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InequalityJustice 5 - 04 Feb 2010 - Main.MatthewZorn
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| | Is inequality inherently unjust? If so, what can be done to reconcile justice with a world defined by scarcity of resources and the continual creation of unequal relationships? This twiki entry has the goal of providing various perspectives on the question of inequality and its link to justice.
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- Chris, I enjoyed reading your thoughts. Two quick points. 1. My distillation of your hypotheticals: The only world in which there would be no injustice due to inequality is in world of infinite resources. If a resource is finite, then any hoarding of the resource will result in less of that resource being available to others. If this is an accurate description of your point, it could be made clearer in your writing. 2. "Taking something from someone in order to improve oneself, if the taker does not need that something in any way, is unjust. " This sentence seems logically inconsistent. The taker is taking something to improve himself. Therefore, he needs it in some way. Do you mean that the person is taking it out of greed alone rather than to "improve" oneself.
-- JohnAlbanese - 04 Feb 2010 | |
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> | Yes, but why is inequality inherently unjust?
The hypotheticals are nice, but they just don't correspond to the real world. The fact is, people are born in different positions to succeed (both skill set and resource wise). Thus, I don't think this form of inequality is unjust. It just is. I'm going to amend this thought because I don't think its complete. But, suffice to say, I don't think we can use just/unjust to evaluate something that has no alternatives. Hypos are nice, but they aren't hypos grounded in any reality and they never will be. This, the real world, is all there is. It can't be "unjust" because if it is, there is no "just" alternative.
Now, what we as a society choose to do from this inherently unequal position is I think where an assessment of justice comes in. Being rich is not inherently unjust (from any initial position). Having social policies which funnel more wealth to the rich (those who need it least) from the poor (those who need it most) is unjust. Or more accurately, this is more unjust than many other alternative arrangements.
edit 1:
"I think it would be a good idea to impose a 100% tax on all personal incomes greater than $2 million."
I think this would be a terrible idea. Forget the fact that it deincentivizes anyone to make more than 2 million dollars a year (of course, if we fix inflation then perhaps this seems more reasonable, however, I'd contend that there are people who create value in excess of 2 million dollars). But now, you'll have high earners moving to other countries and finding more ways to skirt the tax code. Instead of getting whatever tax revenue we were going to get in the first place, now we get bupkis.
Of course, this happens right now so maybe it isn't such a bad idea... |
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