Governments should value economic equality before prosperity

My contentions are:1. Reducing poverty brings happiness, but economic equality can be achieved by poverty. I presented data showing that once basic needs are met, added wealth produced little or no increased happiness. Therefore the goal of government should be to raise people out of poverty, not to try to make them equal. For example, data I cited shows poverty rates lowest when inequality measured by the Gini Coefficient was greatest. The Depression brought equality and poverty. Post-war prosperity bought inequality and much less poverty. The fundamental premise of striving for economic equality is wrong. Prosperity vanquishes poverty, not striving for economic equality. I gave a full explanation of why economies are not zero-sum games. If they were, standards of living could not improve, and manifestly they do. 2. Free markets create prosperity. We have numerous examples that cannot be explained otherwise. The deciding factor is not overall authoritarianism or democracy, it is free markets. South Korea and Taiwan had authoritarian governments for many years, but produced prosperity that brought many people out of poverty. The lack of free markets in North Korea and China kept people in poverty, even though those regimes valued economic equality. Similarly, democratic socialism kept people in India in poverty despite despite democracy. India valued economic equality, and got poverty. Only by seeking prosperity and not economic equality were people raised out of poverty. Pro sought examples of valuing economic equality in which prosperity resulted, but could find none. Luxembourg was not made prosperous by redistributing wealth, but rather by economic advantages in banking and industry. The Netherlands brought itself out of near bankruptcy to economic prosperity by strong free market policies that stressed lower minimum wages. Now redistribution policies are running down prosperity. I cited Sweden as another example of redistribution destroying prosperity. I cited the Congressional Research Office finding nearly a hundred studies internationally over fifty years in which minimum wage increase brought unemployment rather than economic equality. Pro says that he grants that minimum wage laws have negative short term effects, but he takes it as an act of faith that the long term is positive. He provides no evidence. I listed what happens when there are high minimum wages: uneconomic businesses shut down, labor is replaced by automation, and low-skill workers are replaced by higher-skilled ore productive labor. Pro gave no reason why any of those should be temporary. A prosperous economy can afford to better take care of the poor, and that's a consequence of seeking prosperity and not a consequence of seeking economic equality. In a prosperous economy there are relatively few poor people, in the U. S. around 14%, so it's possible to take care of them. In societies that value economic equality such as Maoist China or socialist India, there are too many poor people to be cared for. There is no reason to believe that Maoist China or socialist India, or for that matter, communist North Korea, did not value economic equality. Doing so brings poverty. Pro says that the Netherlands is now prospering under it's renewed interest in redistributing wealth, but his source says ". .. in Q3 and Q4 2011, the Dutch economy contracted 0.4 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively due to European Debt Crisis, while in Q4 the Eurozone economy shrunk by 0.3 percent. " Shrinking is not prospering. The corresponding growth rates in China, where they have diminished interest in redistributing wealth, were for the same periods +2.4 percent and +2.3 percent. . http://www.tradingeconomics.com...Pro tries to portray Singapore as place where poverty has increased despite increases in wealth. when Singapore became independent the per capita GDP was $400. In four decades wealth grew to $26,500 per capita GDP, among the highest in the world. Pro claims that poverty increased "massively" as the per capita GDP rose. There are no statistics on how wealth is distributed, but it's not remotely plausible that there were fewer poor people when the per capita GDP was $400 and there was more economic equality. Singapore now has extensive social programs and low cost medical care, things that poor countries cannot afford. The report that Pro cites says that inequality may produce unrest, but if so that's a product of envy, not increased poverty. Pro's source on Hong Kong does not say that they have prospered by redistributing wealth. It says that free market principles are being eroded, but "Hong Kong remains, by and large, a vibrant, entrepreneurial place, with government spending far below Western standards. The costs of rising intervention will take a while to appear—" Hong Kong seems to be succumbing to the pattern observed in Sweden and The Netherlands. Prosperity leads to less interest in creating wealth and more interest in redistributing it, with the ultimate collapse of the economy the end result. I do not understand what Pro is trying to get at by citing the fact that it took 5 years for the soviet economy to collapse. The Soviets valued economic equality and never had a particularly good economy. The example of Henry Ford is even harder to parse. Ford's manufacturing techniques are an enduring success. ford attracted workers by paying considerably more than alternative jobs. I don't see the relation to Pro's case. Is the point that prosperity does not endure, but equality achieved through poverty stands the test of time? If so, it's not true. the world is in better shape now than at any time in history. Pro asserts that free markets are proved not to work, but his arguments are obscure and bizarre. It is impossible to spin any of the numerous worker's paradises as doing as well as their more free counterparts. 3. Valuing economic equality does not lead to economic equality. Valuing economic equality leads to a ruling elite necessary to control the distribution of wealth. In a free economy in which economic equality is not valued, there is a spectrum of wealth including a fraction of very rich people. Having a ruling elite is a necessary consequence of valuing the redistribution on wealth over a free economy. A government that redistributes wealth must be strong enough to take wealth from some people and give it to others, and that implies a powerful elite to accomplish that function. Pro claims that no ruling elite is required for equal access to courts, a progressive income tax, or a high minimum age. Equal access to courts is as desirable in free markets as in ones that redistribute wealth, but there are substantial costs in maintaining a legal system. A progressive income tax requires a huge bureaucracy. the American Internal revenue Service has 106,000 employees. It costs taxpayers about $500 billion to prepare the tax returns through which they pay about $2200 billion in taxes. A minimum wage law must be policed, and a government apparatus is set up to continually check, some say harass, employers. Pro overlooks what I have been saying through the debate: the decisions of who to take money from and who to give it to are many and complex. In every real case a ruling elite emerges. Investment requires accumulation of capital so there is the money to invest, and it requires a willingness to take risks in return for potential rewards. Government valuing economic equality means that government works to prevent accumulation of wealth by redistributing it. And if a risky investment pays off, government promises to redistribute that new wealth as well. But let suppose that forcing economic equality leads to prosperity. If so, that is valuing prosperity above economic equality, because equality in prosperity is preferred over equality in poverty. The resolution is negated.