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If you ever follow up on this topic, I'd be curious if you could address inequality vs. absolute poverty. Clearly the standard of living of poor Canadians is today is well above the standard of living of e.g. a middle class person two centuries ago.
Presumably no one would advocate for a solution where e.g. a tyrant takes action to lower…
If you ever follow up on this topic, I'd be curious if you could address inequality vs. absolute poverty. Clearly the standard of living of poor Canadians is today is well above the standard of living of e.g. a middle class person two centuries ago.
Presumably no one would advocate for a solution where e.g. a tyrant takes action to lower everyone's standard of living to that of the poorest member of society. I'd be curious if someone could address why inequality matters more than people having their material needs met, and if there's a "tipping point" where the normally tolerated inequality becomes intolerable.
There's basically a Goldilocks zone of "just the right amount of inequality" that we need to stay within.
Too little inequality is stifling - the cream can't rise to the top, so to speak.
Too much inequality is destabilizing - the "have-nots" will only tolerate falling so far behind the "haves" before they start warming up to the prospect of redistribution by force.
The article provides you with some answers to your question.
Two quotes from the article:
"When you play this out into the future, we’re looking at families with huge amounts of wealth that they use to influence political systems, acquire media, shape the culture, lobby for law changes or, more often, particularly in the U.S., block meaningful change. So, it threatens democracy."
"In some ways it’s a stuck conversation because people line up politically. … Some people see it as a threat to free-market capitalism. And this is one way I’ve tried to bring my own upbringing in. I say, “Look, this system is bad for everybody, including the wealthy.” It undermines the stability in our societies, it fuels polarization. It doesn’t help healthy capitalism to have great monopolies of power and wealth that distort the functioning of an economy. It doesn’t help commerce, small businesses. … These inequalities really undermine everything we care about. It’s keeping us from responding in a nimble and appropriate way to the threats around us, whether it’s a pandemic or global climate disruption. Inequality is bad for democracy, bad for the economy, bad for civic life, and bad for your health."
Thanks for this. Yeah, it intuitively makes sense that inequality in our own society leads to issues. I was curious more broadly about how you define inequality in a universal and rigorous way that's not just rooted in envy. Clearly, for example, we care relatively little about the inequality between Canada and e.g. Cameroon, even though that's a much more severe inequality than the inequality within Canada. So I was curious if there's any scholars that have looked at this from a more philosophical standpoint rather than focusing on a particular society.
Yeah but taxing billionaires is wrong because they deserve it. And it's a slippery slope. First you tax billionaires, and then everyone is in poverty because you're a communist!
You say this sarcastically as though there weren't many societies in living memory that destroyed their productive capacity and oppressed their own people in the ostensible pursuit of equality.
I don't think it's a trivial philosophy question. If inequality is in itself undesirable the fastest way to eliminate it would be to bring people whose standards of living are above the median to the median. Most people would probably be okay with that only to a point.
Globally, a net worth of about $90,000 is enough for a household to be wealthier than 90 percent of all other households. But we never talk about how a family in Timmins isn't paying their fair share because they're richer than almost everyone else on the planet.
I'm not trying to apologize for the rich, just saying the answer is more complicated than "make everyone pay their fair share." Who is everyone, and what is fair?
I think politicians will talk about fair. The rest of us just want to see fair-er. These blogs are popping up because so many educated people can sense that our systems are out of whack with basic economic principles. The wealthiest keep amassing money while countries are stuck in austerity mode. We can't be afraid of pursuing fair-er simply because there might possibly be negative repercussions for the rich down the road. These systems are in constant flux and from time-to-time need intervention. The Rococo ended with the French Revolution; the Gilded Age ended with mass unionization and labour laws. There are lots of examples in history where interventions (both peaceful and violent) have corrected similar imbalances. I think most of us want a peaceful solution while we still have the choice.
"I'm just asking the question!"
First you have to tax billionaires at a fair tax rate. Buffett on average pays $15M a year in taxes. As he says, my accountants follow all the tax laws. The issue is the tax laws are written to benefit the rich. Suggest you read up on the SALT (State and Local tax) tax deduction that the Democrats built into the BBB bill. It would have generated $268M in new tax deductions for the rich. The GOP under Trump reduced the SALT from no limit to $80K per year max. The Democrats BBB bill raised the deduction to $450K. This is the type of political changes the rich pay lobbyists and politicians for and this is what needs to be addressed.
LMAO