OK - would you agree that this presents us with an ethical problem?
How about a societal/practical problem? Is an unequal society sustainable?
What actions can be taken to mitigate the ethical and practical problems presented by inequality?
How about a societal/practical problem? Is an unequal society sustainable?
What actions can be taken to mitigate the ethical and practical problems presented by inequality?
My instinct is that inequality is not inherently unethical if it's a fair reflection of people's skills and/or efforts. If people are so poor that their needs are going unmet that's an ethical problem, but those people are not made any worse off by the existence of wealthy people.
> How about a societal/practical problem? Is an unequal society sustainable?
An unequal society where people still feel like they're contributing something seems to be sustainable. I think we're hitting an issue where it becomes clear that some people have essentially no ability to contribute to society, and that might be unsustainable, but I don't think we can or should turn back the technological clock to make them able to contribute. At which point we're down to handouts or make-work jobs, and while I'm all for supporting the worst off, that doesn't address the fundamental problem.
How does that work? If there are wealthy people using more than their share of resources and energy, staying wealthy on the back of other's labour (rent-seeking, capitalism), then surely the presence of those wealthy people makes resources/energy more scarce and the need to pay the excess in order to maintain the wealthy means all goods/services/resources are more costly.
If one person owns the farmland and charges rent without giving back value then all the workers must work harder than if the farm is owned cooperatively.
In practice the inequality has lead to massive unrest (eg civil war), disease, and famine time and again.
You can't honestly look back at history and consider that inequality has been anything other than a cause of immeasurable misery.
Lenin (for example) didn't walk into a prosperous, free, egalitarian country, and persuade everyone to rise up against the existing system. The inequality, poverty, and misery gave rise to people willing to listen to Lenin, and to try what he was selling.
I'm not excusing Lenin. I'm not apologizing for him. But without the existing inequality, he would have gotten no traction.