Matt Bai's week-old piece on John Edwards raised an issue that I've never understood -- the division between the people Bai calls "redistributionists" and "predistributionists". The former camp, which includes Robert Rubin, accepts "the conservative philosophy that growth at the upper echelons of society is good for everyone, but with a significant difference: government has to redistribute some of that wealth by progressively taxing the affluent and giving that money back to the poor through carefully incentivized social programs and tax breaks." The latter group, including Robert Reich, supports "using the tools of government to divert money from the wealthiest Americans before they earn it."
I'd be surprised if there were any useful overarching things to say about redistribution versus predistribution. Sure, there are going to be all sorts of nitty-gritty policy reasons to support particular redistributionist or predistributionist proposals. But in the end, all we want is for people's needs to be satisfied, so they can go on and live happy lives. Whether this satisfaction comes from better social services funded by progressive taxation or an economy regulated to create bigger paychecks doesn't really matter.
