The Pros And Cons Of Inequality

Social inequality can either be considered natural and necessary as inequalities creates incentives for individuals to work harder, or it can be considered systematic, an integral feature of social order that creates winners and losers. The former view would not consider inequality a public matter, therefore does not require governing. The latter however, would consider inequality a public issue that can only be reduced by government implementing policies to so. This essay will compare and contrast Hayek’s view of governing inequality with that of Stiglitz.

During the first portion of this course our goal has been to analyze different theories on social justice in order to come up with our own theory on what social justice means to us. To start off we discussed the writings of J.S Mills. In his writings he described social justice as independance, stating that if human beings individually developed themselves autonomously and find harmony within themselves without conforming to any social structure than there would be harmony amongst everyone. On the other hand B. Barry offers a very contrary idea of social justice. He believes that although liberty plays a large role in social justice not everyone shares the same level of independence due to the fact that after the moment of conception there are some who have advantage over others. So therefore liberty alone cannot create social justice and it is instead the responsibility

Although different societies have varying perceptions of what is an acceptable level of equity, it is generally accepted that inequality has an impact on key social determinants such as health, wellbeing, political trust and violence. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) highlight the social costs of inequality on a whole range of aspects of our lives. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) argue that if inequality were reduced, there would be significant reductions in mental illness, murder rates, imprisonment and an improvement in social mobility (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009).

This is important because inequality causes unrest and brings about interminable turmoil which can eventually lead to a collapse of a regime or a state. If every human being is given equal opportunities then the outcome after those opportunities were presented, whether it was success of failure, fully rests upon the individual’s shoulders. In case of failure, the government or any other individual would not be held accountable.

In today’s capitalist economy, where economic transactions and business in general is centered on self-interest, there is a natural tendency for some people to make more than others. That is the basis for the “American Dream,” where people, if they worked hard, could make money proportional to their effort. However, what happens when this natural occurrence grows disproportional in its allocation of wealth within a society? The resulting issue becomes income inequality. Where a small portion of the population, own the majority of the wealth and the majority of the population own only a fraction of what the rich own. This prominent issue has always been the subject of social tension

The land of freedom, the United States, is the Promised Land for all. Its citizen can be much as prosperous as they want. Nonetheless, a phenomenon has occurred gradually that has changed the economy, social levels, income, and wealth of all Americans. This is called inequality. Inequality has become a social problem since people has not raised their voice take advantage of voting, large corporations as CEOs who take instead of give.

Reconnecting this interpretation of justice to distribution purely means that the virtue of justice, being concerned with the liberty, rights, and fairness of citizen 's in a society, must consider how the economic opportunities and social conditions affect the citizens in that society. While there may be cases of perceived inequality among the citizens of the just society, those inequalities might be acceptable if certain principles of justice insured the fairness of liberty and rights inherent in justice as the first virtue. Further, any inequalities in authority and wealth could be just, only on the condition that they benefit all citizens. In

inequality, in the sense that not all people are equal and they should not be equal.

There needs to be a flexible set of requirements regarding just social welfare and other issues that are linked to the poverty and inequality that most, if not all societies face. We are currently in what seems a globalized economy, where a simple economic action from one place in the world can affect all other countries in one way or another. It is important that we concentrate and deliberate on what is needed for social justice, human rights and equity to work properly in regards to every society’s main concern. Although these three concepts are hard to exercise in a way that no more issues can emerge from them it is possible to adjust them to alleviate the conditions and diminish the damages caused by the lack of

Income inequality is increasingly becoming a significant concern for many countries around the world. The income difference between the highly-educated, skilled, wealthy class and the poor, low to mid-skilled workers is growing larger and larger. In fact, the incomes of the rich are increasing significantly, while the low skilled workers’ incomes have been declining (The Economist, “Wealth Without Workers”). According to The Economist, real median wages have been decreasing since 2000 in half of the member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, there was a 4% increase from 1980 to 2012 in the share of national income that was distributed to the top 0.01% (The Economist, “True Progressivism”). Canada is facing a similar problem of rising inequality.

Stewart Lansley, author of ‘The Cost of Inequality: Why Economic Equality is Essential for Recovery’ speaks very seriously in “The Hourglass Society” article about inequality.

An article in The Nation claims that some inequality of wealth and income is unavoidable and to an extent, it is necessary. In a well-functioning economy, individuals need a reason to work hard. This is where some inequality is necessary to motivate people. However, the article states that at some point, these inequalities can be harmful to our economy and traditional American values.

The concept of equality is multi-faceted and widely debated among scholars. While there is no singular definition for equality, equality deals with the distribution of some “thing” in a specific domain. For this paper, equality will be narrowed down to the domains of economic and political. It is essential to note that distinct types of equality can become conditions for equality in a different domain. In this case, economic equality will be analyzed as a condition for political equality. How is it exactly that economic equality can undermine political equality? By answering this question, this paper will prove that economic equality is a necessary pre-condition for political equality. I will do this by analyzing the political writings of

Contemporary theorists’ debate over ways to increase equality, whilst not taking away freedoms and reducing the efficiency of society

In briefly evaluating the classical and modern explanations of social inequality, it is essential that we step outside the realm of our own lives, class position, and discard any assumptions we might have about the nature of inequality. This process of critical pedagogy allows us to view our world, not from our perspective, but from a wider, more critical analysis of inequality's nature. Also, it should be considered within this wider perspective that all theories of inequality have a class perspective, where the theorist, based on the position their theory takes, is making claims from (or for) a particular class (whether they want to or not). With this in mind, it seems that most of these theories come