Over the years i’ve spent a lot of time thinking, reading, etc. about economic inequality. This talk (ted) is amazing, and in a sense it comes down to this chart, which answers a key question: what is income inequality correlated with?
So we now know that income inequality has high social costs, or to say it in a more technical way inequality is negatively correlated with social welfare. I don’t know that that would surprise most people. A society where the lower classes are more distant from the upper classes is going to have greater social stress – at least I don’t see that as surprising.
But what else is income inequality correlated with? There is a very scary possibility: That inequality drives greater economic growth. Not hard to make up an insta-theory for that: e.g. that the social gradient drives people to strive, and this drives significant economic growth.
That would be really horrific. A Hobson’ choice: pick one economic growth v.s. social well being. Societies that grow faster carry their social norms carried along with them. They become the standard.
Which is why it’s a very important question. And you’d think there would be libraries full of research on this question. There is not. Pick your insta-theory for why that is. As far as I can tell the data seems to suggest that growth and inequality are largely related. But, it is very frustrating not to be sure.
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Maybe ‘growth’ is measured in a way that counts all the productive activities of fixing social ills.
Michele’s organization has a new marketing director, and they’ve started saying things like ‘when we roll out our new product line, the drug rehab facilities…’
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