Wealth inequality is a prevalent social issue. The present study focuses on acceptance of wealth inequality, and considers personal income, perceived upward mobility, and future time perspective as its antecedents, and collective action intention as its outcome. With reference to the social identity literature and socioemotional selectivity theory, we posit a conditional indirect effect of income on collective action intention through acceptance of wealth inequality: only when mobility and future time perspective are relatively high, (...) higher income is associated with higher acceptance of wealth inequality and in turn, lower collective action intention. Moderated mediation findings, based on territory–wide phone survey data from 866 Hong Kong adults, supported this prediction. This work indicates the relevance of an individual-level instrumental perspective to the understanding of acceptance of wealth inequality as well as collective action intention. (shrink)

(Purpose) The purpose of the study is to present Thomas Piketty’s demand view on the issue of growing income and wealth inequalities in highly industrialized countries. It should be indicated here that in his research, Piketty not only explains the mechanism of growing inequalities, but also defines the tools to tackle inequalities (a combination of theoretical and pragmatic views). (Methodology) The aim of the study is achieved through the literature review method as well as the descriptive methods, complemented by (...) comparative analysis. (Results) Piketty’s considerations clearly show that the problem of income and wealth inequalities will not disappear spontaneously, so market automatism will not only not eliminate their causes, but also will not create conditions for a fair distribution of production outcomes between capital and labor. Therefore, reducing the level of inequality requires a return to the concept of the welfare state. (Contribution to the discipline) The conducted analysis may become part of a larger research project showing the relationship between the level of economic development and its impact on the scale of income and wealth inequalities. (shrink)

If an array of goods is for sale on a market, one’s wealth, the tradeable resources one owns, determines what one can purchase from this array. One’s income is the increment in wealth one acquires over a given period of time. In any society, we observe some people having more wealth and income, some less. At any given time, in some societies average wealth is greater than in others. Across time, we can observe societies becoming richer (...) or poorer and showing more or less equal distributions of wealth among their members. Does it matter from an ethical standpoint whether some people have more income and wealth than others? Does securing a more equal distribution of income and wealth either constitute the achievement of something that is intrinsically morally desirable or serve as a reliable means to the achievement of some intrinsic moral value? If we suppose that justice demands equalizing the income of wealth of persons in many circumstances, what principles of justice generate this demand? (shrink)

In The Code of Capital, Katharina Pistor seeks to trace out the ultimate sources of wealth and capital. Her central claim—that wealth and capital are ultimately created by law—is at once more commonsensical and intuitive, on the one hand, and more insightful and provocative, on the other hand, than it might initially seem. At a time when there is deep and widespread interest in and concern about wealth inequality, Pistor argues (successfully, I think) that much (...) class='Hi'>inequality can be traced back to oft-ignored legal fixtures. She also argues (unsuccessfully, I think) that we can trace inequality back to law precisely because law is itself partly constitutive of wealth and capital. Fortunately, her more fruitful claims about how law affects the distribution of wealth and capital can be divorced from the less fruitful metaphysical claims about the nature of law and capital and lay the foundation for much future work of interest. (shrink)

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty argues that markets, absent political intervention, tend toward economic divergence and that this has deleterious consequences for democratic ideals of equal voice and meritocracy. His goal is to foster a public conversation about what a society dominated by wealth—which we already beginning to experience as the twenty-first century begins—would look like if we wish to maintain an egalitarian ethos. His work will contribute to and further motivate several discussions in feminist bioethics, (...) namely, on the funding and organization of care labor, reproductive rights, global health, and commodification. (shrink)

I perform an economic and ethical analysis on wealth and income inequality. Economists have performed many statistical studies that reveal a number of, often contradictory, findings in connection with the distribution of wealth and income. Hence, the statistical findings leave us with no better knowledge of the effects that inequality has on economic progress. At the same time, the existing theoretical results have not provided us with a definitive answer concerning the effects of inequality on (...) progress. By gaining knowledge of the nature of inequality, and bringing basic economic principles to bear on the subject, we can come to an understanding of what the causal relationship is between inequality and economic progress. Furthermore, I apply a new theory of ethics – rational egoism – to assess economic inequality. I show that, in the right context, economic inequality is both economically and morally desirable. (shrink)

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty argues that markets, absent political intervention, tend toward economic divergence and that this has deleterious consequences for democratic ideals of equal voice and meritocracy. His goal is to foster a public conversation about what a society dominated by wealth—which we already beginning to experience as the twenty-first century begins—would look like if we wish to maintain an egalitarian ethos. His work will contribute to and further motivate several discussions in feminist bioethics, (...) namely, on the funding and organization of care labor, reproductive rights, global health, and commodification. (shrink)

This article surveys the distribution of wealth and its relationship to economic inequality more broadly. It shows that wealth inequality is high and contributes significantly to inequality in income and consumption, although higher wealth inequality is not always an indicator of greater inequality in well-being. In particular, welfare state policies can improve the well-being of low income groups while at the same time reducing their incentive to save. This may lead to high (...) observed wealth inequality in places where it would otherwise not be expected, such as some of the Scandinavian countries. More research is needed to better illuminate such connections between public policy and wealth inequality. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to provide a novel account of the Democratic Argument for limitarianism. I first claim that the standard version of this argument is questionable due to its reliance on a problematic central premise, namely that excessive wealth damages democracy because of its detrimental impact on political equality. Subsequently, I relocate the fundamental democratic worry in regard to excessive wealth in the process of backsliding, and more specifically in the relation between excessive wealth and (...) political polarization. I then offer a new account of the Democratic Argument for limitarianism which envisages wealth capping as instrumental for democratic resilience, but I maintain that the argument is not unambiguously successful. (shrink)

It is recognised that the gap between rich and poor in Britain is widening faster than in any comparable country. This important issue is attracting increasing attention after long neglect. Economists and others concerned with problems linked with inequality are investigating factors contributing to the situation. Based on results of the first recent major research programme in this area, this book, first published in 1996, examines wealth distribution in the United Kingdom over the last two decades. Leading specialists (...) in the area tackle the problem from a wide variety of perspectives. Contributions include: the analysis of income distribution; the effects of greater female participation in the labour force; social security reform; and geographical variation at the national and local scale. Understanding the complexity of these factors is crucial to designing policies which can begin to cope with income inequalities. (shrink)

In this book, Kate Ward addresses the issue of inequality from the perspective of Christian virtue ethics. Her unique contribution is to argue that moral luck, our individual life circumstances, affects one's ability to pursue virtue. She argues that economic status functions as moral luck and impedes the ability of both the wealthy and the impoverished to pursue virtues such as prudence, justice, and temperance. The book presents social science evidence that inequality reduces empathy for others' suffering, and (...) increases violence, fear, and the desire to punish others. For the wealthy, inequality creates "hyperagency" - abundant freedom, power, and choice beyond that enjoyed by other members of society. For the poor, scarcity of time, money, and other important goods can also impair their ability to pursue virtue. Having established the theological harm caused by inequality, Ward then makes the argument that both individual Christians and Christian communities have obligations to address the impact of inequality. As individuals, Christians should pursue what Ward calls encounter, conversion, and contentment. Encounter means genuinely reaching out to the less fortunate and spending enough time to get to know individuals as human beings. For Ward, conversion means informing oneself about the realities of poverty and inequality. Contentment means being satisfied with one's position and not striving for more material wealth. Christian communities, in Ward's view, have obligations to pursue political action, tithing, and aid, and to foster encounters in parishes and educational settings. (shrink)

One might think that inequality of income and wealth are a special cause for concern only nowadays. But, perhaps surprisingly, equality and inequality of resources are issues addressed by Aristotle in his Politics. I first discuss Aristotle’s suggestion that equality of resources is a way of avoiding faction. I then discuss Aristotle’s relatively neglected critique of Phaleas of Chalcedon’s proposal for equal plots of land, arguing that Aristotle actually improves on Phaleas’s ideas in his own proposal for (...) a second-best constitution. In such a constitution, Aristotle avoids the hour-glass distribution of rich and poor that is a modern problem. His proposal also incorporates some aspects of his famous doctrine of the mean. I then briefly discuss the question of resources in Aristotle’s ideal city of the Politics and in his ethical works, speculating on the question why distributive justice in relation to wealth is not addressed in the passages of the Politics I discuss. I conclude with some brief reflections on modern and ancient views. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ethics of Wealth in a World of Economic Inequality: A Christian Perspective in a Buddhist-Christian DialogueJoerg RiegerThere is common agreement that we find ourselves in a world of economic inequality. More precisely, we are living in a world where economic inequality continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Income inequality in the United States is greater than it has ever been, greater than (...) that of most other wealthy countries,1 and it is even greater than the income inequality known in the Roman Empire. In Ancient Rome, the top 1 percent controlled 16 percent of society’s wealth, compared to 40 percent in the contemporary United States.2 Nevertheless, although there is broad agreement on the existence of economic inequality, there are different perspectives on what it all means.While many lament the existence of economic inequality, others welcome it. Christians who follow the teachings of the so-called gospel of prosperity, for instance, are rarely bothered by economic inequality because they see economic success as a result of faithfulness to God, while stagnation or even poverty is the result of lack of faith. Among economists, one of the dominant perspectives on economic inequality is that it is necessary and beneficial. More specifically, one current economic theory that is widely agreed upon holds that cutting taxes for the wealthy and providing subsidies for large corporations is the only way to maintain economic growth as well as job growth. This theory is maintained despite mounting empirical evidence to the contrary. As a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service notes, “there is little evidence over the past 65 years that tax cuts for the highest earners are associated with savings, investment or productivity growth.”3Other prominent perspectives on economic inequality take more critical approaches, although some of the most common stereotypes also fail the reality test. One common assumption, for instance, is that the wealth gap is a matter of the so-called First World versus the so-called Third World. In the Americas, for instance, many believe that wealth resides north of the US-Mexico border, and that poverty resides to the south of it. Nevertheless, the world’s wealthiest individual is currently a Mexican citizen, business magnate Carlos Slim Helú. The case of Slim is, of course, [End Page 153] only the tip of the iceberg, as a tremendous amount of wealth resides in many places “south of the border.” Whenever I take seminary students on immersion trips into countries of the so-called Third World, I make it a point to take them not only into the poor neighborhoods but also into the wealthy ones.Observing wealth in Third World contexts never fails to create substantial cognitive dissonance, as most US residents do not expect to see so many expensive cars and expansive villas in São Paulo, Brazil; Lima, Peru; or Harare, Zimbabwe. By the same token, even most US residents do not expect to see so much dire poverty in the United States, although it often resides only a few miles from where they live. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 21 percent of all children in the United States live in families with incomes below the poverty level.4 Without ignoring the economic differences between North and South, substantial economic inequality exists in both so-called Third World and First World settings.Whose Wealth?One crucial insight emerges from our reflections so far: when we talk about an ethics of wealth in a world of economic inequality, we need to ask whose wealth we are discussing. When we are talking about wealth in many Christian communities, we tend to talk about ourselves and about the perceived wealth of the so-called middle class. What we are rarely discussing, however, is the tremendous wealth that is amassed at the upper levels of society, with the proverbial 1 percent or the 0.1 percent. I have observed similar discourses for many years, all around the world. There are several problems with this discourse.One problem is that by talking about members of the middle class as representatives of wealth, we fail to investigate the full scale of economic... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond the Ethics of Wealth and a World of Economic InequalityMark D. WoodAnalyzing the ethics of wealth and the relationship between the dominant ethics of wealth and economic inequality is vital to creating a humane mode of global life. We are living during a period in which the unequal concentration of wealth—which is to say, the unequal concentration of the resources that make human (...) existence, development, and fulfillment possible—has never been greater.1 The World Bank reports that almost “1.3 billion people remain below the extreme poverty line with an income of US $1.25 or less a day. Close to 2.5 billion—more than one-third of the world’s population—live on less than US $2 a day, another common measurement of deep deprivation,”2 and a staggering 80 percent of the world’s population struggles to survive on less than US $10 dollars a day.3 Credit Suisse’s 2012 Global Wealth Report indicates “the bottom half of the global population [or more than 3.5 billion persons] possess barely 1 percent of total wealth... In sharp contrast, the richest 10 percent own 86 percent of the world’s wealth, with the top 1 percent alone accounting for 46 percent of global assets.”4 Given the history of international colonial and neocolonial relations, it comes as no surprise that wealth is highly concentrated in Western Europe and North America, while the overwhelming majority of individuals living in poverty are concentrated in Africa, India, Asia, and Central and South America.5The wealth gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent is, however, also reaching record levels in developed nations. While in 2012, the United States had the seventh highest average wealth holdings per adult in the world, “among nations with at least a quarter-million adults, only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon are more unequal” than the United States.6 A Reuters investigative report published in 2012 reveals that “inequality has risen not just in plutocratic hubs such as Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but also in virtually every corner of the world’s richest nation: Inequality has increased in 49 of 50 states since 1989,” with Mississippi being the only exception, even as it still “ranks worst in the nation on both counts.”7 In 2010, “the top 1 percent of households (the upper class) owned 35.4 percent of all privately held wealth, and the next 19 percent (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned a remarkable 89 percent, leaving only 11 percent of the wealth for the bottom 80 percent [End Page 125] (wage and salary workers).”8 In The Price of Inequality (2012), Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz indicates that the “six heirs to the Walmart empire command wealth of $69.7 billion dollars, which is equivalent to the entire wealth of the bottom 30 percent of U.S. society.”9 In short, six individuals possess more wealth than do ninety-six million individuals—though this figure is misleading inasmuch as most of the ninety-six million own almost nothing but mounting debt. Most significantly, the top 10 percent own between 81 percent and 94 percent of all stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and almost 80 percent of non-home real estate.10 G. William Domhoff makes the vital point that inasmuch as “financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets,” that is, control of the means of producing wealth, “we can say that just 10 percent of the people own the United States of America.”11 Meanwhile, according to the latest census, fifty million Americans qualify as poor and another 100 million qualify as low income.12The concentration of the lion’s share of wealth in the hands of a tiny fraction of humanity is devastating for the majority of people living on the planet and ultimately for everyone. On the ground, capitalism’s champagne glass–shaped distribution of wealth means that hundreds of millions of persons have barely enough of the basics necessary to exist. Between 24,000... (shrink)

While Thomas Hobbes is not typically cited as a philosopher concerned with economic inequality, there is a great deal of evidence in his writings to suggest that he was aware of inequality and worried about its effects on the commonwealth. This essay first contextualizes Hobbes in the development of the 17th-century English political economy to understand the mercantilist milieu that might have shaped Hobbes’s thoughts. Second, it then explores Hobbes’s thoughts on wealth, poverty, and inequality, as (...) outlined in his major political works – revealing distinctively Hobbesian grounds for understanding these phenomena. Third and finally, it explores Hobbes’s constructive political philosophy for means by which he might offer prescriptions for addressing them. (shrink)

This article draws a connection between socio-economic inequality and political corruption based on a reading of Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories. Prevailing interpretations of the Histories attr...

Drawing on detailed German panel data, we find that gifts and inheritances substantially increase households’ private pension savings in accounts which are costly or impossible to withdraw prematurely. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the average difference in bequest-induced private pension savings between heirs and non-heirs accrues to more than 40,000 euros at retirement, and that it would take an average non-heir household roughly 14 years to match this gap. The sizable difference in private pension savings between heirs and non-heirs persists when (...) we take into account other investments of heirs and non-heirs potentially intended to provide for old age. Our evidence supports the impact of gifts and inheritances on inequality in retirement wealth highlighted in recent research on intergenerational justice. We discuss several policy implications of our results. Online appendix. (shrink)

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century makes hardly any reference to the ethics of inequality. Surprisingly, this is an omission shared by most of his critics. In this paper I investigate the literature on which he and his reviewers might have drawn and speculate on the reasons why they did not. I outline the four ‘views of society’ and the related issues in moral philosophy that were presented by Michael Schneider in his book on the distribution of (...) class='Hi'>wealth. I then summarise the criticisms of Piketty made by those few reviewers who did show some interest in ethical questions and examine the slightly earlier and quite different case against reducing inequality made by one of these critics, N. Gregory Mankiw. I consider the economic, political and social costs of inequality identified in a book-length study of Piketty’s work by Steven Pressman, and conclude by reflecting on the reasons for the widespread neglect of moral philosophy by mainstream economists. (shrink)

Socioeconomic inequalities are functions not only of intrinsic differences between persons or groups, but also of the dynamics of their interactions. Inequalities can arise and become stabilized if there are advantages (such as generalized wealth including “human capital”) which are self-enhancing, whereas depletion of limiting resources is widely distributed. A recent theory of biological pattern formation has been generalized, adapted and applied to deal with this process. Applications include models for the non-Gaussian distribution of personal income and wealth, (...) for overall economic growth in relation to inequalities and for effects of uncoupling strategies between developing and developed countries. Note added after publication: The equations (14) for the model of the income distribution, with its characteristic non-Gaussian extension towards higher incomes (fig.4), are closely related to the Fokker-Planck equation that is widely applied in many fields of physics. (shrink)

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Bullshit, the case for worrying less about the rich and more about the poor Economic inequality is one of the most divisive issues of our time. Yet few would argue that inequality is a greater evil than poverty. The poor suffer because they don't have enough, not because others have more, and some have far too much. So why do many people appear to be more distressed by (...) the rich than by the poor? In this provocative book, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Bullshit presents a compelling and unsettling response to those who believe that the goal of social justice should be economic equality or less inequality. Harry Frankfurt, one of the most influential moral philosophers in the world, argues that we are morally obligated to eliminate poverty—not achieve equality or reduce inequality. Our focus should be on making sure everyone has a sufficient amount to live a decent life. To focus instead on inequality is distracting and alienating. At the same time, Frankfurt argues that the conjunction of vast wealth and poverty is offensive. If we dedicate ourselves to making sure everyone has enough, we may reduce inequality as a side effect. But it’s essential to see that the ultimate goal of justice is to end poverty, not inequality. A serious challenge to cherished beliefs on both the political left and right, On Inequality promises to have a profound impact on one of the great debates of our time. (shrink)

Economic inequality has become a focus of prime interest for economic analysts and policy makers. This book provides an integrated approach to the topics of inequality and personal income distribution. It covers the practical and theoretical bases for inequality analysis, applications to real world problems and the foundations of theoretical approaches to income distribution. It also analyses models of the distribution of labour earnings and of income from wealth. The long-run development of income - and (...) class='Hi'>wealth - distribution over many generations is also examined. Special attention is given to an assessment of the merits and weaknesses of standard economic models, to illustrating the implications of distributional mechanisms using real data and illustrative examples, and to providing graphical interpretation of formal arguments. Examples are drawn from US, UK and international sources. (shrink)

Federal political orders often exhibit a conflict between the ideals of equality and political autonomy, since individuals in different subunits often enjoy systematically different standards of living conditions. While federal arrangements may be theoretically attractive to avoid despotism, such federal inequality would appear to conflict with the principles of egalitarian cosmopolitanism. The paper argues that individuals' interest in equal shares of income and wealth may legitimately be weighed against their interest in political control enjoyed by their subunit, as (...) long as the inequalities do not engender misery, domination, or unfair procedures. The reasons for subunit autonomy include reducing the risk of domination, increasing the responsiveness to local preferences, and reducing the burdens of decision making. These arguments also suggest that states may not always be the appropriate subunits in legitimate federal orders. (shrink)

Measured inequality has increased tremendously between the 1960s and 1990s, not only in the United States but throughout the majority of industrial nations. Wages among people of the same race and gender have become less equal. The hours worked by men have fallen, and the drop has been more pronounced among those who earn lower wages—as a result, inequality in labor income, which is the product of the wage rate and hours worked, has increased relative to inequality (...) in wage rates. Moreover, among married couples, employment of the wives of high-income men has increased until these wives are approximately as likely to be employed outside the home as are the wives of low-income men, who have always worked for wages. In addition, due to assortative mating, wage rates of husbands and wives are positively correlated, and it is clear that the growth in inequality of labor incomes among families has outstripped the growth in inequality in individual labor income. Finally, only the highest-income families have savings in excess of home equity and company-sponsored pensions, which implies that inequality in wealth among families has been exacerbated by the growth in stock prices. (shrink)

Widespread recognition that economic inequality has been growing for forty years in most of the developed world, and in fact has tended to grow across most of the history of modern economies, shows that the period 1945-1973, when inequality of wealth and income shrank, was a marked anomaly in historical experience. At the time, however, the anomalous period of equality seemed to vindicate a long history of optimism about economic life:that growth would overcome meaningful scarcity and usher (...) in an egalitarian and humanistic period that could almost qualify as post-economic. This has not been the experience of the last four decades. In this intellectual history of the anomalous period, we trace the main lines of that optimism and its undoing. (shrink)

Substantially increased wealth inequality across the developed world has prompted many philosophers, economists and legal theorists to support comprehensive taxes on all forms of wealth. Proposals include levying taxes on the basis of total wealth, or alternatively the change in the value of capital holdings measured from year-to-year. This contrasts with most existing policies that tax capital assets at the point they are transferred from one beneficiary to another through sale or gifts. Are these tax reforms (...) likely to meet their aims of greater economic and political equality? We argue that these policies are likely to fail because, following neoclassical economic theory, they are based on a conception of capital as possessing given values in what amounts to a static equilibrium. This mischaracterizes the dynamic and subjective character of market economies and the contested value of real instantiations of capital goods. This makes them very difficult, often impossible, to value apart from at the point of voluntary transfer or profit realization. This means most taxes levied on a mark-to-market basis will be arbitrary and unfair. We propose alternative policies based on an income realization approach to taxation that are more likely to curb excessive wealth holdings. This includes introducing international treaties that prohibit preferential tax treatment for individual companies and specific sectors, and broadening the income tax base to include the imputed rent of personal housing wealth. (shrink)

The Code of Capital significantly advances our understanding of the origins of inequality and provides a framework for evaluating proposed solutions. But reviews have so far missed some of the most important insights of the book, including the author's insistence on the indeterminacy of the law and the corresponding incompleteness of existing solutions to inequality that primarily rely on economic drivers. The review demonstrates the relevance of the book's main contributions for evaluating the shared value thesis for investors (...) and reflects on some of the solutions to the law's indeterminacy proposed in the book, including the author's surprising neglect of the increasing importance of ethics in business when innovation outpaces the law. The review concludes with consideration of the theoretical advancements that The Code of Capital makes for our understanding of inequality in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The ability of very wealthy individuals (or, as I will call them, the ‘super-rich’) to turn their economic power into political power has been—and remains—an important cause of political inequality. In response, this paper advocates an original solution. Rather than solving the problem through implementing a comprehensive conception of political equality, or through enforcing complex rules about financial disclosure etc., I argue that we should impose a choice on the super-rich. The super-rich must choose between (i) forfeiting the things (...) that make them super-rich, i.e., pay a 100 % tax on their wealth above a certain level, or, (ii) they must forfeit some of their political rights. These rights include entitlements to fund political parties; to stand for office; and to work or volunteer for political parties. The right to vote, though, is not limited. I defend my proposal against non-consequentialist and consequentialist objections. I also argue that it avoids two problems that many attempts to reduce political inequality face; these are the political egalitarian’s dilemma and the problem of political equality’s relative moral importance. (shrink)

Daniel Halliday examines the morality of the right to bequeath or transfer wealth, and argues that inheritance is unjust to the extent that it enhances the intergenerational replication of inequality, concentrating opportunities in certain groups. He presents an egalitarian case for imposition of a significant inheritance tax.

A review of Katharina Pistor's *The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality* (2019, Princeton University Press).

What is the relation between monetary policy and inequalities in income and wealth? This question has received insufficient attention, especially in light of the unconventional policies introduced since the 2008 financial crisis. The article analyzes three ways in which the concern central banks show for inequalities in their official statements remains incomplete and underdeveloped. First, central banks tend to care about inequality for instrumental reasons only. When they do assign intrinsic value to containing inequalities, they shy away from (...) trade-offs with the standard objectives of monetary policy that such a position entails. Second, central banks play down the causal impact monetary policy has on inequalities. When they do acknowledge it, they defend their actions by claiming that it is an unintended side effect, that it is temporary, and/or that any alternative policy would fare even worse. The article appeals to the doctrine of double effect to criticize these arguments. Third, even if one accepts that inequalities should be contained and that today’s monetary policies exacerbate them, is it both desirable and feasible to make containing inequalities part of the mandate of central banks? The article analyzes and rejects three attempts on the part of central banks to answer this question negatively. (shrink)

_Examining inequality through the lenses of moral traditions_ Rising inequality has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years from scholars and politicians, but the moral dimensions of inequality tend to be ignored. Is inequality morally acceptable? Is it morally permissible to allow practices and systems that contribute to inequality? Is there an ethical obligation to try to alleviate inequality, and if so, who is obligated to take that action? This book addresses these (...) and similar questions not through a single lens of morality but through a comparative study of ethical traditions, both secular and religious, Western and non-Western. The moral and political traditions considered are: liberalism, Marxism, natural law, feminism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Confucianism. The types of inequality examined include property, natural resources, products, wealth, income, jobs, and taxation. The editors open the book with an introduction providing information on contemporary dimensions of the problem of economic inequality, and the book concludes with a summary of the perspectives represented. _Economic Inequality and Morality_ is unusual in that it addresses similarities and differences on the questions of inequality within and across moral traditions. Authors of the individual studies answer a common set of topic-related questions, giving the reader a broad perspective on how a broad range of traditions view and respond to inequality. (shrink)

Federal political orders often exhibit a conflict between the ideals of equality and political autonomy, since individuals in different subunits often enjoy systematically different standards of living conditions. While federal arrangements may be theoretically attractive to avoid despotism, such federal inequality would appear to conflict with the principles of egalitarian cosmopolitanism. The paper argues that individuals' interest in equal shares of income and wealth may legitimately be weighed against their interest in political control enjoyed by their subunit, as (...) long as the inequalities do not engender misery, domination, or unfair procedures. The reasons for subunit autonomy include reducing the risk of domination, increasing the responsiveness to local preferences, and reducing the burdens of decision making. These arguments also suggest that states may not always be the appropriate subunits in legitimate federal orders. (shrink)

Economists now have the data to generate a high‐resolution picture of the economic inequalities within the very top fractions of income and wealth and between the top‐most fractions and others that have emerged since the early 1980s. I shall refer to these inequalities collectively as “the new inequality.” I argue that the moral value of solidarity can be used to raise pointed moral questions about the new inequality. In most cases, however, I shall raise such questions without (...) answering them. For I contend that solidarity functions more usefully as part of an articulate hermeneutic of suspicion—that is, as a central element in skepticism about economic inequalities and their justifications. Seeing that it functions in this way, we can see one contribution religious ethics makes to an inquiry into the new inequality. (shrink)

Secular discourse about problem of economic inequality rests on two foundational premises that are problematic from a theological point of view. First, individuals enter into society with the aim of bettering their own condition. Second, bettering one's own condition entails accruing more wealth and power so that one can fulfill more of one's desires. In this paper I argue that insofar as these premises shape market behavior, they actively promote excessive economic inequality. Ethical responses to the problem (...) of economic inequality that do not challenge these assumptions are unlikely to effectively promote justice. A theological response to the problem of economic inequality should work to promote cultural change by reminding us that genuine human flourishing depends on communal ties and the higher human goods that material wealth is properly meant to support. (shrink)

In terms of income and wealth (and a variety of other measures), citizens of the United States are significantly less equal than their peers in Canada and Europe. In addition, American society is becoming increasingly less equal. Some theorists argue that this inequality is inefficient. Others claim that is unjust. Many Americans, however, are less concerned with the potential inefficiency and injustice of growing inequality. Distinguishing as Milton Friedman does between equality of result and equality of opportunity, (...) many claim that American inequality is greater because our social and political institutions hold individuals responsible for their decisions. There is nothing unjust about holding individuals responsible for their choices or preferences. This political philosophy builds from the popular idea that, in the words of Dennis Prager of the Heritage Foundation, “American individualism and the Judeo-Christian notion of personal accountability gave us the extraordinary nation that we built here.” At least since the publication of the Republican Party’s Contract with America, every prominent Republican (and many Democrats) has affirmed the importance of personal responsibility. The idea of personal responsibility plays a central role in debates over how to structure U.S. society. For these reasons, this paper considers a group of theories that Elizabeth Anderson labels “luck egalitarian.” These theories remain the most influential philosophical attempts to incorporate personal responsibility into a theory of justice. This essay takes as its staring point Anderson’s widely discussed criticisms for these theorists, and considers several of the best and most sustained responses to these criticisms (and related claims by Samuel Scheffler, Jonathan Wolff, and others). The goal is not to provide a summary of different luck egalitarian accounts of justice, a task others have performed admirably (Knight 2009, Knight and Stemplowska 2011). Furthermore, this paper will not attempt to decide which luck egalitarian theory best withstands these criticisms. Instead, this paper makes a philosophically and empirically informed case regarding how policy makers ought to utilize a principle that plays a prominent role in current American public policy debates: the role of personal responsibility. In order to make this case, I must weave normative and empirical analysis, and consider the ways in which social position in the status quo United States does not trace personal responsibility. From this analysis, I suggest three policy priorities for those interested in redeeming the oft-celebrated claim about American society: that an individual is responsible for her social position. This work promises to be of interest to any theorist or policy maker concerned with the practical implications of recent work in the moral and political philosophy of personal responsibility, or, really, anyone interested in making American society comparatively just. (shrink)

Why Does Inequality Matter?is the long-awaited book-length development of T. M. Scanlon's views on objectionable inequality, and our obligations to eliminate or reduce it. The book presents an impressively nuanced and thoughtful analysis as well as succinct explanations of different objections to various forms of inequality. It is not only set to further cement Scanlon's influence on philosophical debates about equality but also makes a good guide to the problems of inequality for the nonspecialist reader. The (...) book is not without faults, however. Even within a pluralist approach to inequality such as Scanlon's, it is not sufficiently clear what, if anything, his specific objections to status inequality, and to control over other people's lives, have in common with his other egalitarian objections to inequality of political influence, opportunity, and income and wealth—or whether, in the case of control, the objection is egalitarian at all. (shrink)

Abortion, distribution of wealth, civil disobedience, reverse discrimination, sex-role stereotyping, censorship – what does philosophy have to contribute to these practical moral issues? In this important book, first published in 1982, Robin Barrow argues convincingly that the capacity to make fine conceptual discriminations is crucial to an informed response to such issues, and he alerts us to the degree to which this ability has been lacking in much previous philosophical thought. The author presents a series of formidable arguments regarding (...) the more controversial social and moral issues of our time, and in doing so he gives the general reader and the student of philosophy a clearer appreciation of the nature of the philosophical contribution. (shrink)

Inequality isn’t just for the young anymore. People over age sixty-five face large and growing inequalities in health, wealth, work, and family. The widening gap between better- and worse-off older Americans has begun to undermine legal institutions that once worked to correct inequality, including Social Security, Medicare, private pensions, and family law. In this Article, I briefly document the inequalities that have transformed old age in the last fifty years and then analyze three common justifications for reform: (...) budget solvency, inequality, and progressivity. I show that each of these falls short of the kind of principled justification that will be needed to justify cutting benefits, raising taxes, or both. (shrink)

Abortion, distribution of wealth, civil disobedience, reverse discrimination, sex-role stereotyping, censorship – what does philosophy have to contribute to these practical moral issues? In this important book, first published in 1982, Robin Barrow argues convincingly that the capacity to make fine conceptual discriminations is crucial to an informed response to such issues, and he alerts us to the degree to which this ability has been lacking in much previous philosophical thought. The author presents a series of formidable arguments regarding (...) the more controversial social and moral issues of our time, and in doing so he gives the general reader and the student of philosophy a clearer appreciation of the nature of the philosophical contribution. (shrink)