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Justice for Millionaires?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2021

James Christensen Open the ORCID record for James Christensen [Opens in a new window] ,
Tom Parr Open the ORCID record for Tom Parr [Opens in a new window]  and
David V. Axelsen Open the ORCID record for David V. Axelsen [Opens in a new window]
James Christensen
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
Tom Parr*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
David V. Axelsen
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: t.parr@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

In recent years, much public attention has been devoted to the existence of pay discrepancies between men and women at the upper end of the income scale. For example, there has been considerable discussion of the ‘Hollywood gender pay gap’. We can refer to such discrepancies as cases of millionaire inequality. These cases generate conflicting intuitions. On the one hand, the unequal remuneration involved looks like a troubling case of gender injustice. On the other, it’s natural to feel uneasy when confronted with the suggestion that multi-millionaires are somehow being paid inadequately. In this paper, we consider two arguments for rectifying millionaire inequality, clarifying their appeal but also identifying the obstacles that each will have to surmount in order to succeed.

Keywords

distributive justicefairnessdiscriminationgender justiceextreme wealth
Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , November 2022 , pp. 333 - 353
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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