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Income inequality in America has been growing rapidly, and is expected to increase [PDF]. While the widening wealth gap is a hot topic in the media and on the campaign trail, there's quite a disconnect between the perceptions of economists and those of the general public.
For instance, surveys show people tend to underestimate the income disparity between the top and bottom 20% of Americans, and overestimate the opportunity for poor individuals to climb the social ladder. Additionally, a majority of adults believe that corporations conduct business fairly despite evidence to the contrary and that the government should not act to reduce income inequality.
Even though inequality is increasing, Americans seem to believe that our social and economic systems work exactly as they should. This perspective has intrigued social scientists for decades. My colleague Andrei Cimpian and I have demonstrated in our recent research that these beliefs that our society is fair and just may take root in the first years of life, stemming from our fundamental desire to explain the world around us.
http://theconversation.com/lifes-not-fair-so-why-do-we-assume-it-is-45981
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday September 10 2015, @07:04PM
Western civilizations have economic inequality since their very inception, and more or less political inequality (depending on the times) for just as long.
When was the last time we saw pitchforks?
You are far more likely to see pitchforks (or Kalashnikovs) where there is not even a pretense of a possibility for change, such as kingdoms or dictatorships.
TFS suggests inequality is increasing. But since we have had this situation for something approaching 400 years, it would seem that maximum inequality would have already been reached a long time ago.
Inequality, as perceived by the cited SJW website, seems to boil down to the size of a bank account or the pay check. Sometimes CEO earnings (in cash) are over 400:1 of the median wage [payscale.com] in the same company. The actual US average is probably closer to 20:1 for fortune 10000 companies and probably a national average of 10:1 when you crank in small business.
To postulate that this will continuously get more lopsided until pitchforks come out, suggests you believe that people will work for almost free, and the only ones making any money will be the CEOs. This of course is nonsense.
In short, we don't use either pitchforks or Kalashnikovs much any more. We use ballot boxes and government actions, and strikes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/business/dealbook/sec-approves-rule-on-ceo-pay-ratio.html [nytimes.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/nyregion/push-to-lift-hourly-pay-is-now-serious-business.html [nytimes.com]
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/0415/Fast-food-workers-Why-more-strikes-over-15-minimum-wage-video [csmonitor.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2015, @08:19PM
Western civilizations have economic inequality since their very [inceptions]
The Shakers (starting before the American Revolution), The Paris Commune of 1871, Barcelona in 1936 - 1937, Mondragon since 1956, the village of Marinaleda in Spain, and thousands of worker cooperatives across northern Italy all say that you are painfully ignorant in assuming that gross economic inequality is a natural and necessary state of affairs.
400 years
You have forgotten centuries of Feudalism and the slave economies which preceded that.
400:1
You left out Larry Ellison, with whom it was 5000:1.
sec-approves-rule-on-ceo-pay-ratio
Window dressing. Nothing fundamentally changed.
The corps simply have to add that line to their reports.
...and the ruling should have included compensation for members of the boards of directors as well.
In Switzerland, OTOH, they had a referendum that would have capped the ration at 12:1.
A well-played propaganda campaign by the elites convinced Swiss workers to vote against themselves.
The line about USAians seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires (often attributed to John Steinbeck) seems to apply to the Swiss as well.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday September 10 2015, @08:27PM
That you can reel off a list of vanishingly small localized exceptions means nothing.
None of those tiny minority groups count as a civilization. They are merely aberrations in time.
Could it be, that a CEO that earns more than 12:1 really doesn't hurt the average worker at all?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2015, @08:38PM
> Could it be, that a CEO that earns more than 12:1 really doesn't hurt the average worker at all?
Could it be, that chickens really fly out of my butt?
Absolutely. Nothing is impossible because quantum uncertainty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2015, @09:43PM
vanishingly small
In 2006, Mondragon enterprises employed 16% of total employment in Gipuzkoa and a [3.8]% of the whole Basque Country [wedreambusiness.org]
8100 worker cooperatives across Emilia-Romagna is 30 percent of that region's economy.
Your definition of "small" is different than mine.
...or would a 30 percent pay cut be just fine with you?
localized exceptions
When it comes these days, change is a bottom-up phenomena.
(We've already tried top-down; that is showing itself to be a bigger failure with each passing day.)
None of those tiny minority groups count as a civilization
If you walked into one of those places and spouted off with that, I'm betting you would come out with a fat lip.
doesn't hurt
Since they went to the trouble of getting a referendum on the ballot, clearly, a significant number of folks think it does.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Thursday September 10 2015, @09:20PM
You must have slept through the guilded age through WWII in U.S. history. Some of the union action turned quite violent (and used guns, not pitchforks) in those times and as a result, we got 8 hour days, weekends off, workplace safety, and the social safety net. In the '60s they tried non-violence (mostly) and we got greater racial equality and concessions on minimum wage.
Since the bubble popped in 2007, we have seen repeated incidents in spite of police using chemical warfare and military hardware.
Where have you been hiding?