"Brooks' argument boils down to the idea that if you are rich, it is probably because you earned the money by working harder and being smarter than most other people, and that this kind of merit doesn't deserve higher taxes; that in fact we should reward merit. He goes on to say the kind of redistribution us lefties support 'for the sake of fairness, it weakens free enterprise, lowers opportunity and impoverishes us in many ways.'

"It is an interesting, if very familiar (conservatives in America have been making it for about 230 years), argument, and it is important to discuss because it goes to the heart of what conservatives in this country believe. Brooks does a good job of including some nuance in his argument, acknowledging for example that luck might have something to do with becoming wealthy, and that government had some modest role to play in a modern society, but essentially, he is very open about what conservatives believe: if you are wealthy, it is almost always because you deserve to be; if you are poor or working class, that is probably what you deserve as well."