Personal freedom and the equal distribution of wealth are mutually exclusive when imposed by the state. You can have one or the other, but you cannot have both. The two can only coexist through the voluntary generosity of individuals. Let me explain.
No two people are exactly alike. We each have a unique genetic code and vastly differing life experiences. Those factors lead us to have different preferences. We prefer different styles of clothing, genres of music and flavors of ice cream. I hate mushrooms. You may love them.
As we act on our varying preferences, some products naturally sell more than others, causing the manufacturer of those goods to earn more than the maker of goods people prefer less. In a sort-of natural selection of the marketplace, a strong preference for a product causes its maker to thrive while an insufficient preference for another product forces its maker to adapt or go out of business.
The freedom to act on our personal preferences, therefore, naturally leads to unequal outcomes.
Eenie, Meenie, Miney, No
You could try to prevent unequal outcomes by eliminating choice. In theory, if only one version of any item exists, then its maker would receive all income from its sales.
But that won't produce equal outcomes either because people buy different products at different rates. You probably consume more milk than tomato juice and more gasoline than 8-track tapes.
In the end, the only way to prevent some companies (and thus, some people) from making more money than others is to restrict what everyone is allowed to buy. By requiring people to buy the same quantity of the same items--by eliminating their freedom to of choice--you could move closer to equal distribution of the resulting wealth.
However, history has shown that under such conditions a black market will quickly develop so that people can exercise their freedom by acquiring those items they prefer--restoring a measure of personal freedom while unbalancing outcomes as a result.
Robin Hoodwinked
If you acknowledge that you cannot achieve equal outcomes by restricting choice, then you may try to redistribute wealth after people have earned it. But, in the end, this approach also stifles everyone's freedom.
If you take earnings from successful businesses and give it to those whose products people prefer less, then you eliminate the incentive that caused the leading company to succeed. Zappos would no longer provide superior customer service because doing so would no longer yield superior results. Apple would stop innovating--a costly and risky activity--since no benefit for its innovation would acrue.
This would create a race to the bottom as each company stopped trying to add value and shifted to eliminating costs in a desperate attempt to preserve profit margins. Eventually, a marketplace devoid of competitive advantage would produce monopolies making a single, inferior product at an inflated price. (Welcome to the former Soviet Union)
Once again, the consumer would be left without choice and thus be deprived of the freedom to act on their preferences.
Ironically, many of the same people who want us to "celebrate our differences," propose marketplace restrictions or progressive tax schemes that try to diminish or eliminate those differences entirely. Shouldn't celebrating our individual differences extend to celebrating the uneven business success they create?
Multiply. Don't Divide.
We should not be asking how to redistribute wealth at all. It's the wrong question entirely and is born of a wrong premise:the notion that wealth is finite and that if one person has it another is deprived.
Rather than redistributing wealth, we should be teaching people how to create it. Those factors that lead to wealth and success, things like knowledge, self-discipline, hard work, ambition, cooperation, partnership, imagination, innovation, are "non-rival." In other words, their consumption by one individual does not prevent their consumption by another. There is, therefore, an unlimited supply of the things that produce wealth. One person's hard work does not prevent another from also working hard. Therefore, one person's wealth cannot be the cause of someone else's poverty because the personal characteristics that lead to wealth are in limitless supply and available to all.
Consider Ben Carson. Ben Carson is the Director of Piediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, a graduate of Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School and world reknowned for separating conjoined twins. But, most people would think his childhood circumstances would preclude such accomplishments.
Ben and his brother were raised by his single mother, Sonya, in inner-city Detroit. Sonja cleaned homes to make ends meet and noticed that her well-to-do clients didn't watch much TV, but read books instead. She also noticed that friends and neighbors who on welfare, never left it.
She wanted a better life for her boys and began reducing their TV viewing while requiring them to read at least two books each week from the library and write reports on them. Ben didn't know his mother was illiterate, dutifully wrote the reports and his life began to change. As he read, the world began to make more sense. The frustrations that triggered his anger disappeared and were replaced by the desire to learn and do more. You can read his amazing story in the book Gifted Hands.
Equal Distribution of Misery or the Unequal Distribution of Success?
What does it matter if the gap between my wealth and Bill Gates' wealth continues to grow? If Gates adds another billion, I won't know or feel it. If the gap narrows because Gates loses some of his wealth, I won;t be any better off.
nstead, we should be concerned with people's objective well-being. Does everyone have the essentials? Is the condition of the poorest American improving? That is an approach that solves the problem of poverty while preserving our personal freedoms and that seems more appropriate for the land of the free and the home of the brave. Spread the fire. GS