As the Venezuela collapse demonstrates, free-market nations almost always have higher growth and per capita incomes. But often they also have higher inequality than poor socialist countries. That’s because in the socialist nations, everyone (except the political leaders – think Maduro) is equally poor and miserable.

The left in America and Europe believe that making a country poorer through redistribution policies like high tax rates will make the poor happier. This is a “misery loves company” model of economic governance.

But it turns out that isn’t true. A new peer-reviewed study in Nature carries this headline:

The authors analyzed 168 studies from around the world. Their conclusion, as Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, puts it, is that linking inequality and unhappiness “has been bad science all along.”

The study concludes: “Contrary to popular narratives… individuals in more unequal areas do not report lower subjective well-being.”

Soak-the-rich may reduce inequality by reducing wealth, but they don’t make the poor any better off.