A tired and worn out lament

A wonderful example of the lack of self-awareness of the redistributionist mindset and the mainstream media, which is largely of the same ilk.

The Atlantic magazine has an article, How to Get Low-Wage Workers Into the Middle Class by Steven Greenhouse. As an economist, I look at that headline and it is close to asked and answered. How to Get Low-Wage Workers Into the Middle Class? Help them learn to increase their productivity. Productivity is the core of all national accounts. Low productivity, low wealth. High productivity, high wealth. So if you want to move from low income to high income, you have to figure out how to become more productive. Its that simple. You may not like the trade-offs you have to make, but still, the road to the middle-class is pretty clear.

Disappointingly, the article is actually about the challenges faced by unions when trying to make low productivity workers more expensive than the value of what they produce. A tired and worn out lament about the ignoble sentiments that prevent productive people from happily giving up their own income on behalf of others less productive. Age old but still there are the confused who want to focus on coercing money from the productive instead of teaching the less productive to become more productive. Missed opportunities.