Questions of inequality

A standard ticket to attend the Discovery Leadership Summit cost R6,850; a premium ticket R8,450. A VIP ticket set you back R17,850. Among the luminaries speaking were Bill and Hillary Clinton and David Cameron.

How could these prices be justified given the pervasive inequality against which speakers such as these, Ms Clinton especially, have railed? One wonders whether inequality is as big a moral disaster as politicians would have us believe, or whether it is another arrow in their quiver as they try to convince voters that they are best suited to solve their problems for them. If the latter, the inequality narrative conveniently centralises much power in the hands of these politicians to intervene in an otherwise free economy.

Interestingly, the cause of wealth is never discussed when the evil of inequality is held up as the cause of all our problems. Whether someone made his wealth through trade or through force is deemed irrelevant; all that matters is that someone has more money than someone else.

The unquestioned assumption is always that the person with the wealth only has it because they obtained it through immoral means. That they might have acquired vast wealth legitimately and fairly is rarely considered. It is a pity that some of the supposed fighters against inequality are perpetuating such inequality themselves.

Hank Rearden Johannesburg