>Let’s say a nation is concerned about poverty. So it passes a law that says the rich will have some of their money redistributed to the poor. But instead of a progressive income tax used to fund cash payments to the unfortunate, the government decides that wealthy people who happened to be born in the spring will give their money to poor people whose birthdays are in the summer. Moreover, this redistribution won’t go to anyone who is too poor. You have to already have a job to qualify, and a certain kind of job at that. In fact, you are going to make the poorest of the poor worse off through the policy. Finally, instead of cash payments that they can spend on whatever they actually need, the recipients of aid get gift cards to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
>I think, regardless of how they feel about the redistribution of wealth, most people would find this to be a pretty stupid policy for reasons that are self-evident. Yet this is similar to how laws protecting organized labor function, which in effect involve the “right” of workers in an industry to form a cartel that prevents other people from being hired by an employer...
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-labor-unions-are-evil
I wonder if the highly unionized Swedish economy is part of why Sweden has trouble assimilating immigrants. Native Swedes enforcing a cartel to prevent new arrivals from competing in low-wage occupations.