Inequality as a Cause of Social Murder

Abstract

The conservative attack on the poor draws from a long intellectual history. More modern conservative opponents of income redistribution have ceased to claim that the poor are somehow inferior beings to the rich. However, they share with their more strident predecessors a belief that redistribution is entirely unnecessary, due to the ability of the market to justly and efficiently allocate income among members of society. Further, they argue that state redistribution is damaging both to society as a whole and to those low-income people that income transfers are designed to help. The authors contrast the myth of conservative economic policy with the reality.