“Things are a lot different now, so that’s why I can’t be more than tentatively in favor of this, but we already know that what we have been trying to do since the 1960s has not worked in the way that Lyndon Johnson said it would. It has been about as successful as the Vietnam war. I agree, as I said, that he is talking about things that really matter. I would not agree so readily agree that he is talking about inequality. This sounds to me like poverty, not inequality. I don’t care if more people can afford yachts today. Actually, if this is true, I’m glad. I went shopping yesterday and priced some designer tiles. I discovered that I could not afford them. But just walking around my middle class neighborhood, I see that many of my neighbors evidently can afford them. And I’m glad. Life in a wealthy society is a cornucopia of positive externalities. I realize that a lot of middle class people do not feel the way I do, but most middle class people who started out poor do feel as I do. You kinda have to be born privileged in order to resent those who were born more privileged. Or so I infer from my limited experience”. –David Schmidtz, Professor of Philosophy and Economics at the University of Arizon, over a discussion When Inequality Matters at Cato Unbound