1% now owns 40% - OpEdNews

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By Julian Edney ( about the author ) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

For OpEdNews: Julian Edney - Writer

America has been growing more unequal since the1790s [1]. The growth has been uneven: at some times in history the middle class grew and incomes became more similar, but then the trend resumed and the highs and lows became more extreme. Now 1% of the population owns about 40% of the wealth [2].

On the face of it, wealth has been trickling up into a few hands. Observers have made some comments, but nobody knows if radical inequality is bad for us.

In fact modern economics welcomes inequality. Inequality is said to keep wealth growing, so it must be good for the whole society.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, a big society has a complex economy with many different kinds of interconnected jobs. It requires citizens to fill a large number of different roles involving many divisions of labor. Cheap jobs and expensive jobs, and a variety in between, comprise the necessary parts of a highly technical, highly powered, many-faceted machine. In fact, economists have graphs called indifference curves which show that the greater the inequality, the greater the growth of wealth [3].

The second reason has to do with the amount of freedom in a society. Democracy ...

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