Aye. It's a largely arbitrary concept. Rawls tried to get at a good definition with “Would you want to be randomly born into society [X] ?”, but even here he relies on the silly notion that there are cosmic Mulligans. I will not, AFAICT, be reborn as somebody who will end up with crappier skills. What's “fair” about my paying as if I might be?

Sure, I'll make that argument. Europe was trashed after the war and remains, to this day, poorer on a per capita basis. They should have converged and continued converging. Instead, we continue to attract capital that, all else being equal, should be able to find more productive homes elsewhere. But everything else hasn't been equal since the 70s; the Europeans have, one way or another, throttled back growth such that they have not converged but, rather, remained static relative to us.

“It is impossible to look at the growth in inequality (which now mimics the graphs of the 1920s) and not see this as an affront to basic fairness unless you are writing or speaking from ignorance.”

The important point here seems to be “fairness”. The Right looks at a policy and says “Policy X advances fairness” while the Left sees the same policy and denounces it- “policy X is the veritable acme of unfairness!” In this situation, it seems easy to conclude that the other side of the debate could only be motivated by idiocy or malice. Neither side has time to ask “what is this fairness thing?”

If we replace “fairness” with its definition, as defined by each party, then the two statements cease to contradictory, and become merely tradeoffs. A little reductionism can go a long way here. KJ is right, failing to see the monstrous unfairness in the Gini coefficient is simply ignorant…. provided, of course, that you share his definition of “fair.”

We'd probably see a dramatic increase in the quality of discourse about inequality if we could ban the use of “fairness” as a descriptor for policies and distributions.

KJ- would you say this is accurate? Some of the people with whom you disagree have shiny degrees from fancy institutions and work full-time in this very field- their ignorance would seem to be unusually narrow in scope and deep in effect. Or are we all somehow unusually evil? It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the disagreement is definitional.

p.s. glad you're back, Will. My condolences on moving to Iowa.

Look at the world through the lens of GDP growth per capita, and you'll find yourself looking at a radically different world. European and American growth rates are about the same. Brazil and Japan look to be roughly on the same trajectory. China's growth spurt looks ever more impressive, India's becomes much less so.

Now, I don't think GDP per capita is everything, because I think people tend to underrate the effect that population has on consumer choice, and thus economic well being. Even though Oslo is “richer” than New York, as a consumer you're much better off in the city. Even though Cambodia and Uzbekistan are both tremendously poor, I'd much rather live in Cambodia (yes, I have been to both places; no, probably not long enough to get a completely informed perspective).

http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/08/...

Will, I think a good example of your premise is the abortion debate. Abortion proponents show a marked tendency to argue that anti-abortionists secretly wish to control the sex lives of chattel women. Abortion opponents, to be fair, have a tendency to argue that abortion proponents condone murdering babies. Both sides tend to discount the other's position on whether and when a fetus is a human being — not just to disagree with it, but to ignore the fact that the position even exists in good faith subjectively.

First off Blake. You misunderstood me and I see I wasn't clear on who I was referring to when I said the same work is worth 2, 3 or 4 times as much. I was thinking proportionally and referring to the corporate managing class who has seen their compensation skyrocket while doing little more or little better than their counterparts from the recent past. I meant this as a comparison to the average worker who has not seen such growth in compensation.

Your plumber example is silly. I'm not advocating for resolving this only through tax code and besides those two plumbers are receiving equal money for equal work for their first 40 hours of work. If Plumber B chooses to work more I don't see it as much of a problem that he takes an extra 2-7% hit on his paycheck as he moves up the income ladder. Also, this ignores my main complaint that the plumber will do an important job in 1960 and after taxes take home 25% of what some upper level manager while in 2005 he'll take home 10% of some equivalent upper level manager. That's the problem with inequality not some plumber who works an extra job.

And Blake, you wouldn't try to deliberately mislead by dismissing median growth in favor of mean growth? You seem like a smart guy and you must know that the use of the mean completely hides any inequality problems as the old story of Bill Gates walking into a bar and raising the mean income perfectly illustrates. Median growth in wages is clearly what matters in an argument about inequality. Mean growth masks the problem away. Look up a chart on Median Wage Growth vs Productivity Growth and check out the startling fact that productivity growth has grown steadily while wage growth has stagnated since the early 70s. Your plumber B has certainly been hit by this trend as the productivity gains have clearly gone to only a few. Calling the use of median wages misleading takes some chutzpah, considering how mean has always been the standard way to mislead someone with stats and that's especially true when trying to explain away growing inequality.

And then we have Blighter trying to tell me that equality is synonymous with stagnation. That's just silly free market fundamentalism that has no evidence. Just because you want to believe it doesn't make it true. There is undoubtedly a very complex sweet spot but just as giving everyone the same salary would be disastrously inefficient so would be a return to a true laissezfaire system. See Steve Roth above for a very simply debunking of such a market fundamentalist idea as more equality equals less growth. Silly.

Chmcclellan, I figured the use of assume would allow me to state my perception of a bedrock principle of our nation. Maybe you disagree, but mocking me seems a bit over the top. And then your explanation sort of sums up the 1% of Americans who think of themselves as Libertarians. You really think that most people in this country, who do good work, are simply content with their wage being determined by how good they are at working out a contract. Come on! Why do you think lawyers are loathed. They represent exactly what you are describing which replaces the value of what you do with your ability to extract as much as possible from your adversary. Obviously contracts are important and the basis for all our transactions just as they should be, but the point is we work out policies that mitigate the impersonal, adversarial, and quite often UNEQUAL nature of bare contracts.

And can this be anymore tone-deaf: “opportunity says nothing of income, wealth, or any other outcome.” Really? You are saying there is no direct connection between opportunity at age 25, say, and wealth or income at age 60. The idea that we can't use growing inequality according to the numbers to prove that actual inequality exists strikes me as a rejection of empiricism. It may not be complete proof but it is striking evidence that you just can't sweep away as unimportant.

And Brian, NO! That struck me as a stupid question that apparently is relying on the same silly assumptions that Blighter uses.

This has been fun and I apologize for being so strident. I was just taken aback by the use of the word pathetic in Will's post.

It's better to argue the facts. Here are some:

The US taxes 28% of GDP (local, state, federal combined). European countries tax 30-50%, average 40%. The social programs that those taxes pay for result in far less inequality.

But long-term growth, EU versus US, is *the same.*

http://trueconservative.typepad.com/trueconserv...

Are you arguing that if Europe had taxed and spent less, they would have been kicking our economic asses for the last thirty years?

If lower taxes and smaller government yield faster growth, that's what the facts suggest.

Do you care to make that argument?

This is a fair criticism. However, there is a coherent argument to be made here. As many on the left would crassly say, “the Republicans are bankrolled by big business.” To put it less crassly, you do often have to follow the money to figure out why a policy is being enacted. Remember economics 101: politicians follow incentives.

Of course there are plenty of legitimate reasons for liking a flatter tax code. But there is a partial truth to the whinings from the left. Unfortunately said whinings can often short-circuit honest argument.