Category: About Justice

Here’s an excellent article by Yves Smith detailing why, “Income Inequality is Bad for Rich People” that is worth your time to read.

The reverse is also true. Social justice with progressive taxation is good for poor and rich alike – for the same reasons. Everyone benefits from an educated, healthy society with good infrastructure and public safety nets.

Here’s an excerpt:

But even more important is that high levels of income inequality exert a toll on all, particularly on health. Would you trade a shorter lifespan for a much higher level of wealth? Most people would say no, yet that is precisely the effect that the redesigning of economic arrangements to serve the needs at the very top is producing. Highly unequal societies are unhealthy for their members, even members of the highest strata. Not only do these societies score worse on all sorts of indicators of social well-being, but they exert a toll even on the rich. Not only do the plutocrats have less fun, but a number of studies have found that income inequality lowers the life expectancy even of the rich.

Although those who can afford it may feel that they can use their wealth to insulate themselves – that insulation is not very pleasant either. Smith writes:

You might argue: Why do these results matter to rich people, who can live in gated compounds? If you’ve visited some rich areas in Latin America, particularly when times generally are bad, marksmen on the roofs of houses are a norm. Living in fear of your physical safety is not a pretty existence.

Education, knowledge and compassion about the reality and existence of others is the way forward.

You may also like Are We So Different?, How Extreme Inequality Destroys the Economy and Demanding Social Justice.

Recently people in Israel, and elsewhere too, are beginning to see that the purpose of the economy is to serve human beings, not the other way around. Human beings create the economy and we can change it.

Nearly 300,000 people have demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel demanding change. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2011

Itzik Shmuli, head of the National Union of Israeli Students, rebuked assertions that the movement has become partisan or overly politicized.

“We aren’t asking for a change of personnel in the government or a change in the coalition in the parliament that was elected by the people. We are young people who are demanding a change in the cruel economic policies. We are demanding a personal economy over one that tramples, we are demanding an economy that takes into consideration the suffering of people and not one that only crunches numbers,” Shmuli said.

“We want a more correct balance between the free market and the human economy. We are demanding serious attention to closing social gaps and for a more far-reaching answer to be given to the basic needs of the citizens of the country, in particular the country’s weakest citizens.”

Read more about Israeli’s demands for justice – NOT charity, here. When will we demand the same for people here in the U.S.?

You may also like Greeks Resist Public Bank Bailout, Cry of the Poor and How Extreme Inequality Destroys the Economy.