[quote=@The Nexerus]
There is a mathematical difference between something possessing no value whatsoever and something possessing a value that is merely very small. The value of a commodity is determined by supply and demand. There is next to no demand for a single blade of glass and quite a substantial supply, so naturally the value of a single blade of grass is something so tiny that it isn't worth fretting over. Inflation has caused this "next-to-worthless" value to be higher than ever. Nickels and pennies are so worthless that people don't even pick them up off the street when they see them. Similarly to the blade of grass, however, they still have value. Their value is just so small that it isn't worth taking. BUT, still not valueless, and this can be displayed when we increase scale. If you had millions of pennies instead of one, you'd have something with some appreciable value to it. Same as if you had millions of blades of grass. Maybe you could sell it as animal feed or kindling; again, very close to worthless is not the same as worthless. Nothing is free.
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Which is to say the value of the object becomes nothing when it ceases being worth the labor necessary to produce/collect it. Even if you buy shit-loads of grass, you aren't paying the value of grass, you are paying for the labor, which itself typically isn't free. But like I said before, I'm not making a point here, I just wasn't committing to an absolute in the sentence that started this entire divergence because I always imagine that any absolute I commit to will be pointed out. I was just making sure nobody said "But dirt is free lol." 

[quote=@The Nexerus]
What we're arguing over here is how to define our terms. I don't consider any and all government intervention in the economy to be economic policy. My reasoning for that is that everything ever done by any government ever had some barring on the economy, so if we define 'economic policy' in such a broad way it ceases to have any significant meaning. Redistribution is not economic policy to me, then, but social policy. The primary intention of redistribution is not economic stimulus, but reverting a (real or imagined) wrongdoing against society.
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Redistribution is only social if that is its only point. Assuming that the entire purpose of any of this is to improve the net happiness and welfare of the general population, it becomes difficult to completely detach social policy from economic policy, but I'm going to assume by 'Social policy' you mean a policy that doesn't take economics into mind. 

[quote=@The Nexerus]
Wealth inequality in the United States isn't caused by capitalism. Joe the Plumber has nothing to do with that wealth pyramid. Capitalism does not result in absolute equality of outcome, obviously, and I would argue that equality of outcome isn't even really something society should strive for, but that's besides the point. The main cause of wealth inequality in the U.S. is in fact something made possible only because of the state: fractional-reserve banking. The state allows private financial institutions to invent billions upon billions of new dollars every year, which are both fraudulently added to their own pockets and also tack onto inflation, making everyone poorer. Their reasoning for this is that it allows banks to loan multiple times more than they otherwise could, making credit incredibly cheap (and thereby throwing millions of Americans into greater and greater debt). The credit didn't cost anything to create, though, so the people who created it become obscenely wealthy. The deadliest harm inherent with this practice, though, is that over time the economy becomes so dependent on the cheap credit banks can offer that the state feels the need to bail them out at every economic downturn, when the market would otherwise purge them. If the U.S. wants to lower inequality, government should get the hell out of the U.S. economy. You could also try to solve the problem by taking some of this fraudulently (but legally) gained wealth directly from the people obtaining it, through taxes, but that's essentially putting a band-aid on a tumour.
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Okay, I agree with the essence of this. I would love to see corporate welfare go away. I don't know if I've ever met a person who supported the entire 'too big to fail' concept anyway. That being said, I am no convinced that this will stabilize conditions on the ground. If the end result of a [u]total[/u] government/wealth divide (if such a thing is even feasible) is the violently cyclical economic system we used to see in the 19th and early 20th century... I don't want to spend any of my life living in a Hooverville. I'd take a recession that means some time on unemployment over a depression that means some time on the streets any day.