Distribution of wealth is the basic political question

The trouble is -- IMHO -- we still have the plantation owner mentality holding sway among powerful elements ... that of driving the cost of labor down to keeping a mule ... food, water, harness, stall, and medical care for breeding stock.

The basic political question in a system of democratically elected representative government is the fair distribution of the wealth created by labor -- human physical and mental effort. And fair distribution is NOT equal distribution, certainly not the absurd "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." There is no progress without a reward for labor, however when the reward accumulates to the slave-owner ... and the nation becomes a banana republic with gated communities ...

The distribution of wealth created by labor is a political issue because markets do not always distribute earnings and costs fairly at the time of the transaction due to at least one simple fact: while the transaction "price" is known, the "cost" is not. The externalities of
smoking, of mountain top mining, of ghettoizing a city (the "cost" of the loss of labor) ... the list goes on and on.

Also, a huge factor in monopolistic capitalism augmented by financial instruments of debt -- further clouding the current transaction – is that markets stumble in determining the cost of a stable environment for the acquisition of wealth. Do we really want to lose our middle class and devolve into the current madness of Mexico? And if this is caused by the transfer of future wealth (through these financial instruments of debt) to the current market ... further distorting current prices because the future costs of servicing that much debt are beyond the ability of the current market to determine ... and it keeps getting out of whack ... bubbles anyone?

And the absurdity of mathematical models to "impose" constraints on chaos, the zillions of individual transactions – without understanding the limits of the models -- is like pouring sand through a funnel on the beach below the tide line ... then saying it is an
Invisible Hand that shapes the cone of falling sand ... and the tide is no longer a factor in building sand castles.

But even more basic, we do not have a political party that represents the interests of labor in our nation ... and the unions don't either. The results are obvious ... and so is our future course until we get a labor party to represent us in determining the fair distribution of the wealth we create.

Note: First written as a comment in response to a Paul Krugman column on the New York Times OpEd page.