Kerby Anderson

Economic inequality is one of the themes that ran through the presidential election and congressional races. Edward Conard has been challenging many of the myths surrounding this debate. That is why I had him on my radio program to talk about his new book, The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class.

Four years ago, he wrote the controversial bestseller Unintended Consequences, which attempted to set the record straight on the 2008 financial crisis. He is now trying to set the record straight by debunking the economic myths used to justify more income redistribution.

One of those myths is the belief that the rich get richer by making the poor poorer. Central to this belief is an assumption of a zero-sum game. That is certainly true in sports or chess. It isn’t really true in America. He makes the case that no other high-wage economy has done more to help the world’s poor than the US economy.

Related to this is the myth that success is largely unearned. Not only does he address this myth in his book, but also dealt with it in an op-ed in Time magazine. Politicians and economists pushing economic redistribution argue that the successful 1% achieved their wealth from crony capitalism. He notes that “seventy percent of the wealth of the top 0.1% is owned by self-employed business owners who bested competitors to satisfy customers, not cronies, to earn their success.”

His book not only debunks various economic myths but also plots a way forward. He believes that the challenge facing America today is how to accelerate growth, employment, and wages in our economy. We also need to train America’s talent to be more effective. And we need to lower corporate taxes and restrain perennial trade deficits without restraining trade. I wish more political candidates would read his book.