Economists pay attention to the idea of obtaining economic efficiency. What they fail to tell us, is that the peak of economic efficiency is obtained with an egalitarian distribution of wealth and income. Economists support the concept of Vilfredo Pareto, who postulated an economic optimum state where nobody gains an advance in wealth at the expense of any other person. Applying this to economic policies can result in the promotion of policies that lock the poorest people in their impoverished state because the well off would suffer some small disadvantage in the process of improving the lot of the poorest. Some economists promote policies that produce advances for the well off but do not benefit the poor, satisfying the Pareto optimum. This is not a completely optimum position, but not many economists point this out.

From a Pareto position, taking wealth from the rich and transferring it to the poor will increase the total human welfare because since the marginal utility of the rich person's wealth is low and the marginal utility of wealth for the poor is high, the change in total utility is positive. The transferring of wealth from a the very rich to the very poor increases the total wealth benefits. Therefore, the most optimum position is where everyone is on the same level and has the same utility benefit from wealth. J K Galbraith puts it like this: "It is one of the least advertised, and for the very affluent the least attractive of economic truths that a reasonably equitable distribution of income throughout society is highly functional." John Stuart Mill said: "It is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is an important object, what is needed is a better distribution."

This can be shown mathematically. See Appendix 1.

It is economically inefficient for the wealthy to use scarce resources to build great mansions and palaces while there are people whose housing is inadequate because of economic circumstance. It is not economically efficient for people to be building or buying second homes when there are people with inadequate housing. It is economically inefficient for the wealthy to capture for their own private benefit anything that can be shared without detriment to the resource.

It is economically efficient for all young people to be provided with the same adequate education. It is economically efficient for all people to have the same level of medical care.

It is not economically efficient for rich people to overeat themselves into bad health which will require expensive correction while poor people suffer from malnutrition.

Any economic policy that reduces the wide spread of wealth and income is benefiting the economy by moving it towards the most economically efficient position with all people at the same economic level. Anything that brings the top payments made to CEO's closer to the minimum payable to a worker is a movement towards economic efficiency.

The provision of public facilities that benefits a significant proportion of people, is economically efficient as it does not detract from an egalitarian position. To have many people with a negative disposable income is not only economically inefficient, it is bad for commerce.

No doubt many people will be able to show that inequalities are bad socially, spiritually, legally, politically, etc. but this is additional to the fact that egalitarianism is economically efficient.

"No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy." Herbert Spencer.