Here is an excellent piece by Steve Conover, refuting the leftist canard that economic freedom means that a little bit of wealth will “trickle down” from the rich to the rest of society. To believers in government control of economic activity, that’s a poor alternative to their notion that the right sorts of policies will lead to great prosperity for the poor and the middle class without enriching those who are already wealthy. In truth, there are no such policies because production and innovation, the sources of increasing wealth for everyone, are never improved by the coercive “tools” of economic policy the state has at its disposal — mandates, prohibitions, taxes, and redistribution. Instead of catalyzing prosperity, they inhibit it.