[lotharbot]

I want to call your attention to a recent survey about wealth distribution [0] in which the average Bush voter stated that the ideal would be for the poorest quintile to have 7% of the wealth and the richest to have 35% of the wealth (Kerry voters said 12/30). Now, a thought experiment: imagine every family had the exact same income and the exact same rate of wealth accumulation. This is definitely more favorable to the poor and less favorable to the rich than you'd expect from the average Bush voter, or even the average Kerry voter. The only way to be wealthier than someone else is to have been working for more years. But if you do the math, you find that under this system, the richest quintile hold 36% of the wealth and the poorest hold 4% of the wealth. In other words, this system that both Bush and Kerry voters would consider extreme in promoting equality actually provides more wealth inequality than either Bush or Kerry voters emotionally believed was appropriate.

Point being, the people surveyed clearly didn't have a principled reason for thinking 30-35% was an "appropriate" amount of wealth for the top quintile; they hadn't done the math. In light of this, I want to ask you: do you have a principled argument as to how much wealth the top 1% or 5% or 20% should have?

[0] http://www.slate.com/id/2268872/