Ask a liberal what periods in history they think were the best, as far as income distribution between rich and poor.
(This question alone will disable 90% of liberals, although 10% will rally with either something completely absurd, or they'll simply shrug and say, 'Never'.)
While they flail for an answer, point out that the poorest standards of living are always found where the gap between riches and poorest is the smallest. The best standards of living are where the gap between richest and poorest is the widest.
Wealthy empires of old like Greece, China, or Persia had far more poor people than rich ones, but they also had roads, scientific advancement, commerce and laws. The Mongols may have had less dispersion in wealth than the Romans, but under whose flag would you rather have lived?
This will already exceed the historical knowledge of most liberals, and I generally find most of them tap out at this point and ask to come back to the present.
Once you're back to modern day, you can point out that a third world dictator might have a few billion in the bank and his people live in shacks. That's all well and good, because it's easy to envision. Now let them envision this: America has not one, but a legion of people with tinhorn dictator money, and hordes more with somewhat less. The poor people here are overweight, have cars, iPhones, PS3s and new clothes. As a historical model, you'll never find a place with more wealth, or better off poor people, than America. Historically, we know there's only two things that will happen to our relative wealth levels.
1. Make the rich less rich, and the poor less well off.
2. Make the rich richer, and make the poor better off.
Don’t answer a fool in his folly...
Their beef really isn’t about an income gap, their beef is that the “wrong people” have the wealth.
They, demonstrably, would be fine with an elite few controlling all the wealth, as long as those elite few had the “right” worldview.
“While they flail for an answer, point out that the poorest standards of living are always found where the gap between riches and poorest is the smallest. The best standards of living are where the gap between richest and poorest is the widest.”
Thank you all for responding.
I also think... if they are screaming about this gap - (and you bring up a wonderful point about the USA having the fattest poor people in the world)...
Why do they think that this GAP is a bad thing. If you are advocating for no gap at all didn’t you pretty much just out yourself as a communist looking for this “communal wealth” to be distributed simply because some have more and some have less?