A liberal economist argues public debt enriches the rich, not the poor
In a new essay, Jean-Marc Daniel challenges a longstanding assumption on the left: that borrowing by the state redistributes wealth downward.
The economist Jean-Marc Daniel has published an essay titled "La Dette publique. C'est Robin des Bois qu'on assassine !", according to Le Monde. In it, Daniel, identified by the paper as a liberal economist, sets out to overturn a common assumption, particularly on the left, that public debt functions as a tool of redistribution.
According to Le Monde's account of the book, Daniel argues the opposite: rather than taking from the wealthy to benefit the poor, debt in practice channels resources toward those who are already well-off, making it an engine of inequality rather than a corrective to it.
The essay's title plays on the Robin Hood legend, suggesting that the popular image of debt as a redistributive mechanism is, in Daniel's telling, a story getting killed off by the facts.
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