[beefman]

Redistribution has very little effect on poverty, even at extreme levels.

The growth over the last 20 years is much less than before, which is a likely cause of the increasing inequality. In a zero-sum economy, trade tends to concentrate wealth.[1] Growth is plausibly strong enough to counteract this, and historically, is overwhelmingly correlated with falling inequality.

Policy is much weaker than growth at doing anything. I personally favor progressive taxation and a basic income, and I think we can continue to improve the effectiveness of policy, but governments (and humans generally) don't have so much freedom in economic matters as is often supposed.[2][3]

Free trade doesn't cause growth (as ten thousand years of history prior to 1800 shows) but it may be a necessary condition for it.

[1] http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics... [2] https://plus.google.com/+CarlLumma/posts/T2fdtAHtU9W [3] https://plus.google.com/+CarlLumma/posts/fWhcsTxvZVM