How The Government Can Improve The Distribution Of Income?

It is very difficult for a government to distribute income equally. Under laissez faire, people end up rich or poor depending on their inherited wealth, on their talents and efforts, on their luck in finding oil or owing land in the right place, and on their gender or the colour of their skin. To some people, the distributions of income arising from unregulated competition looks as arbitrary as the Darwinian distribution of food and plunder among animals in the jungle.
In the poorest societies, there is little excess income to take from the better off from and provide to the unfortunate. But as societies become more affluent, they can devote more resources to providing services for poor people, this activity income redistribution is the second major economic function of government.
Income redistribution is usually accomplished through taxation and spending policies, though regulations sometimes play a role as well. Most advanced countries now rule that children shall not go hungry because of the economic circumstances of their parents, that the poor shall not die because of insufficient money for needed medical care, that the young shall receive free public education, and that the old shall be able to live out their years with a minimum level of income.

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