Does the shoe salesperson tan and cobble the leather, determine pricing, and then farm for self-sufficiency? The truth is individual liberty as economic activity disappeared in the 19th century; became rural poverty in the 20th, and the notion fails to recall the massive period of “Levitt town growth,” the golden era of manufacturing whose mill/corporate supplied amenities (houses; softball teams, swimming pools, square dances) were collectivist, ruled by an iron hand.
Economic history offers examples of groups working against their self-interest; the most telling, the southern farm lads who fought on behalf of collectivist interests in the civil war, when they neither owned slaves or had a path to wealth or improvement.
Inequality is a measure of the concentration of power. It is not “equality” that is the goal, but opportunity. Not by quota or government fiat, but by a culture of meaning and ethics that values human agency.
[ Note, my reply to a reply: That's not "inequality." That's distribution. By definition, inequality is skewered distribution, a radical departure from statistical or historic norms, bell curve or otherwise. All societies have a distribution of resources and wealth.
Inequality, in American society, esp, in the 1/10th of 1%, shows the concentration of power. I stand by my view.
Thank you for supporting the collective effort thru government to provide important broad based benefits to its citizens, which also aids economic growth.]
Also recall the Tea Party still supports social security and medicaid, programs paid for individually but secured collectively.
