<HTML> not sure how relevant this is to the discussion (deleted some of the posts) and im sorry to add to the "libertarian" contrarianism, but i am interested in what people have to say...oh, and i apologize in advance if this turns out to be a duplicate.  having problems with my mail. HOW REDISTRIBUTION OPERATES Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia It has been often noticed, both by proponents of laissez-faire capitalism and by radicals, that the poor in the United States are not net benficiaries of the total government programs and interventions in the economy.  Much of government regulation of industry was originated and is geared to protect the position of established firms against competition, and many programs greatly benefit the middle class.  The critics (from the right or the left) of these government programs have offered no explanation, to my knowledge, why the middle class is the greatest net beneficiary. There is another puzzle of redistributive:  why dont the least well-off 51 percent fo the voters vote for redistributive policies that would greatly improve their position at the expense of the best-off 49 percent?  That this would work against their long-run interests is true, but this does not ring true as the explanation of their refraining.  Nor is an adequate explanation provided by referring to the lack of organization, political savvy, and so forth, in the bottom majority.  So why hasnt such massive redistribution been voted?  The fact will seem puzzling until one notices that the bottom 51 percent is not the only possible (continuous) voting majority; there is also, for example, the top 51 percent.  Which of these two majorities will form depends on how the middle 2 percent votes.  It will in the interests of the top 49 percent to support and devise programs to gain the middle 2 percent as allies.  It is cheaper for the top 49 percent to buy the support of the middle 2 percent than to be (partially) expropriated by the bottom 51 percent.  The bottom 49 percent cannot offer more than the top 49 percent can to the middle 2 percent in order to gain them as allies.  For what the bottom 49 percent offers the middle 2 percent will come (after the policies are instituted) from the top 49 percent; and in addition the bottom 49 percent also will take something for themselves from the top 49 percent.  The top 49 percent always can save by offering the middle 2 percent slightly more than the bottom group would, for that way they avoid also having to pay the remainder of the possible coalition of the bottom 51 percent, namely the bottom 49 percent.  The top group will be able always to buy the support of the swing middle 2 percent to combat measures which would more seriously violate its rights. Of course, speaking of the middle 2 percent is much too precise; people do not know precisely in what percentile they fall, and policies are not easily geared to target upon 2 percent somewhere in the middle.  One therefore would expect that a middle group considerably larger than 2 percent will be a benficiary of a voting coalition from the top.* A voting coalition from the bottom wont form because it will be less expensive to the top group to buy off the swing middle group than to let it form.  In answering one puzzle, we find a possible explanation of the other often noticed fact:  that redistributive programs mainly benefit the middle class.  If correct, this explanation implies that a society whose policies result from democratic elections will not find it easy to avoid having its redistributive programs most benefit the middle class.+ ____________________ * If others count on the bottom economic group to vote proportionally less, this will have to change where the middle swing group of voters is located.   It therefore would be in the interests of those just below the currently benefiting group to support efforts to bring out the vote in the lowest group, in order to enter the crucial swing group themselves. + We can press the details of our argument further.  Why wont a coalition form of the middle 51 percent (the top 75 1/2 percent minus the top 24 1/2 percent)?  The resources to pay off this whole group will come from the top   24 1/2 percent, who will be worse off if they allow this middle coalition to form, than if they buy off the next 26 1/2 percent to form a coalition of the top 51 percent.  The story differs for those in the top 2 percent but not in the top 1 percent.  They will not try to enter a coalition with the next 50 percent, but will work with the top 1 percent to stop a coalition from forming that excludes both of them.  When we combine a statement about the distribution of income and wealth with a theory of coalition formation, we should be able to derive a precise prediction about the resulting income redistribution under a system of majority rule.  The prediction is broadened when we add the complication that people dont know their precise percentile and that the feasible redistributive instruments are crude.  How closely will this modified prediction fot the actual facts? </HTML>