How Inequality Corrupts Success

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



How Inequality Corrupts Success
JULY 28, 2015

[font size="3"]In any society where great stashes of wealth amass at the top, philosopher Elizabeth Anderson reminds us, the wealthy will sooner or later see most of the rest of us as failures.[/font]

Defenders of our deeply unequal economic order have a standard rejoinder whenever someone suggests that maybe we ought to consider taxing the rich at a somewhat higher level.
“Taking from the successful people to provide for those that aren’t isn’t the solution,” as White House hopeful Jeb Bush pronounced this past spring. “The solution is, How do you build capacity so people can achieve earned success?”

The core assumption behind this Bush pronouncement: Wealth equals success. Those who hold great wealth have achieved great success.

A claim this sweeping raises, of course, all sorts of philosophical questions. Economists and sociologists can’t really help us much with the answers. So Too Much went to someone who could: Elizabeth Anderson, the chair of the philosophy department at the University of Michigan.

The Harvard-trained Anderson may be perfectly positioned for helping us understand how wealth and inequality intersect with notions of success. She’s currently writing a history of egalitarianism from the 17th century days of the Levellers right down to the present day. .............(more)

- See more at: http://toomuchonline.org/how-inequality-corrupts-success/#sthash.VciWciF2.dpuf

[moondust]

1. "Wealth equals success."

Perhaps in a meritocracy that uses money to reward real achievement, but not really in a pseudo-meritocracy/oligarchy/plutocracy/caste system where so much wealth is simply inherited at birth and then used to gamble in markets to make even more. Somebody like the Walton or Koch (or Bush) heirs could conceivably hire a money manager to grow their inherited fortunes while they themselves stay in bed or hit golf balls all day: very successful do-nothings!