New Op-Ed on the War on Poverty

Steve Horwitz

I have an op-ed today at WSJ's "Marketwatch" site that jumps in on the discussion of the War on Poverty.  I make two arguments:

1.  The War on Poverty has largely been won, thanks to the forces of market innovation.  The US poor live, on average, better than the average US household did in the early 1970s.

2.  The best way to address the lingering pockets of persistent poverty is to get government out of the way by ending minimum wage/licensing regulations, opening up the public schools to competition, and ending the War on Drugs.  It's a free market anti-poverty program.

PS:  the comments are a very depressing window into the state of "political discourse" these days.

Comments

[Richard Hammer]

Thank you for carrying the torch.

Lately I've reflected that poverty is like beauty, in that exists in the eye of the beholder. As you have argued, the "poor" of today have a higher absolute standard of living than did kings five hundred years ago.

Yet lamentation about poverty continues. So poverty (in the eye of the beholder) is not about standard of living. I wonder if it is about the existence of a difference, i.e. that some have more than others.

[Xerographica]

Elizabeth Warren has more influence over resources than I do because she received more votes than I did. It seems pretty straightforward and fair.

We can apply the same logic to the private sector. Jeff Bezos has more influence over resources than I do because he receives more dollar votes than I do.

Both are systems of representation...but there are some significant differences. In the private sector we have a "division of representation"...

http://redd.it/1uxtbp