Inequality Essential for Progress

Letter to the editor, Straits Times, June 17, 2019 by Mark Castelino

Re: Straits Times letter Re: The fight is with poverty, not inequality, Op-ed. June 14, 2019

Justin Ong is on the money albeit a trifle defensive on the the issue of poverty versus inequality.

It is difficult to understand why some folks (typically progressives) are so hung up on the issue of inequality. It is absolutely essential for progress.

Think of any innovation: the car, the aeroplane, pharmaceuticals, the color television, the video recorder, the dvd player, ipad, iphone, and so on. It is the wealthy who first demand these things.

Next it is the innovators and entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, who bring them to the market. Competition then drives down the price making it possible for the average person, even the poor, to buy them.

Some will call this trickle down economics, but then has anybody heard of trickle up economics. The Soviets, Eastern Europeans, Cubans and Venezuelans have tried it. In their “quest for equality” by redistributing wealth, they have been enormously successful in redistributing misery.

Professor Mark Castelino

International Executive MBA Program, Singapore

Rutgers Business School

Newark, NJ

USA

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