Wealth Must Be Made Before It Can Be Distributed

‘There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.’

Letter to The WSJ. 

"While I have a great deal of respect for Prof. Blinder, the flaw in his distributionist logic is staring him in the face. He complains that government social spending targeting the nation’s low-income households, elderly, disabled, sick, unemployed and youth is a lower proportion of GDP in the U.S. than it is in France and Germany.

But U.S. GDP per capita far exceeds those of France and Germany, so that the amount of U.S. social spending per person surpasses that of both these traditionally redistribution-focused nations—over $19,000 in the U.S. versus than $15,000 in Germany and France. (If the GDPs are compared under purchasing power parity, social spending per capita is closer in the three countries but the U.S. still comes out ahead.

Distributionists (whether re- or pre-) focus so intently on making sure that everyone’s slice of pie is identical that they neglect the most important factor in the human condition: How much pie is everyone actually getting? History shows that policies that focus too heavily on equity result in there being far less to go around over time, and the most vulnerable suffer from this greater scarcity. As Milton Friedman liked to say, “There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.”

Prof. Jason Taylor

Central Michigan University

Mount Pleasant, Mich."