The Wall Street Journal features a long piece today noting the growth in inequality and what the Democrats might do about it. Remarkably, the article never once examines how the government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has structured the market in ways that shift income upward. Can a Wall Street Journal reporter really not have noticed that U.S. trade and immigration policy has been focused on putting less educated workers in competition with the developing world, while largely protecting highly paid professionals like doctors, lawyers, and Wall Street Journal reporters from having to compete with their counterparts in the developing world? Do Wall Street Journal reporters think that the patents and copyrights that made Bill Gates and the Silicon Valley kids rich came from god? Posing the question as one where the government is trying to redress inequality generated by the market is stacking the deck. The government structured the market in ways that lead to massive inequality. The market can be structured other ways. Yes, this is yet another pitch for the Conservative Nanny State. But, remember, the book can be downloaded for free, and once you read it, you will never be as ignorant as a Wall Street Journal reporter again.
--Dean Baker
