Today the Wall Street Journal has pointed us to lots of research to show why there
is no empirical evidence for Thomas Piketty’s highly flawed inequality theory
being correct. Naturally this blog's author doesn't find that in the least bit surprising
- I wrote my own critique of Piketty's ideas in 2014,
which also came to those same conclusions.
Often
people's intentions are noble and their goals are good, but their ideas on how
to achieve those things are defected with fantasy. With Piketty's notions of
inequality, however, the intentions and goals aren't even that worthwhile
either, because we don't much need more equality - what we actually need is more freedom.
One
of the most significant cultural memes in our modern society is the egalitarian
one that obsesses about making an unequal world artificially more equal. What
we should strive to improve more than anything is not equality, it is freedom.
Those
who place a higher premium on equality over freedom miss one of the most vital
things about being human - that as well as our similarities in terms of human qualities, it is our differences that engender the variety
of things that make us prosper. Consequently, if you artificially impede some
freedoms for the purposes of greater equality you impede the diversity that
drives people's striving for progress.
For
it is precisely those different tastes and abilities that give exhibition to
the choices we make in creating such a diverse society and a diverse economy.
It is because of these vast differences that people co-operate in trade, and it
is because of this collective co-operation that people are incentivised to
strive for innovation.
Consequently,
then, what people striving for greater income equality ought to be striving for is
greater opportunity, because it is opportunity that engenders value, and it is
value that increases absolute well-being. Life is about ideas, and putting
those ideas into practice. This involves a continual trial and error process
best enjoyed when freedom enables it.
One of the
most oppressive things that can be demanded in society is when people try to
make equal, things that are better off unequal. We are equal only to the extent
that we are all uniquely different and better for it. The celebration of and
striving for optimal diversity is the antidote against the medicine of fabricated
equality.
And I say
'optimal diversity' precisely because although we can have too little equality,
such as in cases where opportunity is needlessly limited for some groups, we
can also have too much diversity, such as in cases where a departure from a
desired uniformity is socially and individually damaging (see here and here for more on this).
