Society/Culture Why does inequality matter?

[Opine]

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

but what is this really saying?

 

[RupieDupie]

The truth of the matter is if povvo people had money, rich people’s heads will explode into one million fragments. They wouldn’t be able to handle it. That’s why they spend all their time playing golf and breaking the law to steal from poor people. They are the reason society is not fair or equal, and if they did not exist, all of society would be the better for it. Society would be cured of a great and disgusting evil.

The truth is in the pudding, that is, even though they’re disgustingly fat and morbidly obese, they cannot possibly want to eat, nor consume that amount of pudding. That they have to lie, deceive, steal, commit fraud, bribe, evade, monopolise etc, to get more... that’s well beyond sick, it demonstrates there is something twisted in their evil brains.

It’s a shame there isn’t a mechanism in society available, where if a rich individual / organisation breaks the law they are held responsible or accountable. It’s a shame there isn’t a mechanism in society available to stop this cancer from corrupting our government, legal system, and economy.

That would make society equal.

 

[its free real estate]

If society were suddenly made equal, how many years would it take for it to become unequal again? One year, two years? Or is equality the natural state of being?

Would equality have to be enforced by fiat? Who would do the enforcing? Would those doing the enforcing not be unequal (ie have more power) to those who are enforced upon?

 

[Procrastinator35]

but what is this really saying?

There are different types & contexts of equality....You can't just generalise the concept into a social abstraction as our mate above has done.....As it becomes reified & empty out of any & all meaning.

Equality as it relates to a Social Democracy is prefaced upon the sound principle of one vote for each adult....So all out votes count equally.

Where equality differs for one example is in various fields of ability with regards skill-sets & talents.....I mat not be equally able as the next bloke to build a house, kick a football, score with women etc etc....You can see how the context is always the principal consideration for comparisons of 'Equality'.

Another good example is also before the Law....We are all treated equally in the eyes of the law, which is blind to our differences in it's passing down of judgments.....So that in a Democracy we all have equal rights, as no human beings life is considered more or less important than any other.

The notion that we are all the same yet different is founded upon both our individual uniqueness & shared existential condition of our human embodiment.....It is that paradox which leads on to much of the confusion over the idea of equality to begin with.

Not all men are created equal, but we all share of & partake in the human condition, as we are all equally mortal.

 

[pugsville]

A topic that many on the left like to talk about is rising inequality across Australia and the most of the western world. It is true that the gap between the rich and the rest of society is growing but why is that a problem?

Trying to make life better for middle and working-class people is a good thing, but why care about the gap between them and the rich?

Peoples qualities of life continue to rise because we are constantly developing new commodities both essential and non-essential that makes our life better. A working-class person in 2018 has life better than a rich person did back in 1918.

Let me clear up one big myth that rich people take from everyone else, wealth is accumulated by performing a large number of voluntary transactions on the free market. Rich people do not steal other people’s money.

My opinion is that all complaints about inequality simple relate to jealousy, so lets focus on making life better for everyone rather than being jealous because someone else has more money.

when companies conspire anti competitive practices like visy in packaging or cole sand woollies threatened to tie future bottle shops up in panning, banks charge commissions for doing nothing, power companies convince the regulator to let them gold plat distribution, look at the banking royal commission, bank insurance companies.

That many rich people are getting rich by taking money off poor people is just a fact.

Wealth = economic power. They buy politicians, draft and get legislation through, co-op regulators. distort the markte, by exclusive deals with suppliers.

Companies want higher profits. The best profits came from monopolizes or cartel arrangements.

Any market where there are few highly rich operators wil almost certainly be distorted leading to higher profits and higher costs for the consumer.

The concentration of economic in fewer hands leads directly to higher prices. Inequity leads to the rich make life more expensive for the poor.

And if you needed this explained to you , you just have not thought about markets and capitalism very clearly.,