As the 2004 presidential election nears, Americans have and will continue to hear Kerry and his supporters demand that we “narrow the gap” between the incomes of the rich and the poor. However in reality gap isn’t the “injustice” liberals claim it to be. The lefts view starts from the false assumption that economic inequality is inherently unjust — it doesn’t take into consideration that a rich person could honestly earn his wealth and a poor person can be responsible for his impoverishment.
In reality, there will always be differences in the incomes of the wealthiest and poorest individuals, just as there will always be differences in the physical strength between people. And just as the strong can become weaker by not being productive, the weak can become strong by increased productivity; the rich can lose their shirts and people in rags can earn riches.
The left forgets that wealth is created through rational thinking and productivity. Instead they regard money as a static amount; a fixed pie. Anti-capitalists impose “progressive” income and capital gains tax on the wealthy to redistribute this imaginary “pie”. In fact these measures actually create the difference between the income levels of the wealthy and poor. Government enforced wealth distribution policies encourage non-productivity and dependence in their recipients. Furthermore, taxation discourages business from investing their money to expand companies and create new ones.
A proper economic policy should not attempt to narrow the inevitable gap in the income levels however encourage the opportunity — the freedom — for each individual to raise his/her own standard of living. What is noteworthy is that capitalism raises the standard of living for individuals of all classes, so that today’s poor are always better off than yesterday’s wealthy.