A thought-provoking piece
Related research paper –
Why people prefer unequal societies by Christina Starmans, Mark
Sheskin and Paul Bloom
Abstract
There is immense
concern about economic inequality, both among the scholarly community and in
the general public, and many insist that equality is an important social goal. However, when people are asked about the ideal distribution of
wealth in their country, they actually prefer unequal societies. We suggest
that these two phenomena can be reconciled by noticing that, despite
appearances to the contrary, there is no evidence that people are bothered by
economic inequality itself. Rather, they are bothered by something that is
often confounded with inequality: economic unfairness. Drawing upon laboratory
studies, cross-cultural research, and experiments with babies and young
children, we argue that humans naturally favour fair distributions, not equal
ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality
over unfair equality. Both psychological research and decisions by policymakers
would benefit from more clearly distinguishing inequality from unfairness.