Is economic inequality bad in itself?

[Hobbes42]

Which is probably why income inequality decreased until the 1960’s with the Great Society Programs, at which point it began increasing.

 

[ishii]

That is because in America, unhealthy processed food is cheaper than healthy food. What do you do when you’re a homeless, insulin-dependent diabetic, and all that is being donated to the shelters for distribution is donuts and sandwiches and similar high-carb high-sugar items? For the working poor, when people have two jobs and children to care for and no spouse, they don’t necessarily have time to cook healthy food from scratch; and healthy prepackaged dinners are expensive. So they buy junk, because that’s what they can afford.

The dynamics of poverty are different in America than in third world countries. That does NOT make American poverty unreal.

I think education is a factor as well. And bad decisions. If you have two jobs, no spouse, and children (not including widows/widowers), then you probably made some poor decisions in life which brought you to this point. Healthy food - veggies, meat, etc. is cheaper than the processed stuff. But you have to know how to prepare it and have the energy to do so.

Ishii

 

[RPRPsych]

This is an interesting thread.

Without wanting to side with any political faction (I’m basically un-political, except when a politician annoys me ), I think we need to draw a line between “absolute” and “relative” poverty - to borrow a term from medical historian James Le Fanu.

Here are two examples:

1. In India, the gap between the rich and the poor makes a huge difference in terms of whether one or not you’ll even live. Though there are “welfare programmes”, many of these reduce to strategically-timed handouts before elections. Most poor people genuinely cannot afford the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter, and are at a higher risk of dying from infectious diseases, death during childbirth or in infancy, malnutrition and so on. The government compounds this by selling low-cost liquor in most places, effectively depriving many families of breadwinners. In such cases, we can genuinely speak of “absolute poverty”.
2. In a typical developed country (I’m avoiding examples because I don’t want this to become a “neo-cons vs. liberals” debate), though the gap may be numerically large, there is some sort of a safety net in place. Most “poor” people (in numerical terms) would have access to facilities and opportunities that the poor in India (or say Bangladesh or Pakistan) could only dream of. Their absolute risk of developing malnutrition, dying of infections during childbirth, or succumbing to diarrhoea or pneumonia during childhood is low. A lot of the mortality risk in such cases is related to subcultural behavioural patterns - violence, substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, diet, and so on. (Put another way, a “poor” person in such country may die young, but it would be of a heroin overdose or AIDS, not tuberculosis or haemorrhage following childbirth). In such cases, a better term would be “relative poverty”.

This is a simplistic analysis, but it still has the merit of avoiding even more simplistic - and sterile - “rich vs. poor” debates. Some degree of inequality is inevitable, even for those of us who are comfortably off (there is a ceiling on how much I can earn as a government-employed physician, and I’m not complaining! ), but reducing the debate to simple economic inequality is dangerous. Sometimes what seems helpful (such as socialism-inspired “income” or “affirmative action” programmes) can actually do a lot of harm.

And having said that, I now leave the floor to Pope Francis.

 

[Tony_the_mad]

With Pope Francis being in the news denouncing economic inequality, could someone please explain to me if/how economic inequality is bad in itself? I believe the context the Pope was speaking of was like the second one I mentioned but still, I’d love some context and information on this.

Let’s say for example, one person makes a nice income of $80,000 a year and is able to meet all of their needs, those of their family, etc. And another person makes $80,000,000 what is so wrong with this picture? I just don’t see why this inequality is bad in itself, if it is.

I can understand more of a controversy if someone makes next to nothing, can barely get by, and scraps to provide for their family IF they even can, while someone else is making tons and tons of money.

But is economic inequality bad in and of itself? If so, why and on what basis?

Thanks for the interesting question. Too bad, most of the responses so far have been sidetracked by a ridiculous fight over whether or not the poor in our developed world are poor enough.

The short answer to your question is that income inequality is not by itself bad. A certain amount of income inequality is almost inevitable. Christianity and the Gospel in particular is little concerned with such issues of social justice; only of personal responsibility. Christianity, grew up powerless. The first Christians accepted whatever role they were given in society. For ‘in Christ there is neither slave nor free’.

There are a lot of warnings by Christ about being a rich man, though. “Woe to you who have your fill…” “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” “You cannot serve both God and riches.” “More will be expected by those for whom more was given.”

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is particularly poignant. The rich man did not go to hell for disobeying the commandments. Too many on this board would have the rich man say to Father Abraham 'but Lazarus wasn’t that poor; he didn’t die of starvation after all. He never worked a day in his life. And, he had the dogs to lick his wounds. Surely, he was not poor enough that I needed to do something to help someone so lazy."

But, I digress, Christianity is not concerned with income inequality, per se. Nor do I think that was what our Pope was trying to say. It is also true that Christianity is not against slavery per se. The Gospel never truly anticipated Christians being in charge of whether or how much income inequality should be tolerated or whether or not slavery should be tolerated.

What the Pope is complaining about is not that income inequality exists, but that there are a group of people who live in poverty and have very little ways to get out of it. The inequality gap has continued to rise for decades and the mobility between classes has decreased substantially.

But the real problem is not even that. (And I hope that our Pope would agree.) Christians have lived is such conditions before when they were not in charge. And where Christians are not in charge, I think the Pope would remind them and us that ‘blessed are the poor…’. To be poor in the Church is to be blessed.

The real problem, is that we Christians are at least ostensibly in charge, and that WE like the rich man with Lazarus at his doorstep have chosen to do nothing. We make up excuses and justify our lack of action through twisted logic; logic that somehow only applies to the poor and not to us or any of the privileged in our society. We deny that Lazarus has leprosy or do not see his leprosy or blame him for it rather to seek out a cure.

There is nothing wrong with income inequality. What may be wrong, is how we chose to respond or not respond to the poor who are created by that inequality.

 

[GEddie]

Thanks for the interesting question. Too bad, most of the responses so far have been sidetracked by a ridiculous fight over whether or not the poor in our developed world are poor enough.

The short answer to your question is that income inequality is not by itself bad. A certain amount of income inequality is almost inevitable. Christianity and the Gospel in particular is little concerned with such issues of social justice; only of personal responsibility. Christianity, grew up powerless. The first Christians accepted whatever role they were given in society. For ‘in Christ there is neither slave nor free’.

There are a lot of warnings by Christ about being a rich man, though. “Woe to you who have your fill…” “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” “You cannot serve both God and riches.” “More will be expected by those for whom more was given.”

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is particularly poignant. The rich man did not go to hell for disobeying the commandments. Too many on this board would have the rich man say to Father Abraham 'but Lazarus wasn’t that poor; he didn’t die of starvation after all. He never worked a day in his life. And, he had the dogs to lick his wounds. Surely, he was not poor enough that I needed to do something to help someone so lazy."

But, I digress, Christianity is not concerned with income inequality, per se. Nor do I think that was what our Pope was trying to say. It is also true that Christianity is not against slavery per se. The Gospel never truly anticipated Christians being in charge of whether or how much income inequality should be tolerated or whether or not slavery should be tolerated.

What the Pope is complaining about is not that income inequality exists, but that there are a group of people who live in poverty and have very little ways to get out of it. The inequality gap has continued to rise for decades and the mobility between classes has decreased substantially.

But the real problem is not even that. (And I hope that our Pope would agree.) Christians have lived is such conditions before when they were not in charge. And where Christians are not in charge, I think the Pope would remind them and us that ‘blessed are the poor…’. To be poor in the Church is to be blessed.

The real problem, is that we Christians are at least ostensibly in charge, and that WE like the rich man with Lazarus at his doorstep have chosen to do nothing. We make up excuses and justify our lack of action through twisted logic; logic that somehow only applies to the poor and not to us or any of the privileged in our society. We deny that Lazarus has leprosy or do not see his leprosy or blame him for it rather to seek out a cure.

There is nothing wrong with income inequality. What may be wrong, is how we chose to respond or not respond to the poor who are created by that inequality.

The issue is not even whether Christianity is or is not “in charge”.

None of us, as human beings are individually in charge of the world. But we live our lives as individuals, and we go to Purgatory as individuals. The relative positions of our nation or our Church in the global magic-square does not determine how we live our human life.

Consider the other rich man with his silos, who died during the night. He was not in “charge” of Israel or Jerusalem, or anything but his silos. But that alone was enough to make him accountable to those around him, as well as to God.

ICXC NIKA

 

[JB_Dugan]

Which is probably why income inequality decreased until the 1960’s with the Great Society Programs, at which point it began increasing.

Exactly!

Let us also not forget the “War on Poverty” that has spent $ BILLIONS to reduce poverty and has managed to INCREASE it.

 

[Origen52]

Oh, I get it - instead of dealing with the substance of my question and have a discussion, etc, you engage in a personal attack. Wish I’d known that earlier, then I would not have wasted my time trying to engage in conversation with you.

There is nothing anyone can say to change your mind. You’ve decided the poor, at least in the US, are poor because they’re lazy. I pointed out that someone working a 40 hour week grosses about $17k, you claim that they’re doing well, even if they have to get second jobs because they’re better off than the poor in third world countries who need to scavenge in garbage dumps. You will not even concede that someone who works 40 hours + a week is 1. Not lazy 2, poor. So yes, you’re right every poor person in America is lazy. Do you feel better now?

 

[Origen52]

So what you’re saying is… "Poster X makes a point contrary to my point Y. I shall now engage in histrionics and accuse any and ALL who differ of being disloyal to His Holiness! "because obviously, you talked to the Pope Himself and can explain to us “neocon” Catholics the truth and clarity of Pope Francis as explained by Origen

I should not have to explain Pope Francis, he’s very clear in his condemnation of the economic policies which have guided the U.S. in the last thirty years. His condemnation is not political, both democrats and republicans have bought into supply-side economics and the commodification of workers.

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.** This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power **and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed”

 

[freeRadical]

Consider that the $80,000,000 could provide medical care, food, clothing, etc. for more than 1,900 families on $40k, and still leave $1m per year for the rich person. I don’t see income inequality as the problem, but rather the extreme greed that we are seeing. Let me ask you, is $1m per year enough to live on very comfortably? If so, then why not provide for others with the remaining $79m?

You’re assuming that they guy is putting the $80,000,000 under his mattress and sitting on it. Most rich people don’t “hoard” their wealth, they save and invest it. Saving and investing are vital components of economic growth. Without saving and investing, the economy would grind to a halt. Which is exactly what we are starting to see in the US right now. No one is saving or investing because of the FED keeping interest rates artificially low. What if the guy making $80,000,000 a year only lives on $100,000 a year and saves or invests the rest of it. Is he still greedy?

People still believe the old Keynesian fallacy that consumer spending grows the economy, it doesn’t, as the last 8 years has shown us. Rising productivity, through saving and investment, is the true engine of economic growth. The FED needs to stop printing that funny money and start encouraging saving and investing by raising the interest rate.

 

[JB_Dugan]

I should not have to explain Pope Francis, he’s very clear in his condemnation of the economic policies which have guided the U.S. in the last thirty years. His condemnation is not political, both democrats and republicans have bought into supply-side economics and the commodification of workers.

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.** This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power **and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed”

I can’t seem to put my finger on what His Holiness is saying.

Is he telling us to do something or is he just criticizing the free market?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I can’t seem to put my finger on what His Holiness is saying.

Is he telling us to do something or is he just criticizing the free market?

Perhaps it will help to look at the rest of that section of the Exhortation, which follows the portion that Origen52 quoted:

Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us some- thing new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.

 

[frobert]

You be the Judge
It shouldn’t be hard to find the county that takes top honors
Maybe the fact the top 2 countries speak English has something to do with

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Thanks for the interesting question. Too bad, most of the responses so far have been sidetracked by a ridiculous fight over whether or not the poor in our developed world are poor enough.

The short answer to your question is that income inequality is not by itself bad. A certain amount of income inequality is almost inevitable. Christianity and the Gospel in particular is little concerned with such issues of social justice; only of personal responsibility. Christianity, grew up powerless. The first Christians accepted whatever role they were given in society. For ‘in Christ there is neither slave nor free’.

There are a lot of warnings by Christ about being a rich man, though. “Woe to you who have your fill…” “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” “You cannot serve both God and riches.” “More will be expected by those for whom more was given.”

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is particularly poignant. The rich man did not go to hell for disobeying the commandments. Too many on this board would have the rich man say to Father Abraham 'but Lazarus wasn’t that poor; he didn’t die of starvation after all. He never worked a day in his life. And, he had the dogs to lick his wounds. Surely, he was not poor enough that I needed to do something to help someone so lazy."

But, I digress, Christianity is not concerned with income inequality, per se. Nor do I think that was what our Pope was trying to say. It is also true that Christianity is not against slavery per se. The Gospel never truly anticipated Christians being in charge of whether or how much income inequality should be tolerated or whether or not slavery should be tolerated.

What the Pope is complaining about is not that income inequality exists, but that there are a group of people who live in poverty and have very little ways to get out of it. The inequality gap has continued to rise for decades and the mobility between classes has decreased substantially.

But the real problem is not even that. (And I hope that our Pope would agree.) Christians have lived is such conditions before when they were not in charge. And where Christians are not in charge, I think the Pope would remind them and us that ‘blessed are the poor…’. To be poor in the Church is to be blessed.

The real problem, is that we Christians are at least ostensibly in charge, and that WE like the rich man with Lazarus at his doorstep have chosen to do nothing. We make up excuses and justify our lack of action through twisted logic; logic that somehow only applies to the poor and not to us or any of the privileged in our society. We deny that Lazarus has leprosy or do not see his leprosy or blame him for it rather to seek out a cure.

There is nothing wrong with income inequality. What may be wrong, is how we chose to respond or not respond to the poor who are created by that inequality.

Right. Francis is striving for equality of opportunity, which he stresses several time in his exhortation, not equality of results imposed by governmental fiat. Greater equality is the inevitable end result of the application of the actual social teaching of the Church, it is not achieved via forced outcome equality by confiscatory governmental redistribution schemes.

Regarding the actual social teaching of the Church, Francis urges (#184) the reading of Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church which rejects collectivism, class warfare, and dependency on government entitlements, and stresses individual and collective initiative, education, competition, reasonable profit, and regulated capitalism.

It should be remembered that Francis is from a South American country and has never been to the USA. His economic comments reflect the conditions there. When the Spanish pulled out of South America the wealthiest elites controlled almost all the wealth and the means of production and jealously keep them for themselves. The poor are truly excluded from any upward mobility through individual initiative. No. 53 clearly relates to South America.

Re inequality Rerum Novarum (17) makes an interesting point: “It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialists may in that intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition.”

 

[ishii]

You be the Judge
It shouldn’t be hard to find the county that takes top honors
Maybe the fact the top 2 countries speak English has something to do with

Japan is so happy from its equality that it has the highest (by far) suicide rate among the countries being compared. I guess equality leads to high levels of unhappiness. In other words, take this study with a large grain of sale.

Ishii

 

[ishii]

There is nothing anyone can say to change your mind. You’ve decided the poor, at least in the US, are poor because they’re lazy. I pointed out that someone working a 40 hour week grosses about $17k, you claim that they’re doing well, even if they have to get second jobs because they’re better off than the poor in third world countries who need to scavenge in garbage dumps. You will not even concede that someone who works 40 hours + a week is 1. Not lazy 2, poor. So yes, you’re right every poor person in America is lazy. Do you feel better now?

Well, to change minds, you have to be willing to have a conversation, instead of engaging in ad hominems. Then you attribute to me things said by other posters. But you don’t seem interested in having much of a conversation.

I am happy to have a civil discussion with you, Origen, but you will have to refrain from the ad hominems and false attributions.
I will give it another try, Origen-

There is much opportunity in America - such that people from all over the world spend huge sums of money and take risks, leave families, to come here and take advantage of the opportunities. One of the benefits or priviledges are 12 years of free eduction. There are also very reasonable community colleges that people can take advantage of to learn skills to help find good jobs. Now, if one finds themselves poor and unable to find a good job, then that is in spite of all of these opportunities then one has to look at why, in spite of these opportunities, they were unable to find success. Why do you think that is? Why are some people unable to take advantage of all the opportunities that are available to Americans?

Ishii

 

[frobert]

Japan is so happy from its equality that it has the highest (by far) suicide rate among the countries being compared. I guess equality leads to high levels of unhappiness. In other words, take this study with a large grain of sale.

Ishii

The study is a correlational study, correlation does not prove causation it is only suggestive. So you are correct that you should take it with a grain of salt

But you also are making a common mistake that when there is not a perfect correlation then the whole study is questionable. It is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater because the bathwater is now dirty. Even the greatest athletes sometimes loose at their game so I guess think that are just lucky when they win.

This study suggests that are quite a few grains of salt perhaps a whole salt mine in its favor.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

You be the Judge
It shouldn’t be hard to find the county that takes top honors
Maybe the fact the top 2 countries speak English has something to do with . . .

Regarding inequality, the income inequality between my doctor and Steve Jobs just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Income inequality in and of itself is meaningless. The crucial issues are poverty and inequality of opportunity.

And, as I mentioned before, greater equality is the inevitable end result of the application of the actual social teaching of the Church, it is not achieved via forced outcome equality by confiscatory governmental redistribution schemes.

Regarding the actual social teaching of the Church, Francis urges (#184) the reading of Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church which rejects collectivism, class warfare, and dependency on government entitlements, and private ownership of property and the means of production, stresses individual and collective initiative, entrepreneurial ability, education, competition, legitimacy of profit, and regulated capitalism.

Regarding inequality, lest we fall into a Harrison Bergeron world, a good reading of Rerum Novarum (17) helps: “It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialists may in that intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition.”

 

[frobert]

Regarding inequality, the income inequality between my doctor and Steve Jobs just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Income inequality in and of itself is meaningless. The crucial issues are poverty and inequality of opportunity.

And, as I mentioned before, greater equality is the inevitable end result of the application of the actual social teaching of the Church, it is not achieved via forced outcome equality by confiscatory governmental redistribution schemes.

Regarding the actual social teaching of the Church, Francis urges (#184) the reading of Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church which rejects collectivism, class warfare, and dependency on government entitlements, and private ownership of property and the means of production, stresses individual and collective initiative, entrepreneurial ability, education, competition, legitimacy of profit, and regulated capitalism.

Regarding inequality, lest we fall into a Harrison Bergeron world, a good reading of Rerum Novarum (17) helps: “It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialists may in that intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition.”

By quoting the study I was not making a value judgement but it does show correlates of inequality. The study does not claim to investigate how the 6 countries got to the levels of inequality that they are at or that inequality is the causative factor. That would be a question for economics. I am a avid reader of economics and believe I have a decent grasp of various economic systems so I could make some educated guesses on how the US reached such a high level of inequality but that would be for another forum.

 

[frobert]

Regarding inequality, the income inequality between my doctor and Steve Jobs just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Income inequality in and of itself is meaningless. The crucial issues are poverty and inequality of opportunity.
"

The study simply shows the correlates of inequality. In the last sentence I pointed to, well suggested, that speaking English is also a correlate of inequality.

You are correct that the issue is poverty and inequality of opportunity.

Government policy has a direct effect on who has opportunity perhaps the question should be “is government policy that favors inequality bad.”

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

The study simply shows the correlates of inequality. In the last sentence I pointed to, well suggested, that speaking English is also a correlate of inequality.

You are correct that the issue is poverty and inequality of opportunity.

Government policy has a direct effect on who has opportunity perhaps the question should be “is government policy that favors inequality bad.”

Wait . . . you mean, then, the question should be “Is government policy that favors inequality of opportunity bad?” Right?