Daniel Larison:

[…] the idea that the message of Spread The Wealth would be a political loser at the present time is bizarre, which makes McCain’s insistence on identifying Obama as the “spread the wealth” candidate even more bizarre. I mean, does McCain want to get crushed in a landslide? Let’s think about this. There is an economic downturn coming on the heels of an era of wage stagnation and growing economic inequality, the financial sector has imploded thanks to the combined blunders of government and holders of concentrated wealth and Obama’s use of a phrase that on its own could easily be mistaken for an expression of neo-Harringtonian distributism is supposed to be politically radioactive? Consolidation of power, concentration of wealth and centralism all stand condemned for having created the present fiasco, and there is supposed to be a political downside to talking about distributing wealth?

The concentration of wealth and power, my libertarian friends will tell me, is not the result of the workings of the free market, but of a rigged system of state privilege, byzantine regulations, and crony capitalism. But even if that’s right, then Obama’s modest “redistributionism” only makes more sense. If we’re going to have political control of the economy anyway (nationalizing the banks, anyone?), then shouldn’t it be aimed at spreading the benefits around as widely as possible?