Who Were the Sea Peoples?

You must've seen this a number of times: some libertarian dismisses complaints about inequality by saying, "What does it matter if inequality is growing, so long as the poor are getting wealthier in an absolute sense? To worry about one's relative wealth, to resent another for doing even better than one is doing oneself, is simply envy." There are two things to note here: first of all, not all worry about increasing inequality is based on envy. Republican theorists throughout the centuries worried about great economic inequality because they felt it made republican politics impossible: the very rich could easily buy the allegiance and votes of the very poor, who would not act as independent republican citizens, but as clients of their wealthy patrons. But let us grant that some of the worry about inequality is based on end. That does not mean we can dismiss it lightly! Here is Aristotle on the issue: "Inequality is everywhere at the bottom of faction, for i...

I appreciate Marx and Engels more and more over time (although I assure you I am not on the verge of becoming a Marxist!): while they weren't happy with the then current social system, they were scathing about utopians who had not even bothered to understand classical economics and yet were proposing fairy-tale fixes for what ailed the world. I would like to resurrect Engels in particular to unleash his sarcasm on Matthew Hutson of Slate , who seems to think market prices should be arrived at by measuring some objective fact about two things offered on the market, and then making sure their price ratio reflects that measured ratio: "But a quick look at the data shows the limitations of raw smarts and stick-to-itiveness as an explanation for inequality. The income distribution in the United States provides a good example. In 2012 the top 0.01 percent of households earned an average of $10.25 million, while the mean household income for the country overall was $51,000. Are...