Krugman's Conundrum

Dr. Walter E. Williams

Muddying the waters in his November 3rd New York Times column Oligarchy, American Style, Paul Krugman lamented our state of affairs, worrying: "We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only."

To which Walter Williams answers:

Joanne Rowling was a welfare mother in Edinburgh, Scotland. All that has changed. As the writer of the "Harry Potter" novels, having a net worth of $1 billion, she is the world's wealthiest author. More importantly, she's one of those dastardly 1-percenters condemned by the Occupy Wall Streeters and other leftists.

How did Rowling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us? The entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world's children and their enabling parents. Rowling's wealth is a direct result of more than 500 million "Harry Potter" book sales and movie receipts grossing more than $5 billion.

In other words, the millions of "99-percenters" who individually plunk down $8 or $9 to attend a "Harry Potter" movie, $15 to buy a "Harry Potter" novel or $30 to buy a "Harry Potter" Blu-ray Disc are directly responsible for contributing to income inequality and wealth concentration that economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says "is incompatible with real democracy." In other words, Rowling is not responsible for income inequality; it's the people who purchase her works.

Krugman's notion that "income inequality" is incompatible with Democracy begs the question "who shall enforce the 'equality'". The job must fall to the government. The resultant loss of freedom would of course ensure that individuals would lose their ability to freely make their neighbors wealthy, but who would the real losers be?

It is not freedom that is the problem, Mr. Krugman. It is your pinheaded ideas about a 'perfect world' that are incompatible with Democracy.