Edward Conard Says What Mitt Romney Won’t
By Michael Kinsley, Bloomberg, May 7, 2012 12:30 PM CT
The people at the New York Times Magazine must think that nobody has ever read Ayn Rand, or maybe even Adam Smith.
Their cover story on Sunday -- misleadingly titled, “Are the Rich Worth a Damn?” -- reports breathlessly that there is this fellow named Edward Conard who believes in free-market capitalism and is willing to fill a gap in the argument we’ve been having about growing income inequality. Until now there hasn’t been anyone, or at least anyone still alive, willing to say publicly that what the U.S. needs is more inequality, not less. (Conard has even written a book about “Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong.”)
The argument is basically Smith’s, carried to extremes: The invisible hand of free-market capitalism turns individual greed into prosperity for all. But Conard also shares Rand’s special twist of portraying the successful businessman as a hero, the Alpha Male at his finest, and everybody else as mediocre deadbeats and leeches.
He says Warren Buffett should “quit taking a victory lap” for saying that the rich should pay more taxes, because “that money is for the middle class.” Conard means, believe it or not, that the middle class is better off paying more taxes so that people like Buffett can pay less and use their superior drive and brains to finance innovation that makes everybody richer.
(More here.)
The people at the New York Times Magazine must think that nobody has ever read Ayn Rand, or maybe even Adam Smith.
Their cover story on Sunday -- misleadingly titled, “Are the Rich Worth a Damn?” -- reports breathlessly that there is this fellow named Edward Conard who believes in free-market capitalism and is willing to fill a gap in the argument we’ve been having about growing income inequality. Until now there hasn’t been anyone, or at least anyone still alive, willing to say publicly that what the U.S. needs is more inequality, not less. (Conard has even written a book about “Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong.”)
The argument is basically Smith’s, carried to extremes: The invisible hand of free-market capitalism turns individual greed into prosperity for all. But Conard also shares Rand’s special twist of portraying the successful businessman as a hero, the Alpha Male at his finest, and everybody else as mediocre deadbeats and leeches.
He says Warren Buffett should “quit taking a victory lap” for saying that the rich should pay more taxes, because “that money is for the middle class.” Conard means, believe it or not, that the middle class is better off paying more taxes so that people like Buffett can pay less and use their superior drive and brains to finance innovation that makes everybody richer.
(More here.)
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