essay 2

Richer And Poorer: Accounting For Inequality

Student Name

Course/Number

Due Date

Faculty Name

Richer and Poorer: Accounting For Inequality

In this article, Jill Lepore explains the causes and consequences of “Income Inequality” in economic and political perspectives of USA. Although author provides the evidences from global literature, however the context of author’s writing is mostly limited to USA or things related to US economy. The article contains much diversified literature and it does the analysis of religious, economic, political, social and cultural factors which caused the income inequality and very common to developed countries. The document draws a big portion of literature from the book “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis” written by Robert Putnam and “Measurement of Inequality of Incomes” by Corrado Gini. Both books provide detailed description of income inequality in USA and all over the world. The author also explores the destabilizing factors which cause the income inequality.

At the end, the author comprises the literature from both books and offers some recommendations to create “Income Equality” and producing a real American dream for our kids. She does the analysis of ideas put by Robert Putnam, Corrado Gini and a third person Anthony Atkinson and then offers her own recommendations for the elimination of economic inequality. Overall, the article is very factual and author makes good arguments regarding the income inequality, its causes and consequences. In broader perspective, the article addresses several economic, political and religious issues including injustice, inequality, absence of good governance, ineffectiveness of economic policies and growing gap between rich kids and poor kids, which is central theme of this article.

For a long period of time, the economic inequality has been measured through Gini scaled from zero to one (0, 1). According to this scale, if all income of this world is earned by one person and rest of people earned nothing, then value on this scale will be one. On the other hand, if all people on earth earn the equal wealth, then the value of Gini index is zero. Regarding the Gini calculations for 1947, 1968, 1975 and 1985, the income inequality in USA (Does the article say if the income inequality is getting greater or lesser over time? That might be a good thing to note in your essay.)is greater than other developed countries having the democratic political system. Additionally, the evidence for the greater income inequality in USA is not disputed rather supported by several research studies and journals as well. There are several authors who have studied the income inequality both in economic and political perspective. Their studies offer a broader view of income inequality and the difference between poor and rich in USA. (Good use of the article in this paragraph)

Not only economist, rather political scientists are also interested in studying the income inequality in USA and in 2001, American Political Science Association developed task force to investigate the income inequality in USA. In their January report, it was said that 1% of upper class earns the maximum income and they cause the income inequality in society. This pattern is being followed from 1928. Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama have talked about income inequality several times as they think that it should be the part of political policies. Democrats and Republicans are fighting to each other for growing income inequality; however no one talks about the causes of income inequality. Jill Lepore argues that political persons only talk about the numbers, but they do nothing to solve the problem.

“Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis” is primary reference book to this article and it begins with a story of town of the author. Although Putnam is a political scientist, however he has perfect knowledge of history and economy as well. That’s why, Our Kids provides provide the historical background in income inequality and argues that American Dream is only possible when all the people have same opportunities to earn. Our Kids is a book which describes the income inequality through stories and it lacks in numbers. Putnam and his partner Silva conducted a survey in young adults and asked about their views about income inequality and what they think about their future. The majority of responses were hopeless.

Putnam also describes the stories of his class fellows and friends who suffered in their future because of income inequality and unemployment. Jill Lepore has used these stories as evidence to increasing income inequality and to describe the background of this problem. Different from Our Kids, “Measurement of Inequality of Incomes” by Corrado Gini provides a modern view on income inequality in its pure political and economic perspective. Gini does support the Fascism in book(This seems important – you might explain this in greater detail if you think it’s relevant. Otherwise just delete it.), however his book is a statistical science based on numbers.

Now what the Jill Lepore does in her article, she creates political, economic and social support for the central theme of topic and that’s why, she draws evidences from two different books narrating the same topic. The literature from “Our Kids” provides the historical background of income inequality, the gap between poor and rich people and crises of American dream. On the other hand, “Measurement of Inequality of Incomes” provides a statistics, factual and global background of income inequality. Hence, the author has provides the adequate evidences to support her arguments as well as to develop reader interest. The writing style of author is descriptive. The contribution from author side is short and maximum literature has been drawn from these two books. The focus of author is to develop a narrative, diversified and factual background for topic, proving the evidences and then offering a solution to the problem.

After reading the article, I have found much related to two texts: Manifesto of the Communist Party and Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. The current article claims the gap between upper and lower and it has been argued that maximum portion of income is earned from upper class. According to Manifesto of the Communist Party:

“The lower strata of the middle class – the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants – all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population (p. 18).”

The book “Our Kids” also claimed the capitalist class one of the major causes of income inequality. Putnam says that it is rich class which owns the maximum earning resources including industries and most of the income directly/indirectly goes to them. They receive the profit while lower or middle class receive salary only. The same argument is made by Manifesto of the Communist Party. The text claims that creating the equal opportunities is only one way to bring income equality. On the other hand, Milton Friedman in his book “Capitalism and Freedom” argues that creating a free society is only way to provide the equal employment opportunities to all people. The jobs are controlled by political leaders sitting in different political parties and interference is made by those people whenever any economic or political policy is developed.

In order for men to advocate anything, they must in the first place be able to earn a living. This already raises a problem in socialist society as all jobs are controlled by political leaders (p. 16)

In her article, Jill Lepore also blamed the political parties of USA for not taking any serious step to solve the problem of income inequality and creating the employment opportunities for young generation.

References

Bans, L., Bietz, B., Sipress, D., Davidson, A., Wiener, A., & Borowitz, A. et al. (2015). Why Inequality Persists in America. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/16/richer-and-poorer