America does not have an economic inequality problem

Language manipulation is nothing new in politics, but describing economic differences as “economic inequality” is a linguistic act we should reconsider. It not only falsely suggests unique unfairness in economic life, but the notion itself rests on an unfounded assumption.

No aspect of life—economic or otherwise—escapes unfairness. Height, strength, birth place and natural talents are all largely determined by the luck of the draw. More than that, chance is at least partly responsible for our discovering our talents. While luck first blessed Michael Jordan with basketball prowess, he was twice lucky for deciding to pick up a basketball in the first place (and thrice lucky for being born into an environment that allowed him to do so). Yet, we resist describing the unfairness in our natural height differences or in the talent gap between Michael Jordan and the rest of us as “inequality.”

Inequality Fallacies

My op-ed on economic inequality is up at the Daily Caller. Some snippets:

Fallacies abound about economic inequality, but one of the worst is confusing income categories with human beings.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently perpetrated this confusion: 

“Our economic goals have to be redistributing a significant amount of [wealth] back from the top 1 percent … Unchecked growth – especially when 99 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent – is absurd,” he fulminated. 

But the “top one percent” and the “bottom 99 percent” are statistical categories — not living and breathing human beings. Confusing the one with the other encourages fallacious thinking.

You didn't build that

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. … You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” – Elizabeth Warren

Provocative remarks—famously repeated by President Obama during his 2012 re-election campaign and stressed by the left today—but unpersuasive.

America is losing its moral roots

For most of our history, political thought was rooted in values. But in recent years, emotion has replaced these roots. The effects of this change have been momentous.

First, it has diminished the importance of learning from the past. Why study our predecessors for insights into truth, virtue and wisdom when the heart provides these ideals? If something offends us it is wrong, and if it makes us feel good it is right. Hence the decline of value-oriented subjects such as history, ethics and logic, and the rise of emotion-oriented subjects such as women, minority, and transgender studies at our universities. Graduates are fluent in emotional mantra on oppression and inequality, but clueless on American history and moral ethics.