🚀 go-pugleaf

Jud Wolfskill wrote:
> 
> The questions discussed include: How does income
> distribution interact with economic growth in the short run and the long
> run? To what extent can government use transfer programs to increase the
> incomes of the poor? How can government use social programs to help the
> poor increase their income-earning capacity? Does distributional
> inequality create an obstacle to long-term poverty reduction?
> Alternatively, is distributional inequality a necessary means of achieving
> economic growth? Generally, the contributors agree that there need not be
> a trade-off between growth and equity in the long run. However, attempts
> by government to influence income distribution through large-scale tax
> and transfer programs can have a negative impact on growth.

This book might more accurately be called "The Big Red Herring."

It doesn't matter how income is distributed, but what it is distributed
_for_.  If people are paid for producing goods and services, then they
will produce, and the society will become wealthy _whatever_ the
distribution of income.  To the extent that people are paid for things
other than production of wealth (like its ownership, or idleness, or
criminality), the society will stagnate and not become wealthy, or even
grow poorer, _whatever_ the distribution of income.

No big mystery here, surely...

-- royl@not.this.partistar.ca