Quote of the Day: Wealth, Values, and "Exactly the Wrong Message"

Here are some timely observations by Tyler Cowen of George Mason University during an NPR interview about the Occupy Wall Street protests:

COWEN: Well, the main question is inequality. But I think there are two fundamental contradictions in the Occupy Wall Street as a movement. The first is it points out correctly, politics is corrupt. But it then ought to conclude the solution is to limit the size of government. In fact, most of them want to increase the size of government, and that’s a contradiction. It’s not going to work. 

The second point is this distinction between 1 percent and the 99 percent. Within the top 1 percent, there are people who are in wealth by producing it, like Steve Jobs, and then people who take it by predation or fraud. And that’s the important distinction. It’s about values. It’s about how you got your wealth and not how much you have. 

REHM: But you really say there’s been so much talk about riches. You’re talking about values. Do you think that that ends up being a divisive message? 

COWEN: I think it is. It gets people suspicious of wealth. I think that most wealth is earned. Most rich people are great. They are our benefactors of humanity and America. And the idea that you lump together with some number of financiers who have done bad things and call them the top 1 percent and pit them against everyone else, I think that’s exactly the wrong message. The real message should be a lot of people get their wealth through politics. We should limit this. The way to do this is to limit the overall influence of politics over the American economy.

The whole interview is worth your time.