Is Income Inequality Immoral?

[havok579257]

Figured we needed something else to talk about. So is income inequality immoral or not? My personal stance is that its wrong that evryone does not have an equal oppurtunity to have equal income. I dont think income inequality is immoral in itself but the fact that everyone doesnt have an equal oppertunity for equal income is wrong. It used to be that hard work could get you ahead in life. Although this is not the case anymore. Not with how bad the public school system is(kids cant decide where they go to school) or how they are disadvantaged if their family is poor amd can not afford basic things. So with the way society lines up now, I think its wrong that every person does not have an equal chance to make it in the world. Not equal in how hard they have it but equal in that everyone at least has a chance to make it in the world.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[dairygirl4u2c]

it's only immoral insofar as it prevents inequalities of basic necessities of life. i could get into the specifics for why, but me thinks most agree. only radicals think otherwise. 

most people, id speculate, are closer than they think. ask a bunch of random people what they think a person should be able to afford, or have access to etc, and id bet many people who identify as conservative would list more than self identified liberal. details, where the devil is, people dont disagree so much. just in the abstractions of political identity and principals. 

[Norseman82]

Even though this was not the point of the thread, I thought of this (watch beginning at 1:32): 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0rhuKmC0Cw

[hotpink]

 

I don't have any problem with this picture.

[KnightofChrist]

 

Both side's are liberals, their trying to watch the game for free. The actual conservatives bought tickets to the game and are sitting comfortably in the stands. Also the liberal family would be better represented if it had at least one grave stone and one less child, since liberals are far more likely to kill their own young. It's also not very safe to have a child stand on two boxes like that, but again child safety isn't apparently a concern for liberals.

 

 

[Winchester]

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/there-is-no-third-way

[CatholicsAreKewl]

Both side's are liberals, their trying to watch the game for free. The actual conservatives bought tickets to the game and are sitting comfortably in the stands. Also the liberal family would be better represented if it had at least one grave stone and one less child, since liberals are far more likely to kill their own young. It's also not very safe to have a child stand on two boxes like that, but again child safety isn't apparently a concern for liberals.

 

Lol too bad. We're in power and we know what's good for you. Accept it.

Edited August 8, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[Socrates]

Thank you, Hillary.

[Era Might]

Pope Francis had an interesting quotation from St. John Chrysostom a few months ago:

 

 

 

Ethics, like solidarity, is a nuisance! It is regarded as counterproductive: as something too human, because it relativizes money and power; as a threat, because it rejects manipulation and subjection of people: because ethics leads to God, who is situated outside the categories of the market. God is thought to be unmanageable by these financiers, economists and politicians, God is unmanageable, even dangerous, because he calls man to his full realization and to independence from any kind of slavery. Ethics – naturally, not the ethics of ideology – makes it possible, in my view, to create a balanced social order that is more humane. In this sense, I encourage the financial experts and the political leaders of your countries to consider the words of Saint John Chrysostom: "Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs" (Homily on Lazarus, 1:6 – PG 48, 992D).

 

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/speeches/2013/may/documents/papa-francesco_20130516_nuovi-ambasciatori_en.html

 

I don't think income inequality is simplistically immoral (and I don't read the Pope to get literal economic analysis). I think even more than wages, opportunity is something that must be part of any job in a capitalist system. I don't expect a company necessarily to give me more money, but I do expect it to be straight about things and to actively facilitate the possibility of advancement. When a job pays low AND the company stifles any realistic opportunity for growth, then that is an unbearable situation IMO. If a company pays low BUT has a realistic environment for growth and advancement, then that changes the situation.

 

And, of course, I don't look at economics as a purely "survival of the fittest" death match. Society has undertaken an industrial and capitalist path, and that incurs responsibility beyond mere "opportunity." When you take away the real possibility of subsistence living on nature, then you have forced people into a certain system, which can be beneficial or not, but society then has an obligation to address the deficiencies that result from people no longer being able to resort to subsistence living.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Era Might

[Era Might]

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/there-is-no-third-way

 

His point about coercion vs. invitation makes sense insofar as the church is concerned. The church is the church precisely because it is not supposed to be an agent of force, but invitation. The state is a different matter, and I don't see anything in the Gospel that Jesus came to make the state a mirror of the church. That is why the church exists, to witness to another order that is NOT about money, power, violence, survival, but about God, love, witness, martyrdom.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Era Might

[Winchester]

His point about coercion vs. invitation makes sense insofar as the church is concerned. The church is the church precisely because it is not supposed to be an agent of force, but invitation. The state is a different matter, and I don't see anything in the Gospel that Jesus came to make the state a mirror of the church. That is why the church exists, to witness to another order that is NOT about money, power, violence, survival, but about God, love, witness, martyrdom.

No human possesses the rights the State claims.

[Era Might]

No human possesses the rights the State claims.

 

Nor the responsibilities.

[PhuturePriest]

Your face is immoral.

[Winchester]

Nor the responsibilities.

The State has no responsibilities.