Do Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Really Care About Wealth Inequality?

Ryan BourneSenator Bernie Sanders has called levels of U.S. wealth inequality“outrageous,” “grotesque” and “immoral.” Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is pushing for a wealth tax to curb what she describes as “runaway wealth concentration.” Yet despite their rhetoric, it’s not clear, deep down, whether either really cares about wealth inequality per se or believes that reducing it should be an overriding public policy goal.To see why, consider this. Every year,Credit Suisse calculates a wealth “Gini coefficient” for major countries, indicating their level of wealth inequality in a single number from 0 to 100. Higher numbers indicate higher inequality. In 2018, the U.S. really did have a comparatively high figure at 85, as Warren and Sanders lament. But how this number compares to othe r countries is instructive.Many poorer economies, such as Ethiopia (61), Myanmar (58), and Pakistan (65), have lower wealth inequality than America. Meanwhile, a diverse range of countries have similarly high wealth inequality, including Russia (88) and Kazakhstan (95), through to Sweden (87) and Denmark (84). Unsurprisingly, neither Warren nor Sanders argue for the U.S. to adopt Ethiopia or Pakistan ’s economic model in pursuit of more equality. ButBernie Sanders has said in the past that Denmark and Sweden are exemplars par excellence of his vision of “democratic socialism,” seemingly not caring that their wealth distributions are “outrageous,...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs