Inequality!!

By Thomas Woods

I just finished reading an article on "the new American aristocracy" in The Atlantic. The subtitle included this predictable reproof: "You're probably part of the problem."

It's the usual breast-beating about inequality, and -- of course -- the out-of-hand rejection of the possibility that some folks may make better decisions than others.

No, no, citizen. Why, to think that way would be to "blame the victim"!

(I've discussed the numbers and the details of inequality numerous times on the Tom Woods Show, incidentally.)

We are instead to believe that tens of millions of Americans are the passive victims of an impersonal "system" that keeps them down. All the responsibility and good behavior in the world can't deliver them from this wily trap, we are solemnly assured.

Naturally there are plenty of cases of people who through no fault of their own are in precarious situations, and in my personal life I've been all too happy to help those people.

But we are truly delusional if we do not recognize that some people hold juvenile, even destructive ideas about money, wealth, and work, and that this is why they do not make progress.

Time after time I've tried to help people we've come across who have struggled financially. And in all but one case, the money did no good. A lack of money was only superficially their problem.

The Atlantic complains about schools and their alleged lack of resources. But the schools do not lack resources -- $12K per student per year ought to be plenty to convey basic knowledge to students, yet surveys of American adults reveal them to be woefully ignorant of even the basics of science, history, or politics.

Meanwhile, the student population has increased by about eight percent since 1970, but nonteaching staff has increased by a mind-boggling 130 percent.

That's not the one percent's fault.

As for this being a uniquely difficult time to be alive, I've consistently dissented.

On my podcast I advertise a service I deeply believe in: Skillshare, which offers access to over 20,000 classes, each of which will make you a more in-demand professional, or will teach you a skill you can use to make a living. (The deal they're running now is two months' access for 99 cents.)

They don't pay me anything for mentioning them in this email, of course. But they're such a great example that I can't restrain myself.

Likewise, Udemy lets you take top-notch courses on anything under the sun. Here again you can learn a marketable skill in your spare time, from the comfort of your home.

This -- and a million other novelties like it -- is a veritable miracle. Nobody had opportunities like this before today. We cannot let the inequality hysteria distract us from these extraordinary advances.

Oddly enough, the article admits the following:

"In total population, average life expectancy, material wealth, artistic expression, rates of violence, and almost every other measure that matters for the quality of human life, the modern world is a dramatically different place than anything that came before."

So the moment you've decided to complain is the moment in history where world economies can support more people than ever before, and where the indicators of human well-being are at all-time highs?

But then we get this:

"Historians offer many complicated explanations for this happy turn in human events—the steam engine, microbes, the weather—but a simple answer precedes them all: equality."

Wait, so you're not even going to mention the historians who think economic freedom might have had a teensy bit to do with this explosion of wealth? Not so much as a word about that?

Or there's Deirdre McCloskey, who argues that it was an ideological change, a change in the way in which we view commerce and the people who engage in it, that made this extraordinary world possible.

Nope. "Microbes" and "the weather" are what we're told about.

But the idea that equality yielded us all this is most preposterous of all.

Equality in the sense that no artificial barrier prevents someone from rising above his original station is certainly important, but this is never the kind of equality the folks at The Atlantic have in mind.

In fact, the explosion in wealth that is conceded in the article occurred in the face of tremendous inequality.

Ludwig von Mises noted that in the old days, the rich man traveled in a coach-and-four, while the poor man traveled on foot. Today, the rich man travels in a fancy car while the poor man travels in a beat-up car.

That represents a dramatic decrease in inequality.

Average people now enjoy amenities that the richest monarchs of Europe could scarcely have imagined.

The world's greatest orchestras can be piped into our homes at the push of a button. The great works of literature are a mouse click away. We can take courses from the world's greatest universities without paying a dime.

Let that sink in. It's like science fiction.

And our complaint is that some people are really rich?

All of us are rich.

All of us -- even our poorest -- enjoy living standards and opportunities for enrichment that should make us full of joy and gratitude to be alive.

How dare we be ungrateful or envious.

The things I do on my laptop to support my family would have been inconceivable even 20 years ago.


Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ