Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Income equality does not equal happiness equality

National and Labour have produced two Ms Averages. National's is a single woman who is earning more but not getting ahead - Labour's is a partnered woman with two children who is better off.

Labour's redistributive philosophy is about achieving income equality - or trying to make incomes as 'average' as possible. Which reminded me of a passage I read last week. It comes from a US professor who says there are things beyond income that people care about - sometimes a great deal more. Love, faith and happiness for instance. As he puts it;

If greater income equality is our end goal, bringing the top down is as useful as bringing the bottom up, says Brooks. This is about as sensible as depressing the happy for the sake of the sad. There is no doubt the egalitarians among our politicians and pundits want the best for America. But to focus on inequality -- and then only inequality in income -- creates policies based on either rank materialism or raw envy. These motivations do little to inspire, and even less to lead.

Under income equality-driven policies many people become frustrated, resentful, demotivated and plain unhappy. The best approach is for government to leave people alone as much as possible. Tax them at a low flat rate and leave how they run their social and economic lives up to them. Decisions made unfettered by government policies will necessarily be better ones because their consequences are real - not subject to the whim of the next populist policy-maker who comes along.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Working for Families is the biggest piece of state theft yet legislated. Those of us who have made responsible decisions in our lives regarding the having of children get punished, those who indiscriminately push them out with no regard to having to be financially responsible for them in the future, including the money to educate them well, are able to take the goods of other peoples efforts.

Obscene.

"The thing that didn't sit well with me about socialism is that the poor, apparently, were entitled to want more, the rich obliged to want less." Turow in 'Ordinary Heroes'.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I alway attribute. Above post by Mark Hubbard.