Is Economic Inequality Unjust?

Is Economic Inequality Unjust? Whether you are born into poverty or into the richest family in the world, all people would agree that they didn’t have a choice of what family and culture they wanted to be born into. Do you think it’s right to help those that are not as fortunate or not help them because they have opportunities themselves for a better life? In this essay we will be looking at two philosophers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick, who have two very different views and arguments when it comes to dealing between the rich and the poor and the economic inequality problems in this world. I believe economic inequality is just. According to Rawls, he also has a strong view that economic inequality is just. He explains that we are not all

If people take advantages in life they will go father than others. That might look like that not everyone is equal, but we are still all equal, those people just chose to work harder. Opportunity to be equal is always there, some people see it and some people don’t and I’m not saying it is always easy to go far in life, because some people are born into a family with lots of money, so to get where they need to be may be easier than someone being born into poverty. But Rawls’ main point is opportunity is there for us to get where we want to be. Nozicks view on economic inequality on the other hand is completely against

He believes that the government shouldn’t be able to forcibly tax rich people to help the poor and that by doing this it is violating the liberty of the rich. He also has a hard time with people’s wealth that was achieved by hard work and talent should not just be handed over to the poor. In some cases, when someone accumulates a larger amount of wealth, they become very rude about it and this may seem unjust, but according to Nozick it’s a small price to pay for a system to make society richer as a whole. He believed that no one should have any business allowing for economic inequalities to take place at all only as long they arise from voluntary exchange. An example Nozick uses to show that we cannot govern economic inequality is with the basketball player, Wilt Chamberlain. In this example he says basketball fans pay an extra .25 cents to watch him play and Wilt Chamberlain becomes rich through voluntary exchange. Even though the basket fans become more poor, while Wilt Chamberlain becomes more rich, they are okay with it because it is what they wanted to do and in a sense they gained utility of happiness. Nozick talks about patterned principles of justice and how they only focus on the recipient role and its supposed rights, Like with the basketball player example, the fans received nothing physically, but only the mere fact to watch him play, while Wilt Chamberlain received a nice profit. The liberty upsets this pattern by