As I’ve been listening to and contemplating the whole discussion around “spreading the wealth”, it’s occurred to me that when the wealth is being spread, there’s more than just wealth that gets spread.

That’s right, the poverty gets spread too.

Of course, calling it “spreading the poverty” might seem too severe, but here’s the thing: people have poverty, wealth, or something in between. If you spread one, you spread it all.

My preference now is to think of it as “spreading the mediocrity”. As we discussed in the past, providing equal access to economic resources (”spreading the wealth”, or “wealth redistribution”) is going to lead to a society that is motivated to meet the status quo, to do just enough to get by, to even lower itself to ensure that there is just enough work to either[...]