Stigliz's Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Social inequality has been around for as a long as history can recall. However, according to Joseph Stigliz, it was created by us and did not just appear. As we delve into the history of social inequality, several things stand out to the great economist Joseph stiglitz. In order for Stigliz to portray how inequality is alive today, he uses primarily the rhetorical analysis technique logos and a little ethos to explain how rent seeking causes inequality in many countries including our own.
The main point that Stigliz wants to point out is that rent seeking is what is causing inequality. He uses logos, specifically product characteristics, to explain rent seeking “rent seeking takes many forms: hidden and open tranfers and subsidies from the government, laws that make the marketplace less competitive, lax enforcement of existing competitions laws…”(598). This is logos because it gives the specifics of rent seeking and all its forms. This is effective because it shows a logical structure and states what is going on. To explain his point that rent seeking is what causes inequality, he uses product characteristics.

One form is wealth transfer. Stiglitz uses ethos by bringing up an historical event that is used for his point of wealth transfers. He uses the railroad barons of the nineteenth century. The railroad barons contributed to society by building railroads however “much of their wealth was the result of their political influence-getting large government land grants on either side of the railway”(598). They gained their wealth from power and wealth they already had. While this example is an historical event, which is logos, it is also a hidden ethos. By using this example and by his tone of writing, he grabs onto your sense of what it right and what is wrong and effectively creates a sense of his