Inequality

Because he is a silly yet horrid little man, Ross Douthat recently wrote, in the course of an incoherent defense of Charles Murray, that

[e]ven if liberals get the higher tax rates on the rich they so ardently desire, the money won’t be adequate to finance our existing entitlements, let alone a New Deal 2.0.

The fact is that he has no facts but rather an assertion. Leaving aside the long-term changes in wealth and wages that would result from a different tax regime and new method of wage allocation, right now the world looks like this:

20 % hold 85% of the wealth. Take that away andgive it to the state to fund an actually existing system in which talent, luck, and hard work move us forward instead of a world in which the sons and daughters of the 20%ers start out on third base, with slightly longer lead-offs based on how obscenely rich their parents were, and things would be much better than they are.

Instead the two political parties argue about how much more money the super rich ought to have and to what extent society ought to stop funding educational institutions and other means of creating a just society.