When thinking about the difference between government action and action taken by free people trading voluntarily in markets, we find that many myths abound. Tom G. Palmer has written an important paper that confronts these myths about markets. The twelfth myth — Markets Lead to More Inequality than Non-Market Processes — and Palmer’s refutation is below. The complete series of myths and responses is at Twenty Myths about Markets.
Palmer is editor of the recent book The Morality of Capitalism. He will be in Overland Park and Wichita in May speaking on the moral case for capitalism. For more information and to register for these events see The Morality of Capitalism. An eleven minute podcast of Palmer speaking on this topic is at The Morality of Capitalism.
Myth: Markets Lead to More Inequality than Non-Market Processes
Myth: By definition, markets reward ability to satisfy consumer preferences and as abilities differ, so incomes will differ. Moreover, by definition, socialism is a state of equality, so every step toward socialism is a step toward equality.
Tom G. Palmer: If we want to understand the relationships between policies and outcomes, it should be kept in mind that property is a legal concept; wealth is an economic concept. The two are often confused, but they should be kept distinct. Market processes regularly redistribute wealth on a massive scale. In contrast, unwilling redistribution of property (when undertaken by individual citizens, it’s known as “theft”) is prohibited under the rules that govern free markets, which require that property be well defined and legally secure. Markets can redistribute wealth, even when property titles remain in the same hands. Every time the value of an asset (in which an owner has a property right) changes, the wealth of the asset owner changes. An asset that was worth 600 Euros yesterday may today be worth only 400 Euros. That’s a redistribution of 200 Euros of wealth through the market, although there has been no redistribution of property. So markets regularly redistribute wealth and in the process give owners of assets incentives to maximize their value or to shift their assets to those who will. That regular redistribution, based on incentives to maximize total value, represents transfers of wealth on a scale unthinkable for most politicians. In contrast, while market processes redistribute wealth, political processes redistribute property, by taking it from some and giving it to others; in the process, by making property less secure, such redistribution tends to make property in general less valuable, that is, to destroy wealth. The more unpredictable the redistribution, the greater the loss of wealth caused by the threat of redistribution of property.
Equality is a characteristic that can be realized along a number of different dimensions, but generally not across all. For example, people can all be equal before the law, but if that is the case, it is unlikely that they will have exactly equal influence over politics, for some who exercise their equal rights to freedom of speech will be more eloquent or energetic than others, and thus more influential. Similarly, equal rights to offer goods and services on free markets may not lead to exactly equal incomes, for some may work harder or longer (because they prefer income to leisure) than others, or have special skills for which others will pay extra. On the flip side, the attempt to achieve through coercion equality of influence or equality of incomes will entail that some exercise more authority or political power than others, that is, the power necessary to bring about such outcomes. In order to bring about a particular pattern of outcomes, someone or some group must have the “God’s Eye” view of outcomes necessary to redistribute, to see a lack here and a surplus there and thus to take from here and move to there. As powers to create equal outcomes are concentrated in the hands of those entrusted with them, as was the case in the officially egalitarian Soviet Union, those with unequal political and legal powers find themselves tempted to use those powers to attain unequal incomes or access to resources. Both logic and experience show that conscious attempts to attain equal or “fair” incomes, or some other pattern other than what the spontaneous order of the market generates, are generally self-defeating, for the simple reason that those who hold the power to redistribute property use it to benefit themselves, thus converting inequality of political power into other sorts of inequality, whether honors, wealth, or something else. Such was certainly the experience of the officially communist nations and such is the path currently being taken by other nations, such as Venezuela, in which total power is being accumulated in the hands of one man, Hugo Chavez, who demands such massively unequal power, ostensibly in order to create equality of wealth among citizens.
According to the data in the 2006 Economic Freedom of the World Report, reliance on free markets is weakly correlated to income inequality (from the least free to the most free economies the world over, divided into quartiles, the percentage of income received by the poorest ten percent varies from an average of 2.2% to an average of 2.5%), but it is very strongly correlated to the levels of income of the poorest ten percent (from the least free to the most free economies the world over, divided into quartiles, the average levels of income received by the poorest ten percent are $826, $1,186, $2,322, and $6,519). Greater reliance on markets seems to have little impact on income distributions, but it does substantially raise the incomes of the poor and it is likely that many of the poor would certainly consider that a good thing.