improve opportunities for lower-income people, but inequality as a major and chronic American problem has been overstated.
Times readers need such antidotes to the laughably off-base Paul “Economics of Envy” Krugman like Rosie O’Donnell needs to diet — i.e., badly.
