The Blessings of Inequality

George Rebane

We are in the age of trading equality for equity.  Why?  Because equality at the start of any road quickly leads to inequality among the travelers - given equal opportunities, some get further ahead than others.  That’s how it has been, is now, and always will be the human condition.  To the socialist such results are anathema.  To them an enlightened governance will use force as needed to assure that society advances in a tight equitable cohort in which no one is left too far behind, and no one gets ahead too far.  And the governing elites will decide and manage what is ‘too far’.

As history has shown elsewhere and also in our land, policies that impose such equities produce stagnating economies in which the lot of the citizenry is uniform misery that takes many forms as individual freedoms are pruned over time.

Over the last 250 years, ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the west, we have witnessed an enormous blossoming in the quality of life (QoL) for all classes.  These range from fewer and less menial jobs with shorter hours, better living conditions with more stuff, an explosion of arts and entertainments, and longer lives during which to enjoy all these blessings.  Moreover, these betterments have inevitably spread across the world, raising billions of people out of droll and desperate lives that their ancestors suffered for centuries.

A closer look at how this all came about immediately reveals the role of inequality that sprung up in the new middle classes which were enabled by ever more liberal governments that inherited western culture.  In the 19^th century trade and industry allowed those who could and would to quickly leap ahead of their more sanguine and status quo satisfied neighbors in growing their assets.  The last two centuries contain countless stories of single-generation leaps from abject poverty to undreamed of wealth by entrepreneurs who took risks investing their time, health, money, and comfort to bring something new and useful to market.

And all of them knew that what they introduced would initially garner resistance and criticism in the marketplace.  Their driving hope was always that there would be a cohort of potential customers with the means and curiosity to give the new product or service a try, for these also would be taking a risk to buy something that might not work.  But it was always those having sufficient money set aside who could take that risk to enjoy and/or incorporate the new thing into their lives or businesses.

Yes, initially it was on the unequally richer class of folks that the entrepreneur depended to launch his product into the market so its utility could be seen by others.  And if successful, more such customers would come, and the business would have a successful lift-off.  In this phase of commercial activity, the less well-off would not participate directly.  However, sooner or later even they would benefit from the ‘trickle down’ effects that in free societies invite competition to improve and lower the costs of the goods and services introduced by the entrepreneur.

It is in the next phase of business development that things really take off when other equally enterprising individuals see the initial successes and decide to compete in the same markets.  They see expanded opportunities for themselves as they introduce new and perhaps better versions of the product or service developed by our first entrepreneur.  Now it’s off to the races as succeeding versions are produced and offered at ever lower costs to wider cohorts of customers of more limited means.  In the process these entrepreneurs create new jobs not only in their own specific industry, but also give rise to the ‘halo effect’ of benefitting the businesses that supply and support the new industry.  (Remember, homogenously poor people create neither jobs nor marginal wealth.)

And all of this, as we have seen, comes about through the existence of inequalities in a liberal society that invite human ingenuity and industry with a siren song of life-changing wealth for the successful entrepreneur and his family – come work and invest, and you too will then enjoy boundless inequality.  The beauty of it all is that such individual initiatives in entrepreneurship exist at all levels, from starting a local hardware store to creating high-tech genome editing companies with billion-dollar futures.  Multiply this story by a million times, and it quickly becomes clear how the last two centuries have given us our world.

But this historical knowledge is not shared by all – remember, we all can have our own opinions, facts, and histories – especially people persuaded by ideologies that depend on altruistic collectivism to bring about equitably distributed, high QoL for the masses.  For them, all of what we have and more is possible only through the efforts of a comprehensive government run by elites who know what we need and when we need it.  In contrast, those who can must always remember that no government has ever spread happiness across the land by forcing everyone to accept one-size-fits-all equitable solutions.  This historical ‘secret’ must forever be kept from the masses of leftwing voters.  And today it is the Democrat Party that is doing exactly that, and doing it successfully with the help of their lamestream media friends.  To confirm this, just ask any self-declared liberal if they accept any of the above description of what brought about today’s QoL.

So, let’s visit one of the many efforts underway today to limit or even do away with inequalities in our society.  An example I can cite comes from the relatively new and exciting field of gene editing based on the CRISPR technology (more here) that promises a new age of human development that will include the eradication of heritable maladies along with cures for individuals with dreaded diseases.  Along with these unquestionable benefits to our species comes also the ability to create ‘designer babies’ with specified traits that include better bodies and brains.  And there’s the rub.

The story of this technology is told by Walter Isaacson in his The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race wherein the entire saga of modern biotechnology, its politics, and its commercialization is told in great detail.  Dr Doudna received the 2020 Nobel in Chemistry for her work in developing the CRISPR-based gene editing technology (along with co-developer Emmanuelle Charpentier).  So why aren’t they rushing this phenomenal technology into the healthcare markets as a productized service?

Well, it turns out that everyone around the world even remotely concerned with the genomics of gene editing is getting tangled up in the ethics and morality of unequal access to the technology.  There is a lot of handwringing going on between scientists in academe, government bureaucrats, and ethicists of all stripes on the problem that the rich will be the only ones who can afford to get their diseases cured and babies designed.  It’s not clear if any of these profoundly concerned are not also profusely confused about the life-cycle of such inventions as they progress from science through technical feasibility to market-based commercialization.

They don’t seem to understand the blessings of inequality that will insure that the fruits of their most laudatory work will benefit millions of people everywhere.  They are stuck in the mire of ‘if they all can’t have it concurrently, then no one should get it’.  This is right out of the ‘Handbook of Insane Woke Thinking’, nevertheless, it is part and parcel of the new values, ethics, and morals through which everything destined for the public square must be filtered.  The practice of this kind of equity is but a harbinger of the future we will all suffer as long as the present regime remains on the throne.

Comments

[Gregory]

This, one of my favorite Python sketches, ends with a clear shot a'gin equity.

Dennis Moore, dum dum dumm da dumm.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2nrqgb

Yes, redistribution is harder than proponents think.

[Scott O]

Our modern world is filled with inventions, ideas and arts that were made possible because of a large and growing number of people who had free time on their hands (and often a large purse) to pursue something other than a life of drudgery just to survive. Was it fair that Marconi could indulge in 'crackpot' experiments while his fellow Italians were often hungry?
It is of the greatest concern that the collectivist do-gooders decide that anyone with wealth must be brought down first before the lower classes can be raised up. The fact that the first part of the equation is often accomplished while the second part is never successful seems to be lost to most people. The folks in charge of redistributing the wealth somehow manage to mysteriously end up with a great deal of it.
The govt should always be the least amount of govt possible because the people in the positions to make decisions have no skin in the game and their information feedback is always feeble if it even exists.

[Don Bessee]

Home boy is just begging them to try to cancel him, it will be an interesting fight -

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/06/04/maher-its-not-liberal-for-people-making-less-to-pay-for-college-educations-of-those-who-make-more/

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Equity? Redistribution is easy.

https://youtu.be/6J8__fWphE0

[Scott O]

Here's one for the Econ 101 class and everyone who noodles over George's blog.
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/growing-idaho/affordable-housing-ketchum-rent-blaine-county-crisis-park-tents/277-6dcd3da9-7ce7-4722-81de-b1e379e0300a
from the article:
"Ketchum resident Reid Stillman's current rental home is being sold by the landlord, giving him just a few months to get out. He said he makes "good money" at his advertising job but has been unable to find another place to live.
"You need to step in," Stillman told the mayor. "Because not only am I going to be homeless with a good job Sept. 1, but my friends who are in the service industry, who don't make a lot of money - they can't pay $2,900 a month for a two-bedroom in Ketchum. This isn't San Francisco, Neil.""
So - Mr Stillman wants to live in Ketchum, but can't afford to.
Ergo - the guv'ment NEEDS to DO something.
Why?
My wife and I have a comfortable retirement but we'd like to live in Malibu. We can't afford a six million dollar home or the taxes.
Does the govt NEED to DO something?
There are things the govt could have done in Ketchum that would have solved the problem long ago but would Mr Stillman have approved of highrises going up all over Ketchum?
People want a cheeseburger in paradise and the govt had better serve it up.

[Scott O]

Another great example of people complaining about wealth inequality when they have no idea of what they are talking about.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
This article is interesting in more than one area.
First of, the info was gained illegally, but this is waved away as the authors state: "We have concluded that the public interest in knowing this information at this pivotal moment outweighs that legitimate concern."
Always good to let people know that you have concluded that breaking the law is fine in your own eyes.
It looks to me the 'leak' is part of the push to start taxing 'wealth'. It will only be for the 'rich' just as income tax was.
And none of us pay income tax, do we?
Just where the wealthy are going to obtain the 10s of billions the left want them to pay? Most of their wealth is on paper.
The wealthy get that way because they invest in assets that appreciate. Cherry-picking a year here and there, I'm sure the wealthy can follow the tax law to cover losses from other years.
Overall the wealthy pay an inordinate amount of tax - far in excess of what the rest of us pay.
When envy becomes a guiding principle of governance, we will fall.
And remember - “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”