...Kinghon, Kevin A Capitalism in United States What Kind of Capitalism does Americans want? First of all, I am going to show a quick overview of the unfolding of capitalism since the Great Depression, which I believe is vital in order to understand the capitalism that exists in the United States today and some of the problems to it. Then I will look at four different complex areas of free market capitalism in America compared with the Scandinavian government control capitalism. I will then talk about what kind of capitalism we want: We being different interest groups, such as the shareholders, the C.E.O.'s, the average worker and the poor. Finally I will talk about what values might be at stake in capitalism. In the United States, the 1930s Great Depression threatened to knock out the capitalism that had been gradually developing for the past 400 years and this led to abandoning the laissez faire capitalism and instead embracing the New Deal concept of government managed capitalism in order to control money supply and government expenditure, and in order to limit the increasing gap of inequality of income. The 1950s and 1960s were decades of equality, but the energy crises of the 1970s forced the government to kick start the economy imposing new taxation benefiting the rich and once again causing widening inequality. Today, capitalism is the most important economic system of the Western world, in its however various forms: In the United States a more free-market capitalism...
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...University, Durham, NC Abstract Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of ‘‘regular’’ Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to ‘‘build a better America’’ by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups—even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy—desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo. Keywords inequality, fairness, justice, political ideology, wealth, income Most scholars agree that wealth inequality in the United States is at historic highs, with some estimates suggesting that the top 1% of Americans hold nearly 50% of the wealth, topping even the levels seen just before the Great Depression in the 1920s (Davies, Sandstrom, Shorrocks, & Wolff, 2009; Keister, 2000; Wolff, 2002). Although it is clear that wealth inequality is high, determining the ideal distribution of wealth in a society has proven...
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...Inequality begins its roots as long ago as humans started roaming this earth. Inequality can be described also as an imbalance, and with such an imbalance in terms of income, wealth, and class prosperity comes income inequality. Income inequality or economic inequality can be described as the imbalance between income of individuals or household within a country or class. When income inequality is brought up or mentioned, most people think about it in regards to the impoverished class and the ultra rich 1% but this is not the case. In a world that is becoming more and more integrated, economic inequality between the middle class and the top 1% is becoming much more relevant and much more of a problem that needs to be addressed. We live in a...
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...Economic Inequality in the United States According to the Gross Domestic Product, also known as GDP, United States was measured the “largest” economy in the world (Mahoney 10/27/2015). However, all Americans do not share the high standard of living in the U.S. Levels of income and wealth inequality have always been high in the United States. While it is ideal for a democratic country like the United States to have political equality, the reality shows that this is not the case; as economic inequality ultimately causes political inequality under the current system of government. Income inequality has not only been prevalent, but has been polarizing further since the 1970s. Currently, twenty-percent of the population takes home 50% of the total income and the top 1% takes home 25% of the income and owns 40% of total wealth (Mahoney, 2015 October 27). While CEOs of the Fortune 100 makes over $14 million a year, an average worker makes $45,230 a year; this is a clear illustration of the income disparity in the United States. Further, it is worth mentioning that such trends are not necessary common; the United States has always had higher levels of income and wealth inequality when compared to other rich democracies (Mahoney, 2015 October 27). The average household income is currently stagnant, which suggest that the average household cannot easily grow economically in the U.S and cannot help close the income inequality gap. In the movie Inequality for All, the manager of Circuit...
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...Mashell Chapeyama Business Administration Sociology Key words Racial inequality, ethnic inequality, geographic location, discrimination, cultural orientation Causes of racial and ethnic inequality This discussion looks at the causes of racial and ethnic inequalities in the world. There are a number of causes of inequalities. Some causes are geographical location and discrimination. However inequality is on the decline on a global scale. Racial and ethnic inequality is found in many countries where there are either many races or ethnics or both. In Zimbabwe there is racial and ethnic inequality. There are various reasons for that. Whereas my discussion covers what is basically in my country, I have also researched on ethnic and racial inequalities in United States of America as from 1950s to 1970s, and the current situation. One main cause of inequality is the geographical location. Some people who are located in most remote areas of the country normally become marginalized. There is poor transportation system, poor education and far of from urban centers where technology and industrialization is mainly found. These people who live in remote areas are cut of from the rest of the world. They do not access quality education. Hence they remain marginalized and backward. In Zimbabwe a number of ethnic groups are found at the borders of the country. That is the reason for the inequality. Another cause of this disparity is cultural orientation. Various ethnic groups...
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...John Ventola Eng 101 Nov 16, 2015 Cause and Effect of Income Inequality The causes of income inequality in the United States came from many reasons and years; it affected the States a lot for generations. Researches have been made a huge topic of this subject matter. Income inequality is caused by wage growth, and values between the high and low earning workers in the states. Income inequality is getting worse according to” Thomas Sowell”, in his article “the root causes of income inequality”, he mentioned the factors that created income inequality. He talked about one of the problems is the statistics, and how it refers to a given set of people, such as the rich and poor. But in fact it refers to whoever is in a particular income bracket at a particular time. Thomas gave example of people who start out of the bottom 20 percent, over 95 percent of the people who start out there are no longer there 15 years later. In fact they reach the top 20 percent after that time period and stay at bottom of 20 percent, so the statistics are normally quoted are usually very misleading. (Thomas Sowell) In the movie “income inequality for all” by “Robert B. Reich” talked about how 5 percent of the Americans with highest income now they account 37 percent of the consumer’s purchases. He says our “United States has become unequal”. (Robert Reich) There are many causes and effects of income inequality in the United States, but I would like to discuss only three of them. Education is one...
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...Introduction Income inequality means that the income is distributed in an uneven manner among a population. It generally refers to a society which the income gap between individuals or groups and also the international wealth gap. The percentage of income to a population is often presented by income inequality. It’s also considered as the gap between the rich and others and has been obviously growing for recently years. There have measures for income inequality. It’s important to view this data sets and measures as it can show the differences of a country, especially the advantages and disadvantages. Income inequality should have a clearer data or picture to explain the differences and can be also obtained by using those measures. The “Gini Coefficient” can measure income inequality. Gini Coefficient is the way to measure the distribution of nation residents’ income. Corrado Gini (Italian statistician and sociologist) is the person who developed and published it. The among values of distribution will be measured by Gini coefficient such as income levels. If everyone has the same income, it will be shown as Zero (perfect equality) in the Gini coefficient. Conversely, if Gini coefficient shows one mean that only got one person have the income, as know as perfect inequality. In the United States, there has been growing obviously for income inequality and the gap between rich and others. According to the report of Gini coefficient, united States have the high income inequality and continuously...
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...The end of World War Two marked a time were colonies began to gain their independence. The hopes of these colonies, was that independence would bring democracy and prosperity. However, at this moment most former colonies are fail states. Why decolonization has not delivered on the hope of prosperity and democracy? I would suggest that most decolonized states are still being exploited by the international system. Even though most (developed) countries lost their colonies, they still have a monopoly on their former colonies commodities. They use multi-national companies as a mean to control these commodities and other resources. As a result, most of the profit (generated) by the natural resources in underdeveloped countries, in fact goes to more develop countries. This caused the economies of former colonies to cripple. Furthermore, these states are still suffering from the legacy of inequality and ethnic tension which also prevent them from developing. Whereas, developed countries have used direct military threat to protect their multi-national companies interest. For instance, the United States had orchestrated the overthrown of the Guatemalan government in 1954 to preserve the monopoly of land of an US owned multinational company. A majority of ex-colonies remain under-developed because the economic international system still disfavors them. They are still serving the interest of core countries. (What interests) As a result, it is becoming increasing difficult for them to...
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...It is common knowledge to most United States citizens that the disease prevention and healthcare in the country are greatly wanting in both accessibility and affordability. While immunizations and screenings are now commonplace in Western biomedical practices, I argue that they do not actively improve public health, nor do they lower the costs of treatments for those that need them. Additionally, even if the United States had Universal Healthcare, which undeniably has many benefits, health inequalities will continue due to limited physicians, resources, and socio-economic differences in patients. A patient with access to the best doctors, hospitals, and treatments will still repeatedly become sick if they return to the environment that caused...
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...1. a) Discuss the effects of income inequality on a nation’s economic conditions. Income inequality is the unequal distribution of income among individuals of an economy (Income Inequality, 2014). In other words, the difference between the wealthy individual’s income and middle-class to poverty-stricken individuals’ incomes continues to increase. Such disparity can have detrimental effects on the economy. Those individuals who have a low-income are less able to purchase goods. As income inequality between individuals increases, money moves from those who used it to purchase their basic needs to those who already had enough and more. This then causes a weakened aggregate demand for products because the middle-class and poor can no longer afford...
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...AND WAGE INEQUALITY WINFRIED KOENIGER, MARCO LEONARDI, and LUCA NUNZIATA* The authors investigate how labor market institutions such as unemployment insurance, unions, firing regulations, and minimum wages have affected the evolution of wage inequality among male workers. Results of estimations using data on institutions in eleven OECD countries indicate that changes in labor market institutions can account for much of the change in wage inequality between 1973 and 1998. Factors found to have been negatively associated with male wage inequality are union density, the strictness of employment protection law, unemployment benefit duration, unemployment benefit generosity, and the size of the minimum wage. Over the 26-year period, institutional changes were associated with a 23% reduction in male wage inequality in France, where minimum wages increased and employment protection became stricter, but with an increase of up to 11% in the United States and United Kingdom, where unions became less powerful and (in the United States) minimum wages fell. W age inequality is substantially lower in continental European countries than in the United States and United Kingdom, and its evolution over time has differed greatly across countries. The same holds true for the skill (or education) wage premium. Changes in the supply of and demand for skills are unlikely to fully account for these marked differences (Acemoglu 2003). A substantial amount of research on wage inequality has examined...
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...Anthony Giovenco Political Science Inequality Paper 12-18-14 The Effects of Wealth Inequality in the United States Wealth inequality in the United States has grown tremendously since 1970. The United States continuously reveals higher rates of inequality as a result of perpetual support for free market capitalism. The high rates of wealth inequality cause the growing financial crisis to persist, lower socio-economic mobility, increase national poverty, and have adverse effects on health and well being. There is no doubt that wealth inequality in America has been escalating quickly; the portion of total income earned by the top one percent has doubled since the beginning of the 1970’s. The wealthy are the main beneficiaries regarding income inequality. In the latest consensus of wealth distribution, the top one percent of Americans owned thirty five percent of the nations private wealth, and the top ten percent took home about fifty percent of all income in 2012. This figure is greater than the bottom 90 percent combined. The question commonly asked concerning this matter: How and why is this becoming so quickly unequal is to be examined. First, we must explain what is meant by the term “wealth.” Wealth is the collection of the assets people own. This includes homes, stocks, savings for pension, and bank accounts, minus all existing debts. The main issue regarding wealth inequality is income inequality. Income equality has grown increasingly in the past 30 years....
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...utilization of hypophora, asking “Why should we care about high and elevating inequality?”, setting himself up to answer this question and referring back to it throughout his work. In conjunction with his setup of experience this question frames the rest of the chapter to develop in to giving reason to care about inequality. Proceeding with his argument, Krugman commences by building a logical structure that rejects what his opponents have verbalized on the topic of inequality. This is efficacious because he not only considers what the opposition verbally expresses, but utilizes this as a commencement to tell the audience why inequality is paramount. An example of this is when he frames his argument by asserting, “One of the best arguments I've ever optically discerned... emanated from a kineticism conservative endeavoring to argue the...
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...It is engraved in our constitution that “all men are created equal.” It is something we learn about at a young age. Yet it only states that men are created equal, not women. Many activists have been fighting for women to have equal rights and many are still fighting. Years ago, women were not allowed to vote, not allowed to hold jobs, and were simply thought of being the ones who stayed at home to be with the children. Now women can vote, have jobs, and do things men can do. With all the advancements towards equality, women seem to be taking a step back, because women are treated unfairly today. The United States Federal Government should re-ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), making sure all the 50 states accept it, because it will insure everyone will be treated equal. In this essay, I will briefly trace the history of women inequality and explain why it is a problem. Next, I will provide evidence as to how women are treated unfairly, and explain what the Equal Rights Amendment is. Lastly, I will explain how re-ratifying the ERA will guarantee equality for all, by eliminating women inequality. It has been over 100 years since the first women’s rights convention was held in 1864 and there have been so many advancements for women rights. The first Women’s Trade Union League was established in 1903, women gain the right to vote in1920, and Equal Rights Amendment was finally introduced in 1923. The ERA was what women in America were fighting for; something that would guarantee...
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...reason they are not able to do something as an individual failure instead of a structural problem. An example of a public issue that I have experienced is that I had to take a year off from attending school. I took a year off from school so I could have money to support myself. At first, I believed this was entirely a personal issue because I could not afford it. However, looking at it from a sociological viewpoint, I can now see it as a public issue because the tuition rates and cost of living continues to go up yearly. Inequality: Inequality is a built in feature within our social system. This inequality dictates the access and distribution of the commons, or the resources all people need. Inequality is mainly based on the location in which someone was born and/or what family they were born into to. An example of inequality occurred when I attempted to take a loan out on a car. While I was, able to afford the payments on a loan, I did not have credit for a long enough period of time or the down payment the bank was looking for that a person in a higher social class would have through familial ties. Iron Cage of Rationality: An iron cage of rationality is the symbolic way that people are trapped in mental cages that control the things you do. This control tells the person what they should do and does not allow any questioning as to why they must do it. An example of this is that I am attending college and, for the most part, have no idea what I want to do in the...
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