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Agreed, my original question was not trying to conflate "poor people-proletariat" with "untrained and inexpert", I think that is a dangerous path of categorizat

• anbende 8y ago
  You asked for times when forced redistribution of wealth caused problems. I complied. In the Russian case a major problem was that the means of production (farms and farm machinery) were taken from those who knew how to use and manage them (the landowners) and given to those who didn’t. This was an extreme example (landowners were massacred). More minor forms of wealth redistribution might be more viable. The bottom percentiles are substantially less trained an less educated than the upper percentiles. This is not a “dangerous conflation”. It is a fact. Education is strongly correlated with wealth. The bottom 50% are less likely to be educated either in college OR in a skilled vocation. You wouldn’t just put the janitor in the ceo role. Likewise, you wouldn’t target innovation and technical advance by cutting taxes to the the poorest citizens. You might cut taxes for other reasons (e.g., humanitarian)... And of course, increasing educational opportunities to the poor might help w innovation, but free education is not identical w wealth redistribution.