The-Morality-of-Capitalism-PDF

earned by the poorest 10% of the population) is not a feature ofdifferent policies, whereas the amount of income they earn is.Considering the countries of the world by quartiles (each with25% of the world’s countries) the average share of national incomegoing to the poorest 10% of the population in the least-free quartile(including such countries as Zimbabwe, Myanmar, and Syria)in 2008 (the last year for which data are available) was 2.47%;in the next (third most-free) quartile, 2.19%; in the next (secondmost-free) quartile, 2.27%; and in the freest quartile, 2.58%. Thevariation is hardly significant. That is to say, such inequalityseems to be immune to being affected by the rules of economicpolicies. On the other hand, the amount of income the poorest10% receive varies enormously, precisely because that variable iscertainly not immune to economic policies. Being among thepoorest 10% in the least-free countries means an average annualincome of $910 per year, while being among the poorest 10% inthe most-free market economies means an average annual incomeof $8,474. For those who are poor, it seems far better to be poorin Switzerland than in Syria.Whether you and I have equal initial endowments before freeexchanges or equal holdings after free exchanges is not, by itself,a moral problem. On the other hand, refusing to treat morallyequal persons equally and to apply equal rules to them, all inthe attempt to generate more equal outcomes (not, it seems, agenerally successful enterprise, as such outcomes are not so easilymanipulated), certainly is a moral problem. That is a violation ofmoral equality that matters.The biggest scandal in the world regarding inequality ofwealth is not the inequality between the wealthy and the poorin economically free societies, but that huge gap between thewealth of people in economically free societies and the wealthof people in economically unfree societies. That gap betweenwealth and poverty is quite certainly a matter that can be solvedby changing the rules, i.e., by changing economic policies. Freeingthe people of economically unfree societies will create enormousamounts of wealth that would do more to narrow the gap betweenthe world’s wealthy and the world’s poor than any other policyimaginable. Moreover, it would do so as a positive consequence61