Piketty's First Law 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.

This increases the responsibility of the state for looking after its citizens as the poorer population of the country grows in numbers. Hardin demonstrates this in ‘Living on a Lifeboat’ by examining the rate of reproduction of the poor in comparison to the wealthy. According to Hardin, the population of the poorer classes doubles every thirty-five years, whilst the wealthier classes experience the same growth over a period of eighty-seven years. (Hardin, 1974) In a lifeboat situation, this reproduction rate would mean the poor would be heavily reliant on the income and supplies of the wealthy. Due to this Hardin states that the wealthy must assume that the poor will be self-interested and sharing our resources with them will only be harmful to our own survival. (Hardin, 1974) Why should the wealthy share if they get nothing from the poor in return? They deposit their supplies into a shared collective on the boat and the poor on-board take it without giving anything back. Hardin refers to this as the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and if taken into a real-life situation we are presented with the development of social benefits for the poor - a system in which the rich pay taxes in order for the poor to be financially supported through state benefits, social housing etc. (Hardin,

Discussion of social inequality has been present in sociological works dating back as far as early 18th century in the works of Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim. Centuries later, theoretical foundations of both Marx and Durkheim can be readily applied to social inequality in the context of present day Canada. Durkheim’s theory is founded in analyzing how societies function by focusing on the ideas of the division of labour, merit and functionalism. Marx on the other hand, views society as divided into social classes of bourgeoisie and proletariats, while stressing the importance the role of capital plays in society in relation to inequality. Both Marx and Durkheim’s theories of modern society can be used to critically discuss social inequality in Canada. However, this paper will demonstrate the strength of Marx’s theory when compared to that of Durkheim in terms of their applications to Canadian social inequality. Marx’s theory is stronger in application due to Marx’s view of society accounting for conflicts and frictions between classes, while Durkheim’s view is problematic in application to Canadian social inequality as it ignores inequalities such as gender and class, which produce conflicts that disrupt Durkheim’s idea of a social equilibrium in society.

Along with globalization market forces has had the greatest impact on income equalities in the United Sates. Thomas Piketty says that “by definition, in all societies, income inequality is the result of adding up these two components: inequality of income from labor and inequality of income from capital. The more unequally distributed each of these two components is, the greater the total inequality ... [a] decisive factor is the relation between these two dimensions of inequality: to what extent do individuals with high income from labor also enjoy high income from capital? Technically speaking, this relation is a statistical correlation, and the greater the correlation, the greater the total inequality, all other things being equal” (Piketty & Goldhammer, 2014, p. 242). In the U.S. the correlation between the two dimensions has become so astonishing that “President Obama called economic inequality “the defining challenge of our time.” But while Americans acknowledge that the gap between the rich and poor has widened over the last decade, very few see it as a serious issue. Just five percent of Americans think that inequality is a major problem in need of attention” (Fitz,

In the philosophical fiction, “A Discourse on Inequality,” John Rousseau, in the state of nature, distinguishes man from animals with the concepts of man possessing freewill and man’s sense of unrealized perfectibility. Furthermore, he emphasizes throughout the first discourse that man, in the state of nature, does not obtain knowledge that surpasses that of animals. Man’s free will is a prerequisite for a further gain in knowledge to be acquired; also, the sense of perfectibility man is naturally derived with allows man to change with time. I argue that free will is a necessary and crucial factor for man to leave the state of nature. Because of free will, man retains the capability to acquire and develop knowledge. Moreover, knowledge

In “Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman he tries to show how inquailty in the united states has been getting worse and how it s affecting the united states. He provides many reason to why iniquility is the way it s and how he belives it can be helped. He also states the positive effects in helping the inquility in the united states will have.

According to Henslin (2015), “Weber illustrates, a large group of people who rank close to one another in property, power, and prestige; according to Marx, one of two groups: capitalists who own the means of production or workers who sell their labor” This is a dynamic that should be working currently in American society. However, in the past three decades there has been a gap between the poor and the not very rich. This gap has not happened by itself. According to Reich (2015), in the movie Inequality For All, “…the all

There are different opinions towards inequality, some people are accepting of it while others dislike the whole idea of inequality. Is it okay to let the wealthy have more control than the poor? Should their ideas matter more than the non-wealthy? And most importantly should the poor be okay with this, if not what must they do? In “Gospel of Wealth” by Andrew Carnegie and “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx, both Carnegie and Marx expose their thoughts behind inequality and its traits. They both focus and touch upon the poor (proletarians) and the rich (bourgeoisie). They bring up the pros and cons about inequality, capitalism, and communism. Inequality was in Carnegie 's view. In his opinion progress required the processes of competition. Making capitalism an engine of progress. Carnegie believed that there is good to inequality while Marx begs to differ. Marx had his own view on capitalism, he believed that it would eventually result disastrous. Marx believed communism was the best solution to keep both the proletarians and bourgeoisie in an equal place. Both of these socialists have much to say about capitalism and communism and also for economic inequality. They both share different points of view, neither wrong or right. Their opinions are based towards their life experiences and this essay will be noting the differences between they share on inequality, the means of production, and capitalism.

In the article “Confronting Inequality,” by Paul Krugman claims that inequality has been affecting the low and middle class families for years. In the article it states that because of growing inequality, it has lead to social and income issues. Krugman claims that the different levels of social and income classes are the same as they were back in the Gilded Age. Also, in the article it states that because inequality growing so much it has led to less opportunities for people. Low income families have a disadvantage to send their childrens to good schools. Not to mention, Krugman outlines that if the rich were to be taxed a little bit more, it can help the middle income families advance and eventually have universal healthcare. Low income families

In the very informative article “Confronting Inequality” written by Paul Krugman, Krugman asserts that we the people should care about high and rising inequality; in view of the fact that few Americans trust the government, all Americans don’t really have an equal opportunity, and the fact that many families took on housing debt because they wanted their kids to be in a good school district, just a few reasons on why we should care. In the text he talks about the repercussions this matter causes on society along with a variation of statics and blunt quotes that back up his theory. Krugman also gives his own solutions on how to improve these issues of our broken society.

In his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke creates an argument that details how individuals attain private property and how some can end up with more property than others. He attempts to justify the resulting economic inequality, but is unsuccessful, failing to address many of the problematic issues that arise from his claim.

     It is stated by John Locke that in the state of nature no man may take more then he can consume. “…make use of any advantage of life before it spoils…whatever is beyond this is more than his share and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. (Locke 14)” Locke then goes on to say, “God gave the world to man … for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational- and labor was to be his title… (Lock 15)”

Wealthier individuals often have more power than the poor and are sometimes even able to maintain their wealth at the cost of the poor. Inequality of income is often one of the most significant reasons for the disparity within classes socially and one of the most important reasons that poverty is often intergenerational. Particularly in this tumultuous political time of divisiveness, people who are willing and able to make changes to the status quo in meaningful ways are of the utmost importance. Closing the gap in wealth is one of the most essential ways to ensure that inequality is addressed and that the other social issues surrounding this gap will be lessened and lessened until it hopefully eventually disappears. Change-makers are more important than ever and those groups and nations as well as individuals with power that are willing to be honest with themselves and

America is one of the world’s largest and prosperous developed countries in the world, but take a closer look and you realize that the great United States of America has an alarmingly large amount of poverty. Where there once used to be an “American Dream” there now lies the cold hard truth, there is less and less opportunity every day and growing inequality every second. Joseph E. Stiglitz how America has turned into a country that would be unrecognizable to any of the founding fathers. In The Price of InequalityStiglitz visits this problem and searches for the source of the economic inequality that the United States is faced with today. Stiglitz came to the conclusion that America is declining and turning into a society like the one

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