Dustin Blake

The conservative criticism of redistribution is a claim that conservatives would rather expand the (economic) pie than ensure that it is divided evenly among everybody. The theory is that everybody then even the guy destined to have a smaller piece comes out ahead, even if the pieces aren’t the same size. This argument is apparently very persuasive to people who think pies expand (perhaps when they’re growing on pie trees)? Those of us who have actually baked pies know that they stay the same size—and all you can do is cut them equally.

The conservatives would be much better off chosing something that actually expands. Say, apples. They want to grow more apples—which can then be baked into delicious apple pie. Except … if you want a successful orchard, you’ll ensure that your apple trees all have sufficient access to light and water. Taking decent care of your trees is the best way to get more apples. If you plant 99% of your trees in a corner of your orchard and give the remaining trees all the remaining space, you’re making terrible use of your resources. If you treat your trees equitably, you will get a better yield. Bigger pies.

Gross inequality is bad for the economy. Unemployment means wasted labor. Lack of opportunity means wasted potential. This metaphor only makes sense if we assume that pies behave in ways that pies doesn’t actually behave. The argument only makes sense if we pretend the economy behaves in similarly imaginary ways.

I should probably say first that the kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. I don’t think you can explain it as a mere derivative of something here, of some movement, or of some favorable signs in the world. …

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. … It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.

But back to Charles Prince. For his four years of in charge of massive, repeated fraud at Citigroup, he received fifty-three million dollars in salary and also received another ninety-four million dollars in stock holdings. What Charles Prince has *not* received is a pair of zipcuffs. The nerves in his thumb are fine. No cop has thrown Charles Prince into the pavement, face-first. Each and every peaceful, nonviolent Occupy LA protester arrested last week has has spent more time sleeping on a jail floor than every single Charles Prince on Wall Street, combined.