I started this as a reply to one of those blasted Republi-trolls, on another blog. This one was demanding some sort of philosophical reason for wealth redistribution. SO, I thought about it a bit, and came to an interesting conclusion: I don't
have a philosophical reason, only a practical one.
I've never been all that thrilled with using abstract principles to figure out how things "should" work in the real world anyway. We've seen people try that before, it doesn't work worth a darn; if anybody really needs a few reminders, go look up communism, the French Terror, and maybe Ayn Rand. I prefer to look at the way the real world works, and go from there.
The first thing I notice, looking at wealth distribution, is that without explicit mechanisms to stop it, capital does concentrate in a small number of hands. The supporting data for this assertion is, well, all of history: go back more than five hundred years, and everywhere that there is any capital at all, it's owned by a small aristocracy. Everywhere from ancient Egypt to modern Brazil, the top ten percent own all of the stuff. There are no exceptions I know of from before the twentieth century. The way it happens was generally violent-- buy enough guys with spears, and just make everybody give you their stuff-- but there were a few mercantilist examples too, Rome just before the days of empire comes to mind.
Second, I'm going to think about some places that still allow wealth to concentrate as it will. Places with concentrated wealth... well, there's Brazil. There are the kleptocracies of Africa, wonderful places all. Oh, and North Korea-- give it up for Kim Jong Il-- and modern Russia.
Then, I'll think about some societies that do not concentrate wealth as much. That would include Canada, Scandinavia, Japan, Ireland, and, I'll throw it in because it's the poorest-sounding place that isn't run by six rich guys and their thugs, India.
Now, it's time for moral judgement. Which group of countries would I rather LIVE in? My criteria are.. I'd like the place to be clean. Not have to worry about violence. Decent services, readily available-- stuff like water, 'net connections, and electricity. And, perhaps most important, a sense of a future, some signs that things are getting better.
None of the countries in the first group had ANY of these things. They're all violent, dangerous places. Even the rich had to go around with bodyguards everywhere, and the poor.. well, those gangs of kids in Rio get gunned down en masse by police occasionally. Civic services are miserable. And, of course, none of them are really what you'd call growing economies.
And, really, all of the countries in the second group DO. They're all quiet, calm, picturesque places to live, at least from a "people invading your house and kidnapping you for ransom" perspective. They've all got industries, they've all got growth potential; even India seems to be taking over half the world's software development business. That's pretty much how I want my life to go.
And that's why I think it's important not to let the top hundred families in the country have all the money.