Saving Capitalism: For The Many, Not The Few

by Robert B. Reich

The “free market” serves as a smoke screen for all this. Because of it, the system for distributing economic gains appears to be the natural and inevitable result of neutral forces. The meritocratic ideal presumes that people are paid roughly in proportion to their worth. Those who are paid very little for their work are assumed to be “worth” no more than they receive, and those who are paid a great deal are assumed to be worth no less. It is a small step to view such payments as corresponding to what people deserve in a moral sense. Within this preferred vision of an American meritocracy, the amount of one’s income is equated with one’s virtue, and net worth with moral worth. Attempts to constrain high incomes with taxes or supplement low incomes through government transfers are thereby seen as intrusions into the market that risk undermining efficiency, distorting incentives, and compromising the moral underpinnings of meritocracy.