Inequality

 

John Tamny, an economics writer and editor, on 9/5/2016 did a Prager U video, entitled Income Inequality. I have taken notes on his video and then will comment on them. Tamny offers a moral justification if income inequality, and that is very significant because Ayn Rand wrote that no matter every viewpoint requires a moral justification to make the view palatable to the public which loathes income inequality as immoral, justifying all things socialist, including wealth redistribution.

 

Tamny: “It is unfair that a few are so rich with most being middle class or poor. No is the answer.”

 

My response: Forget envying rich people. Move away from class envy and class warfare. These are groupist, destructive power games.

 

Rather may the poor and the middle class shift their focus to themselves as responsible for their economic destiny, working hard and taking advantage of freedom and opportunity in America to become wealth-acquirers. May they not just buy assets that are liabilities but assets that are income-producers (this is not my idea—I got it from a famous Asian guy—popular current wealth advisor--on another Prager U video; he is from Hawaii, and I cannot remember his name.) so their wealth grows.

 

In this way the poor can become middle class or upper class, and the middle class can become upper class. If you work hard in America, spend carefully, save some money, and invest in business or stocks, you can become prosperous over time.

 

If America was a 10% mixed socialist-capitalist economy instead of the 50% socialist mixed economy that it is today, then our economy would grow a lot each year, and, with such low government spending and borrowing, that growth would little be inflationary, and that growth would be real and solid. What this means is that the economy could grow and prosper almost infinitely, so the rising tide would lift all boats so the poor and middle class could become prosperous without robbing the rich and controlling the economy through a huge federal government. The poor and the middle class, with their dream, their marvelous opportunity here for wealth accumulation, and by working hard to achieve their dream, they will make it. No one will hold you back. There is no need to play the victim and worry about what the rich are doing. On your own dime and by your own two hands, you will make accumulating wealth for you and your family a reality.

 

Tamny: “It is wrong that income inequality exists; it is wrong and immoral. No. It is actually a good thing. It is a product of a free-market economy, and your own life proves it. Millions of people make decisions how to live. Here all are free to pursue a path that they believe in, that is best suited for their talents. We see ourselves as successful and then we do it.”

 

My response: Jordan Peterson is a staunch and successful capitalist, but he openly admits that income inequality is a byproduct of the free market economy. He also points out that Pareto Distribution applies in free market economies, as well in every Fascist, Communist, feudal, and prehistorical tribal nation of the last 5,000 years. 20% of the people have the power and wealth at the top of the heap, and 80% have what scraps of wealth and power they grasp at the bottom of the dunghill. He is pointing out that the Communist Revolution will end up with the elite of the Party running the collectivist society owning most of the economy. Some say Putin is worth 250 billion dollars, and the leaders of Hamas are living lives of luxury in Qatar.

 

Now, Peterson is right. Modern humans are natural creatures, still guided by their instincts and archetypal drives, and setting up hierarchies based on the Pareto distribution (perhaps a natural law), class society, bureaucracies, hierarchies, and public and private institutions populated by group-living citizens that dislike but are addicted to be ruled by elites. The masses are cowardly, self-loathing, passive sheep that beg to be whipped, exploited, and starved by their hoodlum elites, their parasitical, elite masters, and mistresses.

 

We need to not fight the Pareto Principle in us but to individual-live and maverize as supercitizens, and thus sublimate this powerful, irresistible, negative drive of  living by hierarchical standards as minions to elites by developing into powerful, rich, armed, assertive, accomplished supercitizens that fabricated a positive hierarchy of person worth, going from being one’s mediocre self to becoming a living angel, brilliant, extraordinary and a marvel of behold. This is how we defeat the Pareto distribution natural law, and this is how we conquer the iron law of inequality of wealth distribution in a free capitalist country, or in a authoritarian socialist country.

 

Supercitizens will create so much wealth that what the top 1% holds onto is irrelevant, and they wlll not touch that elite wealth, but they will not let the superrich be crony capitalists any longer with politicians and dictators running bog government; the elite rule of swamp-dwellers in now a thing of the past.

 

Inequality of income is inequality of outcome, but societal inequality of outcome allows for liberty to exist. Equality of outcome leads to tyranny, collectivism totalitarianism, genocide and poverty—equality of outcome or Communism is the most evil thing in the world. All that could, should self-realize, and force Communist hegemony to end.

 

 

Tamny: “Here in America you are free to do whatever you want and that makes life enjoyable, exciting, and meaningful but it is also an expression of inequality. That is because we all have different talents, different temperaments, and different ambitions.

 

That’s okay because in a free society we can seek out opportunities that play to our personal strengths, that distinguish us from others.

 

If you find what you are good at and work really hard you might have great success and make a lot of money. If you were a pro-athlete that I enjoyed, I would buy a ticket to watch you play. If you were a savvy investor, I would invest some of my money with you.

 

As long as you have the freedom to guide your own destiny, you have a chance to reach your full potential. You can achieve success however you define it—but if someone, say a government bureaucrat informs you that your ambition has limits. There is a ceiling above which you cannot rise—you would not be very happy about it. You are now in a straitjacket. Forced equality means less opportunity to pursue whatever makes you individually great.”

 

My response: Forced equality of income distribution or equal outcomes in professional wealth-acquisition is an evil idea, purely so, all the way down. Just as we cannot have people becoming successful materially or non-materially, by suppressing their expression of their rational, wielded free-will, their free speech, their free thought, and their self-realizing without almost any control or interference, as adults, from the church, the college, the government, the police, the military, academia, the press, the family, or the community. When we couple self-realizing with religious and ethical egoism with near pure personal liberty, the poor will be mostly a thing of the past, and the prime criticism of free markets, that it is unfair that the 1% have it all and the 99% have nothing, that whole objection to free markets, unfettered, proves groundless.

 

Tamny: “What about the growing gap between the rich and the rest of the 99%? Isn’t that a bad thing? The answer is no.”

 

My response: I like that conservatives, churches, nonprofits, and individual givers agree that government welfare and private donations should provide the poor with a modest but substantial safety net, and if one-percenters wanted to give some of their millions to charity, then that volunteering would be admirable.

 

Tamny: “In a free-market economy people become wealth making what the rich people enjoy today, and then, subsequently, it becomes what everyone can enjoy tomorrow. Rich test-buyers bought a 1983 cellphone for $4000 but if no one bought it, there would be no $40 cell phones today.

 

In the 1960s a computer cost 1 million dollars. Now, due to billionaires like Michael Dell, now we have computers for a few hundred dollars. Flat screen TVs were once $8,000, only the rich could afford them. Now, for $1500 your living room is your own private cinema.

 

The free market is about turning scarcity into abundance. What was once available to the few is now available to the many.”

 

My response: Egosim or enlightened self-interest can seem selfish and heartless to shallow thinkers, but rational self-care by everyone would lead to very few people requiring welfare to make it, and those we will provide a safety net for. Altruism seems noble and generous, but it interferes with people self-realizing, the ultimate act of self-love, of loving God and others.

 

Similarly, the rich having all that many and buying all those material goodies to show off and indulge themselves is ridiculed and condemned by envious altruists, but, in fact as Tamny is pointing out, self-interest has great and socially beneficial unintended consequences, not unlike the rich pushing inventors, stores and companies to bring new technology and new gadgets to the market, rewarded by the rich to innovate and then make salable products and services to the public as a affordable, better widget a few years down the road. That capitalism today has today turned scarcity into abundance is made possible by the existence of the rich as unintended, accidental catalyst of innovation and improvement, materially and technologically, and this unintended, endlessly repeating, and beneficial social benefit will end if the nasty Marxists get their way.

 

Getting even with the wealthy: okay, create your own wealth and independence in a free market society—that is how you take revenge on the wealth.

 

Tamny: “We go from scarcity to abundance. The few had wealth, good and affluence, and now it is shared by all. Wealth inequality is an important corollary to that truth. Should I resent the wealthy or should I be grateful to the economic system that enriches my life?”

 

My response: none should be resentful towards the wealthy, and we should be grateful for free markets and then urge their existing in every nation, along with democracy, so that free markets, and income inequality can then lift all boats so all have more wealth per capita, a win-win for everyone, if we can get the damn Marxists to leave us alone. No more class warfare, no more class envy; as each poor or middle-class person instead focuses on herself, and through hard work, saving, self-help and ingenuity, she can increase her wealth for her family, perhaps a lot.

 

“Capitalism enriches the lives of millions of people. This feature of the free-market income inequality can appear terribly unfair but with a little further investigation the real picture becomes clear.

 

Income inequality makes what once seemed like impossible luxury almost available to everyone. It provides the incentive for creative people to gamble on new ideas. It promotes personal freedom and rewards hard work, talent, and achievement.”

 

My response: As a majority of Americans self-realize as supercitizens in our free-market, constitutional republic, per capita level of wealth will soar, and acute poverty will largely disappear. There will still be the poor deserving of public and private support, and there will still be the superwealthy 1%, but 85% of the wealth will be in the hands of the maverized upper middle class citizens that run things and all prosper without crony capitalists, woke corporations and their partners, the advocates of big government or Communist economic shackles backed up by armed thugs representing the totalitarian Bolshevik Party ruining one country after another.

 

The economy has the potential to grow almost infinitely and that is the material basis of a morally and spiritually good society of happy, fulfilled, and self-developing supercitizens, and this is how the Good Spirits, and the good deities want us to live while on this earth, preparing for life after death.

 

Mavellonialists need to take care of the poor, and to show the poor the right values to they learn how to work and billed wealth and lift themselves, by their own effort, out of poverty headed towards upper middle class prosperity. Let the billionaires keep their millions.

 

The supercitizens accept no elite to rule them, so tyranny by mobocracy from below, or from above by plutocrats, mullahs, bishops, or government commissars will be strongly prevented and opposed. There will be one class, for the most part, a class of anarchist individuators supercitizens that rule society from the bottom up, and the poor and the superrich are left alone to exist as they will, but they are never again allowed to rule America.

 

Tamny: “For some, income inequality signals individual liberty, opportunity, and innovation, all of which are present in a free economy. That sounds pretty good for something that is supposed to be so bad.

 

Let me leave you with two thoughts. First the 1% club is always open to new members.

Second, You do not have to be in the top 1% to have a very good life.”

 

My response: Yes, some could still make it into the top 1% and they could be very moral people especially if being a Bill Gates is their self-realized dream come true. I guess upper middle class wealth accumulation, for most self-realizers, should be enough.

 

God wants people to have plenty of comforts, things, and money (I imagine heaven is a palce of much wealth and and material comfort, but not for ostentation or pleasureful indulgence per se.), but in some Maslowian hierarchy of needs type consideration, money is a tool more than an end, so when the maverizer has enough money, then he can dedicate his life to his telos, his means of growing into great soul status while alive.

 

The poor end up not liking themselves: their self-hatred, group-living, non-indviduating, and the accompanying desire to inflict socialist economic and big government tyrannies on everyone out of resentment and revenge, are a hostile collection of bad ideas, the outgrowth of a jaded, enervating ethos that tears down each of them individually, and wrecks society when flaunted as required Progressive public policies to be put in place.

 

 

We do not have to be in the top 1% income earners to have a very good life, and indeed, greatly concentrated wealth is a form of power, and centralized power often corrupts the holder, so it requires that superrich person to be very careful not to be hollowed out by his extremely rich status. It could be done to have great done to have, get and keep great wealth without being destroyed by it, but I do not know how that would be achieved, nor am I worried about it.

 

It is enough for the masses to be upper middle class as individuating supercitizens. That is my dream for Americans, and people across the globe.