“Equality for all” has always been dramatized as a stand point for America expressing freedom and equality for everyone no matter what. In reality the three letter term stands for nothing but a lie among its repitition spoken out of a neglected person’s mouth and the issue of the wealth gap portrays that lie beautifully. The wealth gap shows the reality of inequality by underlying the unequal distribution of wealth. To understand the role of the wealth gap it’s essential to consider the causes, why it’s a problem and its solutions. People have constantly wasted their time on focusing on the issue of poverty rather than the issue of the wealth gap. Poverty is the state of being extremely poor with little to no money and lack of the most important …show more content…
Globalization is a process generated by international trade and investment. According to Robert Reich’s essay, “Why The Richer Are Getting Richer,” globalization causes the wealth gap because American industries begin to “outsource” jobs to other countries where there’s cheaper pay despite an American worker’s low wage (517). American industries often turn to cheaper wage in third world countries because it saves more money for business. Another cause that breaks into the workforce is technological advancement. The more technology evolves the more people’s jobs are replaced by these machines; closing down plants and factories. The inequality of consumption is another cause because when the increase demand for more consumer goods rises, people’s wages are put out to pay for them. Then many of the producers and industry owners earn profit. Many of the lower and middle-classes are the ones that obtain the most purchasing power when it comes to consumer spending allowing themselves to benefit the rich and buy products that help their wages go down. The last cause is inequality in the benefits of land ownership. Many of the people who own property are the richest people. They are able to benefit from the increase value of their land. These benefits however, are paid by …show more content…
Many people don’t see it as a problem and many people do. The one man who wants to completely wipe away the gap is Karl Marx. In his “Communist Manifesto,” he promotes “revolution and the abolishment of class separatism” (455). Basically Marx is rooting for everyone to be equal. Though he recognizes the “oppressor and the oppressed,” Marx is too idealistic with his ideal of communism because in a country to populated it’s completely impossible to make everyone equal (457). One such man that promotes the wealth gap is Andrew Carnegie. In his essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” he roots for the gap because he believes without having the rich there wouldn’t be anyone responsible to provide to the poor. This need of the rich to give is true, but it still doesn’t help the gap shrink. Rich people would still be earning more money and even most rich people don’t want to give to the poor because they are just to prideful. Robert Reich a man who knows the modern world today more discretely has a very different approach to the wealth gap than Carnegie or Marx. In his powerful documentary, “Inequality for All,” he demonstrates how the gap keeps widening. He brings both the rich and the poor people to talk about their own experiences with the issue. One of his own students from the university he teaches at mentioned how difficult it was
In today’s world, the American still has barriers to overcome in the matter of racial equality. Whether it is being passed over for a promotion at the job or being underpaid, some people have to deal with unfair practice that would prevent someone of color or the opposite sex from having equal opportunity at the job. In 2004, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Incorporation was a civil rights class-action suite that ruled in favor of the women who worked and did not received promotions, pay and certain job assignments. This proves that some corporations ignore the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects workers from discrimination based on sex, race, religion or national origin.
A plethora of research studies exist on the topic of wealth inequality in America. There is no question that the top one percent of earners consume a large portion of wealth in this country while the other 90 percent of earners share the left-overs. Some of the related questions that I found during the course of my research are 1) Why are wealth and income distributions so vastly disproportionate? 2) Can America bridge the wealth gap? 3) If so, how? 4) Has the wealth gap increased over time? 5) Are there public policies that influence wealth inequality? And, 6) Is America’s middle-class growing poor? Those are just a few of the many questions that circulate the discussion on wealth inequality in America. However, the two
I believe that there is too much wealth and income inequality in the United States
Wealth inequality is a real issue that needs to be fixed. The imbalanced growth of the upper class compared to the middle class is a danger to American society as a whole. The rich becoming richer while the middle class remains the same leads to a power imbalance, with the rich using their money to run the country the way they see fit while the middle class speaks to ears that do not listen. The issue of wealth inequality needs to be fixed by raising taxes on the rich.
There is a high degree of social inequality within the United States. Of most modern industrial countries, the United Stated has some of the richest and some of the poorest people to be found. That fact is very disturbing, however, explains why much of the inequality exists in the US. In the following essay I will explain to you about the inequality in our country and why it occurs, based on the theoretical perspectives of a functionalist, conflict theorist, and social interationist.
Institutions are crucial for our society to be successful because it is a social and academic construction of a community in that institutions help us interact with each other and promote scientific research and findings, regardless of the cultures and values that each individual believes in; without institutions, there would be no order and stability in society. However, in the essay “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society” by Joseph Stiglitz, Stiglitz disagrees by arguing that institutions actually prevent scientific research to evolve into scientific discoveries because monopolists and dominant forms such as Microsoft suppress innovation; however, this statement is unconscionable
Equality can be defined as every person being treated as equals; some examples include: everyone has the same laws, same rights, and access to the same education. In the world of equality there wouldn’t be any sort of discrimination, everyone would be treated as equals. No race greater than the other, no gender greater than the other, etc. In the fantasy world of equality, there would be no more discrimination, or biased opinions, which is why it is considered a “fantasy”. Equality can never truly be achieved simply because of the human race. Not everyone agrees on everything, which not only makes life difficult, but pushes equality even farther from our midst. People are biased and there is no getting around it; no matter what the problem, people have their own ideas, beliefs, and opinions. What helps them determine those beliefs is not important, but that a world of unbiased humans is simply impossible.
How can there be so much misery and insecurity in the midst of such abundance? One of the first things we see is that poverty doesn’t exist all by itself. It is simply one end of an overall distribution of income and wealth in society as a whole. Poverty is both a structural aspect of the system and consequence of how the system is organized and how people participate in it.
The opposite claim, as it were, is that the gap in income levels does not necessarily prevent the lower and middle classes from achieving the American Dream and that the supremely rich are a necessary fixation in the United States because they employ so many people. Therefore, the stability of the economy requires this inequality. In an essay written by Brandon King, who believes that the American Dream is still fully obtainable by all classes, he says, “...We should keep in mind the ways in which large businesses and financial insti-tutions enable many others to attain economic stability and security.” Although this view is very understandable and yes, the economy does partially rely on people of wealth for business, the excess wealth of those that own most of the money in the United States (not those of moderate wealth, but those who own the majority of it) is unnecessary and unbeneficial to the rest of the country. The majority find themselves unable to gain enough footing to provide themselves with the requisite materials to catch up to a world in which the list of imperative resources for success keeps growing longer and the ability to acquire these things keeps getting
There will always be a split in society and how people are making more money than others. People in the world have different interest which makes them want different jobs, each job in the world pays differently which puts people in different classes based on that image. Or other people didn 't follow through with their education which will many their income of money suffer in whichever job they find. People who have a better education usually are the ones that make the better money and stay in the richer category. Christopher Jencks says, “The economic gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically in the United States over the past generation and is now considerably wider than in any other affluent nation.” Jencks is right about how the gap is growing in America of rich and poor. More people are not doing anything about it or are just not able to, so the gap is continuing to grow. There will not be a time where there will be no gap, I think that gap is inevitable to prevent. There is just people out there that don 't care about being poor and others that can 't help not
Wealth inequality is the uneven distribution of resources in a given state or population, which can also be called the wealth gap. The sum of one’s total assets excluding the liabilities equates the person’s wealth also known as the net worth. Investments, residents, cash, real estates and everything owned by an individual are their assets.In reality, the United States is among the richest countries in the world, though a few people creating a major gap between the richest, the middle class and the poor control most of its wealth. For more than a quarter of a century, only the rich American families have shown an increase to their net worth.Thisis a worrying fact for the less fortunate in the country and calls for assessment (Baranoff, 2015).
Income inequality continues to increase in today’s world, especially in the United States. Income inequality means the unequal distribution between individuals’ assets, wealth, or income. In the Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes, a liberal journalist, states the inequality gap between the rich and the poor are increasing widening, and there need to have things done - tax the rich, provide better education - in order to shortening the inequality gap. America is a meritocratic country, which means that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful regardless of their class privileges or wealth. However, equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcomes. People are having more opportunities to find a better job, but their incomes are a lot less compared to the top ten percent rich people. In this way, the poor people will never climb up the ladder to high status and become millionaires. Therefore, the government needs to increase all the tax rates on rich people in order to reduce income inequality.
One of the biggest issues that has been plaguing north america is the huge gap between the rich and the poor. As this gap increases the more corrupt the people in it seem to get. This becomes even more of a problem because with the system that the Americas uses only the rich get richer. The source believes that it is the framework of our society that creates this gap and this makes sense. The western world is filled with the idea that in order to be happy a person must have as much money as possible however, this leads to people doing whatever they deem necessary to become more rich; this includes ignoring the position they are putting others in. since those with lots of money have power over jobs and income, the people below them will not have the power to confront low income therefore the source says that the people that have power over the upper
Globalization has influenced the increase of income and wealthy inequality in the United States by allowing goods and services to flow easily in and out of many countries. In some cases the poor third world countries are sought out to build large factories because these people desire to gain income while these big companies are gaining a bigger income by employing those who desire work and money. In those countries who with the owners of the companies create an inequality of wealth because the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The owners of those big companies are saving money on the manufacturing of their products and still charge the same price which means their profits increase dramatically.
Globalization is a term that is difficult to define, as it covers many broad topics in the global arena. However, it can typically be attributed to the advancement of economic, social, and cultural interactions among the companies, citizens, organizations, and governments of nations; globalization also focuses on the interactions and integration of countries (The Levin Institute 2012). Many in the Western world promote globalization as a positive concept that allows growth and participation in a global community. Conversely, the negative aspects rarely receive the same level of attention. Globalization appears to be advantageous for the privileged few, but the benefits are unevenly distributed. For example, the three richest people in the world possess assets that exceed the Gross National Product of all of the least developed countries and their 600 million citizens combined (Shawki and D’Amato 2000). Although globalization can provide positive results to some, it can also be a high price to pay for others. Furthermore, for all of those who profit or advance from the actions related to globalization, there are countless others who endure severe adverse effects.