Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 17

CONSERVATISM AND THE REAL PROBLEMS OF INCOME INEQUALITY

Revenues from a tax on high incomes also do not necessarily
result in programs actually aimed at lifting up the lower- and
middle-class incomes. Take education, for instance, where higher
levels of government spending have coincided with an eroding
middle class, lower skill levels for workers, and stagnating wages.
Nor does higher government spending do anything to give families the freedom to choose the schools their children attend. (An
educational approach that focuses directly on expanding the skill
levels of working Americans might embrace an array of job-training initiatives operated through the private sector that would
be more helpful for the lowest income groups than is traditional
higher education, the benefits of which these groups are often
handicapped from receiving.)
The only certainty produced by higher taxes is bigger government. Indeed, it is not even certain what revenues would be produced by such taxes, since higher-income individuals will increasingly shift their money into various tax shelters. Thus, sky-high
income and wealth taxes would not raise much revenue for very
long, and any revenue is likely to fund government programs, not
checks to the needy.
Contrary to the stated aims of liberalism, a state-by-state analysis shows that the blue states following liberal policies have bigger
income gaps than do red states that follow more conservative,
growth-oriented policies. So, at the minimum, redistributionist
policies like raising tax rates or the minimum wage fail to achieve
greater income equality. And at worst, such policies actually
worsen the inequality by dampening the economic opportunity
and mobility needed by lower income individuals.
Thomas Piketty writes in Capital in the Twenty-First Century that
wealth inequality can lead to the rise of plutocracy and the end
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Modern Age - Winter 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2016

Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover1
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover2
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Contents
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