How Inequality Undermines Institutions

This paper, a comment on an essay by Satz and White that appeared in the IFS Deaton Review (Sept. 2021), argues that redistribution of wealth for the purpose of advancing equality (rather than improving the worst off) can be provided an institutional defense against the "leveling down" charge that a commitment to equality implies that it is appropriate to reduce the wealth of the rich even when it cannot be transferred to the poor. The argument is that major institutions of society--the market and agency regulation--assume a degree of economic equality, and tend to be undermined when extreme inequality prevails