Inequality Is Not Injustice
The facts are plain to see. Inequality – the disparity between the haves and the have-nots – is massive and growing.
I read today that in Australia during the years of 2005 and 2006, the top 20% of households in that country held around 61 per cent of total household wealth, with an average net worth of $1.7 million per household. In comparison, the poorest 20% of households in Australia had an average net worth of $27,000 – with only about 1% of Australia’s total household wealth concentrated in that group.
Oh Noes!
When you take that fact, and then consider that the 225 richest people in the world have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion – which is equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 per cent – you might get the idea that there’s something wrong. Things aren’t equal. Oh noes!
What’s worse is that the poorest countries in the world are themselves becoming more unequal, if you believe the World Bank’s report that 78% of poor countries between 1990 and 2004 experienced a growth in inequality. Over the same period, an extra 60 million people were living on less than $1 a day in sub-Saharan Africa.
Is that fair?
A survey was recently completed by a Japanese news network that revealed 72% of the Japanese respondents “sense economic disparity.” This is sad, because the Japanese educational system is held up as a model for the rest of the world, and 28% of the Japanese respondents were either idiots or too wrapped up in their anime-tentacle-rape-porn to think clearly. I expected better from Japan.
From the report:
Seventy-two percent of Japanese believe economic wealth is not distributed fairly, according to an opinion poll of people in 20 countries conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun in conjunction with the BBC.
Only 16 percent of Japanese respondents said they believed wealth was distributed fairly.
The French were the least content with the distribution of wealth, with 84 percent saying it was unfair. France was followed by Russia and Turkey (both 77 percent), Germany (76 percent) and the Philippines (74 percent).
With Japan sixth on the list, it is clear the public strongly perceives a disparity between rich and poor.
A majority of people in 17 of the 20 nations saw the distribution of wealth as unfair. In the United States, 41 percent said the distribution was fair, and 55 percent said it was unfair. In Britain, the figures were 39 percent and 57 percent, respectively, and in China, 44 percent and 49 percent.
The country with the most people believing the distribution of wealth to be fair was Australia, with 64 percent.
Canada also had a majority – 58 percent – that believed the distribution was fair, as did India, with 44 percent responding it was fair and 27 percent saying the spread of wealth was unfair.
I would imagine that the people who responded to that poll with the feelings that the distribution of wealth is unfair would like to see that wealth distributed more evenly. When asked why they feel that they were entitled to a portion of that wealth, I’m sure that they’d explain that the inequality of wealth was inherently unjust.
I came across a very interesting post by an individual who adores Marxism and the general idea of fixing the inequality of injustice by ripping from the haves and re-dispersing those gains to the have-nots. Here is a sample:
The reality is that all wealth, or value as Marx called it, is created by labour. Workers, who don’t own or control any of the means of production – the machinery, buildings etc. – have to sell their ability to labour to those who do, the capitalists. For this they get a wage. But the capitalist gets more value out of workers’ labour than the wages paid to them – this is where profits come from, and is what Marxists mean by exploitation.
In other words, there aren’t just some who are rich and some who aren’t, the rich get rich at our expense. It is our work that produces all the wealth, but it is those who don’t work, the capitalists, who get to own, control and pocket the vast majority of that wealth. It is this class division that is the basis for all inequality.
Mr. CEO makes a million dollars a year, which is 20 times what his average worker makes during that same year. Is that unfair? Yes! Is it injust? Not unless he’s got those workers chained to a desk.
Ever heard this exchange before?
That’s not fair!
Life’s not fair.
You know what? They’re both right.
We live in a rational world. Because we live in a rational world, we’re not equal. There’s no way around it, really.
Everyone I know has differences. Everyone you know has differences.
Everyone has different talents and weaknesses. Everyone has different tolerances for hard work. We all have different backgrounds. We all have different lifestyle choices.
We all have something different that we bring to the table. That’s just how it is, and it will not ever change.
Ever.
Because everyone has something different that they bring to the table, everyone takes away from the table in a different way. Some will walk away with more than others. That’s just how it is.
Is that unfair? Sure.
Is it injustice? Not a chance.
Tiger Woods hits a golf ball a lot better than I do. As a result, Tiger Woods has made a billion dollars. Do I wish I had a billion dollars? Hell yeah! Is it unfair that he has a billion dollars and I don’t? YES! Is it injustice? Well, no. He had a talent, was in the right place at the right time, and is walking away from the table with a hell of a lot of money.
I’m colorblind. That’s not fair. It’s kept me from doing a lot of things I’ve wanted to do. I’ll never be called upon to defuse a bomb left on a bus, especially if it has green and red wires. Is it an injustice? No, that’s just the way it is.
Donald Trump was born to a family that had a lot more resources than my family did. Totally not fair. Unjust? No.
That dude in his wheelchair, rolling around outside, was born with no legs. I can walk. Not fair. Injustice? No.
It’s not an injustice that Kobe Bryant is taller than me. It’s not an injustice that you have to wear glasses and other people have 20/20 vision. It’s not an injustice if you are born poor, or black, or female. It is not an injustice if you have a handicap, or if you are afflicted with a terminal health condition.
I bet that there were a whole lot of people working at General Motors who looked over at Toyota and felt that the situation was unfair. Toyota outproduced General Motors. Toyota had better, more reliable cars. They sold more of those cars that General Motors and took in massive profits that seemed to elude General Motors.
Would it correct the inequality to take Toyota’s profits and give them to General Motors? Yes. Would that be unjust? Yes.
Injustice is when someone takes something that they did not earn. Injustice is knocking down the successful in order to make the unsuccessful happier. Injustice is more and more popular nowadays and it won’t end well, but not for the people who hope to gain from it.
