
'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry - aaronchall
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-20/-fight-inequality-is-a-poor-rallying-cry
======
eric_b
Midway down the author mentions a study that showed most Americans object to
"unfairness" rather than "inequality". I've found this to be the case for me
personally. If someone tries hard, works diligently, and makes smart
decisions, but are still living in poverty, I want to help them. No
hardworking, disciplined, motivated person should live in poverty, or have
trouble making ends meet, in my opinion.

Unfortunately the lower income people I know do not fall in to this camp. I
have a fair number of friends and relatives who make very little money and
struggle to keep their heads above water. They make routinely bad decisions or
fail to do the barest minimum to be proactive about things. They have watched
every show on netflix, or played every video game possible (at $60/pop). They
spend money on frivolous things and fail to plan in any way for the future.
Their impulse control leaves much to be desired.

But the weird thing is - they mostly realize this. They don't get too fired up
about inequality. Whether it's consciously or subconsciously, they seem to
realize they are not really giving it their all, and that other people work
harder and are more disciplined. They appear to prefer their current situation
to the stresses of "succeeding" at life.

Granted, this is all anecdotal, so take with healthy dose of salt.

~~~
thomasmeeks
It is a fair point and I know plenty of people like that as well.

However, to give another perspective on it. When I think of changing an
unequal situation, I look at the situations you described like this: "Did
something happen early on in that person's life that just kind of made them
give up?" I've known people like that, and although it is _also_ true that
they _could_ lift themselves out of that situation, when you take it in
aggregate over a large population, it becomes a problem (at least to me it
does).

Why is it a problem? Well, to me it is for two main reasons. First, it gives
an indication that there may be a systemic problem that could be corrected
(overzealous police, poor education, a political issue, etc.). Frankly, we're
far along enough as a species that there's no reason to tolerate that. Second,
it means a meaningful portion of the population isn't contributing to
humanity/earth/however you want to think of it in a way they otherwise could,
which holds all of us back.

One of the things that makes it complex is that the answer, I think, changes a
lot depending on the population.

~~~
humanrebar
> Did something happen early on in that person's life that just kind of made
> them give up?

That is a retrospective way to address fairness. Another is, "Given where they
are, can they start doing better and end up in a better place?"

A systemic problem that can (or used to) shove people down economically could
be different than a systemic problem that doesn't allow a (reasonable) way to
advance once they're at the bottom.

Point being, maybe people gave up. Maybe it's their fault. Maybe there was
nothing they could do about it. But it's imperative that they have credible
ways to undo that decision going forward.

Relevant issues (different people will add and/or subtract from the list):

1\. permanent felony records and difficulty in getting records expunged after
a history of good citizenship

2\. hard cut-offs in government benefit programs

2a. getting a raise should not be a personal net loss

2b. getting married should not be a personal net loss

2c. getting more hours should not be a personal net loss, for you or your
employer (the ACA really messed up here)

2d. moving to a better situation should not put your benefits at risk

3\. Age discrimination needs to be taken more seriously

3a. 50-year-old college grads should have the same shots as anyone else.
Otherwise, retraining from failed industries will be prohibitively difficult.

3b. New grads can't afford to wait 5-10 years for their first shot... this
causes delayed marriages, delayed savings for retirement, an aging workforce,
etc.

4\. Home addresses are tied to wealth. Public schools are tied to home
addresses. So public educational opportunity for kids is tied to how much
wealth their parents have. Something has to be done about this.

~~~
tankenmate
Indeed, in the UK a single working parent with one child on the minimum income
working between 30 to 40 hours a week has an effective marginal tax rate of
91% (every extra pound earned means 91 pence is transferred to the government
via income tax, national insurance, and reduced benefits). No wonder most
single parents in the UK don't want to work. And the well off complain about
a, before deductions, rate of 40%.

------
ikeyany
Obama used a few phrases that not only sounded pleasing, but accurately
addressed what's happening to Americans:

"Everyone, including the rich, need to pay their share."

"Americans from all backgrounds should have a fair shot at a quality
education, not just those who happen to grow up in nice neighborhoods."

He tapped into equality of opportunity, while acknowledging that some will be
more successful than others. That should be the rallying cry, not the idea of
ending inequality outright.

~~~
Jabanga
I personally disagree that this should be the rallying cry.

Why should someone who invests nothing in their own children get to see their
children have equal opportunities to the children of another person who
invests everything into their children?

Why should a person who has 10 children get to see each one have the same
amount of opportunity as each one of the children of someone who has 2
children, assuming equal total parental investment?

The rallying cry should be equality before the law.

~~~
ebencooke
I disagree because I think children should not be punished for the quality of
their parent(s).

I also think you are making a big (and incorrect) assumption that children who
do not receive "investment" have parents that are neglecting them, rather than
have parents who lack the means to make a substantial "investment".

~~~
Jabanga
I mean some people are born smarter than others. Maybe low IQ people deserve a
monthly stipend, that high-IQ people are forced to pay, to compensate them for
how unfair the universe was to them.

I'm sorry for the facetiousness, but I just don't see any reasonable case for
the government playing this kind of role in society. It all seems very
moralizing and controlling.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Does it work better when low IQ people "deserve" to be shafted by high IQ
people for being stupid?

Is that any less moralising and controlling?

~~~
Jabanga
How are they being shafted? As for whether they deserve to be born rich, poor,
smart, dumb, it's not for the government to say who deserves to be born with
what.

------
Zak
I think most people aren't terribly concerned about income/wealth inequality.
The logical inverse would be that everyone should get the same share of
resources regardless of their contribution to society or wealth created. I
think even most on the political left would reject that idea.

Rather than inequality, I think people are more concerned about some
combination of:

* Poverty - that some people don't have enough resources to meet their basic needs

* Lack of opportunity - that for too many people, working hard and making reasonable decisions is unlikely to result in a proportional gain in wealth

* Corruption - that wealth results in undue influence over the political process and control over the lives of others

* Unjust rewards - that some activities which arguably, or definitely cause a net harm to society or a reduction in total wealth are rewarded, and that some beneficial activities are not rewarded, or rewarded insufficiently

~~~
drabiega
> The logical inverse would be that everyone should get the same share of
> resources regardless of their contribution to society or wealth created. I
> think even most on the political left would reject that idea.

Yeah, pretty much everyone of the left would reject that extreme. The
progressive viewpoint here is simply that the economic system is tilted too
far in favor of money accumulating upwards and needs to be pushed back
somewhat. Other than that, there is a lot of variety in how far and what the
method of doing so should look like.

~~~
Zak
The author of the article makes a passing reference to "radical
egalitarianism", which Wikipedia doesn't say much about, but associates with
equality of outcome and communism. It's possible that something along those
lines is, in fact the author's position.

I'd be interested in seeing if there are a significant number of people who
are fundamentally concerned with wealth inequality per se rather than poverty,
lack of opportunity, corruption and unjust rewards.

------
dahart
I can agree with a lot of this opinion piece; fairness is more important than
equality, and it's hard to rally around anything that's abstract. Yes. People
rally around things that affect them directly and have an obvious course of
action. Despite the inequality in the US, the majority of Americans have a
comfortable standard of living. And I've frequently heard the idea that poor
people vote republican because they expect to be rich some day.

But anyway the closer seems _really_ weird to me.

> I also find it striking how frequently anti-inequality messages come from
> academia, which in reality has a remarkably inegalitarian system of
> allocating rewards. For instance, consider the differences in pay, security
> and working conditions for tenured professors versus adjuncts; citation
> inequality is very high too.

This seems to be suggesting that we should discount academics because they're
hypocrites because their house has inequality too. _Very_ specious.

Why is it surprising that the only people asking whether we have equality and
taking the time to find out are the ones reporting that we don't?

There are many things wrong in academia and with tenure, but why exactly is it
unfair for adjuncts to have less pay & security? Tenure is harder to get, and
adjuncts are non tenure track.

Citation inequality? What does this have to do with global economic
inequality? I'm sure there is citation inequality but the paper cited doesn't
really demonstrate it. It catalogues where citations are concentrated, which
doesn't prove inequality. To show inequality you'd have to compare submissions
and rejection rates, not acceptance rates alone.

------
Avshalom
This is why 'Eat The Rich' is my rallying cry.

~~~
lolsal
What does 'eat the rich' mean?

------
cmdrfred
I'd take the calls to "fight inequality" more seriously if they didn't have
such a nationalist tone. 71% of the world population lives on less than $10 a
day, if inequality was ended on a global scale the majority of the people out
there protesting would see a dramatic drop in income. I have a feeling that
isn't what they are talking about.

~~~
EthanHeilman
It depends which form of inequality you are taking about. For instance
consider the argument that the criminal justice system does not provide equal
justice based on race or income and that it should. If this inequality was
fixed this does not imply a net reduction in justice. Instead decreases in
this form of inequality would result in a net increase in justice.

Based on your comment I assume you are addressing income inequality.

>the majority of the people out there protesting would see a dramatic drop in
income. I have a feeling that isn't what they are talking about.

I do know activists that view fairness as such an important virtue that they
would be overjoyed to take that bargain even if it hurt their bottom line.
However, according to the BBC [0]:

> the world's average salary is $1,480 (£928) a month, which is just less than
> $18,000 (£11,291) a year.

18,000/365 is roughly 50 dollars a day. According the the 2014 US Census [1]
about 18-33% of US households make this or less (18% is single earner, 33% is
two earner households). So for 18-33% of the US population nothing changes or
things improve.

However, no one has a magic income equality wand. Even if someone did have a
magic income equality wand is not clear if the second order effects of global
radical income redistribution would be positive and almost nothing would
prevent the causes of income inequality from reasserting themselves. For this
reason most attempts to fix such inequality focus on the root causes, e.g.
differences in the quality of education, disease, malnutrition or structural
power imbalances (such as unfairness in the justice system, structural
racism/sexism, who gets business loans, rent-seeking, etc...). Almost all of
these would likely raise the average level of income rather than just flatten
it.

[0]:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Distribution_of_household_income)

~~~
cmdrfred
Global per capita GDP is roughly 10 thousand dollars per year.

[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD)

The median income in the US is 51 thousand dollars and even if you made
minimum wage (15k yearly) you'd see a 50% drop in income in a completely
equitable system.

~~~
EthanHeilman
>Global per capita GDP is roughly 10 thousand dollars per year.

Global per capita GDP counts non-earners such as children and the sick. That
can't directly be compared to median income because median income doesn't
account for non-earners.

>The median income in the US is 51 thousand dollars

And that is the median _household_ income. Which is not the same as per earner
wage. For instance a household with two earners would have household income of
30,000 rather than 15,000.

The BBC's analysis (linked to in my post) computes it for earners and
therefore is comparable. This is also why it is higher (18,000 USD rather than
10,000 USD). I gave a range for 1-2 earners per household.

>and even if you made minimum wage (15k yearly) you'd see a 50% drop in income
in a completely equitable system

Are you confusing median and mean here?

~~~
cmdrfred
>Global per capita GDP counts non-earners such as children and the sick. That
can't directly be compared to median income because median income doesn't
account for non-earners.

Ahh, so this system would be rather Ayn Randian then? The elderly, sick and
unemployed would be expected to starve? Or would you tax the already low wages
these people have earned at a rate sufficient to give those groups a similar
standard of living as those whom happen to be employed and not old or sick? If
you did so with 100% efficiency you would have an after tax income at a number
somewhere between yours and mine. That number would be very likely less than
the federal minimum wage.

And even so the government hasn't built a road or a school yet.

>And that is the median household income. Which is not the same as per earner
wage. For instance a household with two earners would have household income of
30,000 rather than 15,000.

Children of single mothers would have it pretty rough then. Typically
communist systems will give extra resources to parents of children in order to
assist with the cost of raising them. I suppose this will not be the case in
this brave new world? A bold choice as early childhood mortality will likely
be very high as well as the numbers of parents abandoning children they can't
afford.

>Are you confusing median and mean here?

Neither was mentioned in this context. The US federal minimum wage (FYI
Walmart has a national minimum wage that exceeds that number by roughly 25%
very few actually make this little) earned for 40 hours a week work, 52 weeks
a year will give you a gross income of a little over 15 thousand dollars
annually.

~~~
EthanHeilman
>Ahh, so this system would be rather Ayn Randian then? The elderly, sick and
unemployed would be expected to starve?

This makes no sense. I pointed out you were comparing income statistics
incorrectly (which was also noted by another poster) and in response you:

1\. made up a political program which is entirely missing from my post,

2\. ascribed it to me out of the blue,

3\. and then wrote two paragraphs attacking me for this fantastical program.

I'd hate to be your math teacher:

Math teacher: "cmdrfred, you got this problem wrong 2 + 3 is not 6"

cmdrfred: "Ahh, so this system would be rather Ayn Randian then? The elderly,
sick and unemployed would be expected to starve?".

~~~
cmdrfred
I merely mentioned the median income in passing to highlight how low many will
fall. (US GDP per capita is 53k if you are really concerned about apples to
apples) and you fixated on it for some reason ignoring the rest of the
argument.

"The median income in the US is 51 thousand dollars and even if you made
minimum wage (15k yearly) you'd see a 50% drop in income in a completely
equitable system."

The fact is if you had income equality globally you would either have to allow
the sick and elderly to starve as well as essentially suspend every
governmental function or even the lowest paid workers in the US would be much
worse off as the economy would shrink to 1/5 of its original size.

My point stands, "Fight for $15" and making income "fair" are mutually
exclusive goals unless you are a nationalist whom is really saying "hey, give
me more money!"

------
jeffdavis
"Inequality" is a bad rallying cry because no two people are equal, and few
would like to be equal to someone else. So what people mean by "inequality" is
always something else, and varies in meaning from person to person. Even if
you choose something concrete, like "equality of income", few really mean that
an 18 year old should have the same income as a 45 year old.

Ordinarily a meaningless word is great for a rallying cry, but things like
"equal" and "fair" are just too meaningless.

~~~
parenthephobia
> few really mean that an 18 year old should have the same income as a 45 year
> old

Surely people don't believe that an 18 year-old _shouldn 't_ have the same
income as a 45 year-old?

A 45 year-old shouldn't have higher income _just because_ they're older. In
the UK, at least, we have laws about that sort of thing.

------
charles-salvia
After running a mental Principal Components Analysis over the whole
liberal/conservative ideological spectrum, I'm increasingly inclined to reduce
the entire divide between conservatives and liberals to whether any given
individual is more irritated by the prospect of (A) poor people being lazy and
abusing handouts or (B) rich people abusing poor people.

------
Brendinooo
It's funny what you remember from the grade school days. In hindsight, one of
the most influential stories I had to read was "Harrison Bergeron"[0], which I
always come back to whenever I see people talk about equality. Danilov's last
lines in "Enemy at the Gates"[1] have stuck with me as well.

"Equality" is a bit of a fraught term - it can mean lots of things in lots of
different contexts. But "Harrison Bergeron" depicted an equal society, and it
wasn't pretty.

Perhaps fights against inequality that cut down tall poppies are just
inherently more difficult to sell. Debates about racial inequality have
arguably made better headway over time in US politics because they tend to
focus on elevating an oppressed group; granting them rights they lacked to
make them equals with those who already had those rights. With income
inequality, however, the solutions are often perceived (rightly or wrongly) as
bringing people down; beating up on those who have had success.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron)

[1]: "Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to
create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your
neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship,
something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet
one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in
love, poor in love."

------
chrismealy
The author has been on the payroll of the Koch brothers for most of his
career.

~~~
tnorthcutt
Source?

~~~
TSiege
I was skeptical as well, but it's true.

Cowen is the director of the Mercatus Center, which is heavily funded by the
brothers. see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center)

And here's an article on that connection
[https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/gary-north/the-koch-
brot...](https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/gary-north/the-koch-brothers-
favorite-economist/)

------
cryoshon
yeah, "fight inequality" is ineffective at rallying the benefactors of
inequality-- boomers and the rich. big surprise.

bernie sanders is the most popular politician in america. is it because his
fundamental message of needing to reduce inequality is falling flat? no.

garbage article, ignores objective realities in favor of babbling in
circles...

------
mrcactu5
a lot of these protests such as "Occupy Wall Street" or "Black Lives Matter"
have the right idea, but they are not sharp enough to be meaningful. Know your
audience.

------
crystalmeph
If you want people to fight inequality with you, you have to first prove to
them it's actually a problem.

It's a bit of a leap to convince somebody that just because Bill Gates is much
richer than the typical person, somebody more deserving must have gone without
for him to get so rich.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's not a leap at all.

MS lost an anti-trust case. There were good legal and ethical reasons why MS
in general and Gates in particular had to admit in a public courtroom that
"cutting off the oxygen supply" to their competitors meant destroying other
companies and other people's livelihoods.

Aside from that, once a company gets big enough it effectively becomes a kind
of proxy mini-government in its market space, and smaller entrepreneurs either
work with it and pay tribute for market access, or sometimes simply pay for
the right to continue to exist.

And even then there's no guarantee that they really will be allowed to exist.

This is what inequality means. It's not just about poor people having no money
and rich people having plenty of money. It's about inequality of power and
influence.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
What you say is true, but it's also true that convincing people of this
reality is hard. There's a counterfactual world somewhere where everyone is
slightly better off because the MSFT monopoly was broken, and tech progressed
faster than it did in our world, but people find that kind of thought process
tricky, and it involves making enemies of someone rich and powerful in our
actual world.

