Will discusses a new study showing that market income inequality in America is reasonably close to that in European nations (check out this chart, which he includes). He adds:

While the U.S. pre-tax Gini is still on the high side of the median of these 16 OECD countries, it is remarkable how much differences in tax and transfer policies push the U.S. to the top in inequality in disposable income.

This is surprising to me, too. What’s more surprising, still, is this comment from Tyler Cowen:

This is all well worth knowing, and it does help counter the view that growing inequality of income is a poliical [sic] conspiracy. But oddly both the critics and the defenders here are missing one major inequality-related difference between Germany and the United States, namely social norms. We have weaker families, weaker social pressures to conform, deeper bayous, and as a result more flat out lunatics, losers, and violent psychopaths. (Did I mention we also have more innovation?) That’s inequality too, though the usual political recipes aren’t likely to provide the cure.

I can only imagine that he added all that bizarre stuff about bayous to cover the fact that his first sentence makes absolutely no sense at all. If pre-tax inequality isn’t all that unusual in America, relative to similar nations, but income inequality after taxes and transfers is unusual, doesn’t that suggest that the tax and transfer process might be contributing to inequality in a fairly significant way? And mightn’t that be because American tax policies favor the rich to a degree unmatched in other developed nations? How does this, in any way, debunk the notion that political efforts to protect the rich are in fact protecting the rich?