In The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, author Angus Deaton describes the ongoing struggle of progress and inequality. The essence of the book is to explain that progress itself is the reason for inequality. I found that as I read more I began to relate to some of the principles that were stated. I didn’t understand a lot of the economics behind the book but, this book allowed me to take the economic doctrines and convert them into things that I notice happening everywhere around me. While reading this book, I found three major takeaways; people are generally doing better than before, someone always gets left behind, and equal opportunity is different than equal circumstances. First, people are doing better off …show more content…
I had never thought about the difference between equal opportunity and equal circumstances. I have always heard everyone talk about equality but, until reading Dr. Deaton’s book I had never thought about the roots of equality. No one has the same set of circumstances but generally to obtain something it must be worked for. I believe that in most cases if one wants equal opportunity, they must create it for themselves. For example, I love sports, everything about them. People come from all sorts of backgrounds and circumstances because they all worked hard enough to create the opportunity to play at a competitive level. To make it to the MLB/ NBA/NFL there is no minimum parent salary or minimum education level, just athletes that outworked their circumstances. However, I think that differences in circumstances can be a main cause for inequalities. For example, my older sister and I went to the same high school where if you want to learn something, of the time you must teach yourself because the curriculum wasn’t difficult and athletics were praised more than academics. A combination of my family’s disapproval of my high school and my dad’s new job, my younger brother now gets to attend the local private school whose academics surpass my high school. My brother, in the long run, will have a higher opportunity than my sister or myself because of the education he will receive based on the progress of our family not because he outworked my sister and I. Progress created the inequality. For everyone to have equal opportunity, everyone either must have equal circumstances or must work hard enough to overcome their circumstance, equality doesn’t create
In Confronting Inequality, Paul Krugman discusses the cost of inequality and possible solutions. Krugman argues to say that it is a fantasy to believe the rich live just like the middle class. Then, he goes into detail about how middle class families struggle to try to give their children a better life and how education plays a factor in children’s future lives. For example, children’s ability to move into higher education could be affected by their parents economic status. Also, He discusses how politicians play a role in the inequality, because most of politicians are in the upper economic class. Finally, Krugman says how we could possibly have solutions to these various inequalities, but how America won’t get
Inequality, itself, may seem like an aspect that is surrounding the academic subject of history. An American economist, Paul Krugman, substantiates that inequality exists within our society through connections to several important historical movements. “One of the best arguments I’ve ever seen for the social costs came from a movement [...].” (Page 562) He implies how inferior inequality could be, and discusses why he along with a wide array of an American audience, may give some attention to its rising. Krugman makes “Confronting Inequality,” interesting, challenging, and enjoyable. This author approaches the audience by giving a powerful inception, and appealing to the senses of ethos and pathos.
“Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class.” Goodreads. Goodreads, 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
The Economist. “Inequality and the American Dream”. They Say I Say. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, Russel Durst. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print.
Briefly state the main idea of this article: The main idea of this article is that economic inequality has steadily risen in the United States between the richest people and the poorest people. And this inequality affects the people in more ways than buying power; it also affects education, life expectancy, living conditions and possibly happiness. Another idea that he brought up was that the American government tends to give less help to the unemployed than other rich countries.
Wealth inequality did not always exist in human life. In fact, “Human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past hundred years” (Carnegie 1). There used to be
Equality is about an individual’s rights, giving people choices and respect. It is about ‘creating a fairer society, where everyone can participate and has the opportunity to fulfil their potential’ (DoH, 2004).
...urces are unfairly distributed with whites having more access to positive resources and blacks having more access to environmental crises, equality is the best solution. This means that resource access needs to be equal in the end, requiring rich, white communities to take on more environmental crises while poor, black communities take on more positive environmental resources. It also means that white communities will have to make sacrifices to ensure access to resources for black communities. Absolute equality may not be the answer for everything. Absolute income equality, cultural equality, or class equality, for example, would result in a disastrously boring and redundant world. The environment, however, is different. Each living human has an inherent right as living beings on this Earth to absolute equal access to its resources, blind of any consideration of race.
In the first section, I will examine how the thinkers Aristotle, Locke, and Rousseau have addressed the causes of inequality. Aristotle suspects that luck and nature play an important role in social inequalities, Locke attributes natural endowments among individuals to their product of labor which produce inequality but is also legally protected through private property, while Rousseau similarly considered natural advantages that lead to slight disparities which accumulate over time and manifest as inequality. Next, I will identify issues that arise from inequality. Issues stemming from inequality including negative externalities such as crime, lower overall productivity, and decreased economic growth make explicit the importance and benefits of reducing inequality from an economic standpoint. Mitigating the natural differences or luck that also generate inequality is an ethical imperative and a political ideal that may be akin to equal opportunity. The rational actor pursuing self-interest should also be charitable and the tradition of virtue ethics provides a nor...
Frank, Robert H. “Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore.” They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter
Inequality is a sensitive part of our society. Discrimination and prejudice due to race and ethnicity, class, and gender keep minorities from opportunities in their life. Through these articles, you may understand how an ascribed status impacts individuals’ probabilities to make progress in life. An individual who does not have the “preferred” ascribed status may expect the need to overcome obstacles. However, success is still not promised to those who work hard and overcome their obstacles. The American Dream is to be successful through merit and determination but in order to reach success you must have the means to success that are not available to everybody. Based on these articles, Dr. Rice’s argument is false cause, which does not take additional factors into consideration, and is not based upon a sociological imagination.
It is also important to note that if we construe of resources more broadly, we can amend equality views to encompass factors that adequacy views do. By doing this, we can minimize a perceived gap between equality and adequacy theories. This has implications for education reform and policy making as well.
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.
Horace Mann, an advocate of American public education declared that "education...beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery…It does better than to disarm the poor of hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor."(Mann 3) All americans do not see education as being equal. Several different views come into place when equal opportunity is thought. Some factors like, finance, environment, a social background may play a part. When looking at public schools, elementary and high school are free for all who wants to attend, except when pursuing a college degree, the responsibility lies on the student. Paying for college is not always an option when thinking about all the other responsibilities in life. Another factor may be there are not enough qualified teachers, resources, and funds that are available through government resources to obtain a good education. Whatever the reason, we must do our part. Education can be a "great equalizer" if curriculum’s was designed to fits the need in all communities.
As we prosper through time, inequality is slowly less evident. A lot of people don't realize that although things are improving with time, inequality is still prominent in our society. The people that are failing to realize that there still is inequality, are the fortunate ones. They rise well above the poverty line, and usually live relatively economically sound lives. They are the people who are supplied with our society's benefits.