Income Distribution Commons^™

The Critical Difference Between Republicans/Conservatives And Democrats/Liberals, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

There are, of course, a great many specific differences between the political positions of the two dominant political parties in America. After an introductory section characterizing those, section two suggests that the demarcation of critical importance between the parties relates to how they view the income distribution. Those self-identifying as Republican/Conservative tend to view the income distribution as an artifact of a host of individual work/leisure decisions with little policy relevance; those characterizing themselves as Democrat/Liberal tend to view the income distribution as a pure public good—in this view, private sector outcomes are expected to provide a non-optimally small amount …