Are Calls for Income Redistribution Based on Envy or Justice?

New column:

Are Calls for Income Redistribution Based on Envy or Justice?: The redistribution of income and wealth has come to the forefront of discussions about economics and capitalist systems thanks to Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Is rising inequality an inevitable feature of capitalist systems, or is it the result of the particular institutions that shape how capitalism expresses itself? What, if anything, should be done to reverse the trend toward rising inequality?

The answer depends upon whether the calls for redistribution are based upon envy as the political right often asserts, or the desire for the justice...