Contrived and Natural Inequality—Posner
Becker makes an important point: inequality of income and wealth is not entirely a product of differences in IQ, in other talents, and in luck; it is also contrived, in the sense of being produced by private or public actions that do not promote overall economic welfare. He gives a number of persuasive examples. His emphasis is on public actions, though he mentions cartels, which are private. Of course it must also be recognized that public actions frequently reduce inequality of income rather than increasing it, examples being the social security retirement and disability programs, the Medicare and Medicaid programs,...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/becker-posner/~3/6MmwEOmXQzk/contrived-and-natural-inequalityposner.html