Americans Vastly Underestimate Wealth Inequality, Support 'More Equal Distribution Of Wealth': Study

History’s message about capitalism is clear. The success of capitalism, the mechanism of job creation, innovation, and standard of living with in society, is measured by the tails of the distribution from the mean. In other words, the better capitalism works, the greater the spread between rich and poor. Anything that impedes the flow of capital, the lifeblood of capitalism, tends to lower the standard of living for all. Any reductions in the standard of living tend to affect the middle and lower classes more severely.

The call to redistribution wealth under socialism only works as long as there is wealth (not money printing) to redistribute. If capital flows have been altered, the locus of wealth creation will change. Once the wealth has been consumed within a society, little remains to redistribute.

The respondents were presented with unlabeled pie charts representing the wealth distributions of the U.S., where the richest 20 percent controlled about 84 percent of wealth, and Sweden, where the top 20 percent only controlled 36 percent of wealth. Without knowing which country they were picking, 92 percent of respondents said they'd rather live in a country with Sweden's wealth distribution.

Source: huffingtonpost.com