The latest whining about inequality

As we’ve pointed out before our interest is in people having more. Just, you know, more. We think it a good thing if poor people are getting more. That others get even more more doesn’t, in fact, worry us. That is, we think that poverty is the thing to be defeated and inequality can go hang.

At which point the latest whining about wealth inequality:

We rate that as good. Perhaps not perfect but certainly good. The vast mass of humanity are becoming better off. Good, eh? As with the Elephant Curve of global incomes from Branko Milanovic:

Good. The vast portion of humanity is becoming better off. This is what we all want to be happening in an economy - the poor are getting richer. That some are getting that more more richer doesn’t bother us in the slightest. That the poor are getting richer is the confirmation of the success of the base economic idea.

Sadly, we have those who whine that the inequality here is such a problem that the entire global economy must be ripped up and started again. A claim we feel is somewhere between foolish and crass idiocy. After millennia of different plans and attempts we’ve finally got that global economy doing what we want it to do - make the poor richer and get somewhere with abolishing that stain on society that is absolute poverty.

Why do people want to change what is so obviously working?

Tim Worstall