I just read a very interesting article on economic theory: Mind the Gap by Paul Graham. Nick Bradbury linked to it from his blog. Give it a read and do leave a comment here if you agree or disagree. Think it through and re-read it. Its worth pondering. I figure that the worst case scenario is that you’ll come out liking tractors more than horses… or something like that.
Excellent article. Modern society uses “unfair” when they probably mean “unreasonable.” It is not unfair that A-Rod gets paid roughly $40k every time he steps up to the plate, though to most it is unreasonable. It is not unfair that one Jackson Pollak “painting” is worth millions, though it does seem unreasonable, seeing as how a monkey could make the same “painting.” Just because we don’t like an outcome doesn’t make it unfair. Milton Friedman (one of the greatest economists of the past century) noted that, whereas equality formerly connoted equality of opportunity, it now connotes (and he said this a couple decades ago) equality of outcome. Life is fair only if everybody has the same outcome. Is it fair then that those who work twice has hard, and those who’s work is twice as valuable get paid the same as everyone else? It may be true that almost anyone could create MySpace, or YouTube, or Google, but only certain people did. Should wealth be withheld from them? God forbid. I may not like some rich people, but I am glad that they are rich. For, in an economy like ours, the chances of getting rich are about the same as the chances of getting poor.
I never thought of division of wealth as a good thing, per se, but I’ve never been all that concerned with it being a bad thing either. Call it callused, but I ascribe to the idea, “somebody has to scrub the toilets.”
This argument has been misused lately to justify illegal immigration, which I think is a pretty blind leap. Why don’t we round up homeless people and give them a meal or two in return for harvesting lettuce all day. And if we can’t find enough homeless people to meet demand, there are always film school students. Who says conservatism isn’t compassionate?!