en English

Should We Really Care About Inequality?

Videos Apr 18, 2018 Jason Furman

The view that inequality hurts economic growth is gaining currency among policymakers. But those guiding an economy should focus on assessing outcomes and modes of distribution rather than on a puzzle that will never fully be solved.

BLACK FRIDAY SALE: Subscribe for as little as $34.99

Subscribe now to gain access to insights and analyses from the world’s leading thinkers – starting at just $34.99 for your first year.

Subscribe Now

Featured

What Donald Trump’s Return Means for the World

What Donald Trump’s Return Means for the World

Nov 12, 2024 Ian Bremmer
America Must Stand Up to Asia's Bully

America Must Stand Up to Asia's Bully

Nov 13, 2024 Brahma Chellaney
Putin’s March of Folly

Putin’s March of Folly

Nov 20, 2024 Carl Bildt
The Deal Trump Should Offer China

The Deal Trump Should Offer China

Nov 21, 2024 Todd G. Buchholz
Elon Musk’s $2 Trillion Fiscal Fantasy

Elon Musk’s $2 Trillion Fiscal Fantasy

Nov 21, 2024 Jeffrey Frankel

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 4 Comments on this article

Enrique Woll Battistini Apr 23, 2018

Extreme, and even simply visible inequality, however stable or variable, is indeed the most threatening problem facing humanity today, and will likely remain one even if and when it is finally tamed, and reduced, unless harnessed, and constructively exploited, for the common good, given that due to its different but obvious degrees of unfairness and material and emotional impact, as the case may be, penetrating of all social goals and aspirations, it will always constitute a negative motivational value, capable of dangerously inflaming the affected layers of society, when perceived as fixed and immutable, which will likely always be the case for a significant minority of the have nots, much like the common star gazer of all times has perceived them.

That the "Recent stock market sell-off foreshadows a new Great Recession" in the U.S. as foreseen by professors Steven Pressman of Colorado State University and Robert H. Scott III of Monmouth University in their article of March 19, 2018 in THE CONVERSATION, may very well be. The question is, what can be done to prevent it, or to stem it, where, how, and on what scale? In my view, the world can no longer solve its most pressing problems -threatening anthropogenic climate disruption and global warming and universal income polarization with extreme inequality- on a piecemeal, national, and country by country basis, when the world's real economies -the U.S., China, the EU, and Russia- are globalized. Clearly, acceleration of socioeconomic inclusion and concerted investment for development to make it possible must be envisioned and constructed on a global scale without further delay. At the crux of world peace, and planetary rescue, would be tax reform, via Sole Consumption Tax (SCT), that would enable eradication of absolute extreme poverty and relative extreme poverty, through regular income redistribution ensuring the attainment of autonomous survival with increasing welfare potential for the poorest, that would irreversibly approach that of the richest, voluntary population stabilization, voluntary production and consumption stabilization, and carbon emissions stabilization.

http://www.academia.edu/35598052/Rudderless_Leadership_and_the_Potentially_Explosive_Problem_of_Inequality_-_2017121701

https://www.academia.edu/36348091/THE_CONVERSATION_-_Recent_stock_market_sell-off_foreshadows_a_new_Great_Recession_-_My_opinion_-_2018031901
- Enrique Woll Battistini Apr 23, 2018
  
  All socioeconomic indices, both macro and micro or per-capita, are, or should be, important determinants of socioeconomic policies, but, clearly, per-capita indices, such as average income, consumption, education, health, inequality, happiness, life expectancy, and similar, and their extremes in specific populations should be critical inputs in the formulation of such policies, especially tax policy, if they are to achieve monotonically increasing growth to enable eradication of absolute extreme poverty and relative extreme poverty, through regular income redistribution ensuring the attainment of autonomous survival with increasing welfare potential for the poorest, that would irreversibly approach that of the richest, voluntary population stabilization, voluntary production and consumption stabilization, and carbon emissions stabilization.
  
  The world the baby boomer generation's grandparents knew as children has been obliterated by a century of recurring monstrous wars, concurrent with exponentially increasing revolutionary scientific and technological discoveries and inventions, and massive economic, social, political, and legal changes which for many signify development. These changes have occurred in a stark and pervasive moral and ethical vacuum, in the context of unconscionable, unsustainable, and monotonically increasing welfare disparities between the rich and the poor. The world as we know it now is at the historical fork between the threshold of recovery and the brink of a new conflagration, indeed at a very promising and very threatening tipping point, and begging for drastic global financial, economic, and social redress, which only the most comprehensive multilateral and national governance reforms that would redefine the social contracts in the East and the West, the North and the South, and between them, could satisfy. Some of the more evident issues in need of holistic attention are addressed herein.
  
  https://www.academia.edu/23946856/Facebook_-_Staving_off_the_impending_effects_of_unemployment_through_increased_consumption_2013031903
  
  https://www.academia.edu/23094646/OFA_-_At_the_Brink_of_Recovery_or_Conflagration_The_World_at_a_Tipping_Point_2011111506
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
nigel southway Apr 19, 2018

The video was bad... better in a formal paper.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

https://prosyn.org/TWIlDJi

Should We Really Care About Inequality?

BLACK FRIDAY SALE: Subscribe for as little as $34.99

Featured

What Donald Trump’s Return Means for the World

America Must Stand Up to Asia's Bully

Putin’s March of Folly

The Deal Trump Should Offer China

Elon Musk’s $2 Trillion Fiscal Fantasy

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

Log in/Register

Should We Really Care About Inequality?

BLACK FRIDAY SALE: Subscribe for as little as $34.99

Featured

Edit Newsletter Preferences

Set up Notification