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From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Bullshit, the case for worrying less about the rich and more about the poor
Economic inequality is one of the most divisive issues of our time. Yet few would argue that inequality is a greater evil than poverty. The poor suffer because they don't have enough, not because others have more, and some have far too much. So why do many people appear to be more distressed by the rich than by the poor?
In this provocative book, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Bullshit presents a compelling and unsettling response to those who believe that the goal of social justice should be economic equality or less inequality. Harry Frankfurt, one of the most influential moral philosophers in the world, argues that we are morally obligated to eliminate poverty—not achieve equality or reduce inequality. Our focus should be on making sure everyone has a sufficient amount to live a decent life. To focus instead on inequality is distracting and alienating.
At the same time, Frankfurt argues that the conjunction of vast wealth and poverty is offensive. If we dedicate ourselves to making sure everyone has enough, we may reduce inequality as a side effect. But it’s essential to see that the ultimate goal of justice is to end poverty, not inequality.
A serious challenge to cherished beliefs on both the political left and right, On Inequality promises to have a profound impact on one of the great debates of our time.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781400873272 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 09/29/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 120 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
On Inequality
By Harry G. Frankfurt
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4008-7327-2
CHAPTER 1
economic equality as a moral ideal
First man: "How are your children?" Second man: "Compared to what?"
I
1. In a recent State of the Union address, President Barack Obama declared that income inequality is "the defining challenge of our time." It seems to me, however, that our most fundamental challenge is not the fact that the incomes of Americans are widely unequal. It is, rather, the fact that too many of our people are poor.
Inequality of incomes might be decisively eliminated, after all, just by arranging that all incomes be equally below the poverty line. Need- less to say, that way of achieving equality of incomes — by making everyone equally poor — has very little to be said for it. Accordingly, to eliminate income inequality cannot be, as such, our most fundamental goal.
2. In addition to the incidence of poverty, another part of our current economic disorder is that while many of our people have too little, quite a number of others have too much. The very rich have, indisputably, a great deal more than they need in order to live active, productive, and comfortable lives. In extracting from the economic wealth of the nation much more than they require in order to live well, those who are excessively affluent are guilty of a kind of economic gluttony. This resembles the gluttony of those who gobble down considerably more food than they need for either their nutritional well-being or a satisfying level of gastronomic enjoyment.
Apart from harmful psychological and moral effects upon the lives of the gluttons themselves, economic gluttony presents a ridiculous and disgusting spectacle. Taken together with the adjacent spectacle of a sizable class of people who endure significant economic deprivation, and who are as a consequence more or less impotent, the general impression given by our economic arrangements is both ugly and morally offensive.
3. To focus on inequality, which is not in itself objectionable, is to misconstrue the challenge we actually face. Our basic focus should be on reducing both poverty and excessive affluence. That may very well entail, of course, a reduction of inequality. But the reduction of inequality cannot itself be our most essential ambition. Economic equality is not a morally compelling ideal. The primary goal of our efforts must be to repair a society in which many have far too little, while others have the comfort and influence that go with having more than enough.
Those who are much better off have a serious advantage over those who are less affluent — an advantage that they may tend to exploit in pursuing inappropriate influence over electoral and regulatory processes. The potentially antidemocratic effects of this advantage must be dealt with, accordingly, by legislation and regulation designed to protect these processes from distortion and abuse.
4. Economic egalitarianism is, as I shall understand it, the doctrine that it is desirable for everyone to have the same amounts of income and of wealth (for short, "money"). Hardly anyone would deny that there are situations in which it makes sense to deviate from this standard: for instance, where opportunities to earn exceptional compensation must be offered in order to recruit employees with skills that are badly needed but uncommon. However, despite a readiness to agree that some inequalities are permissible, many people believe that economic equality has, in itself, considerable moral value. They urge that efforts to approach the egalitarian ideal should therefore be accorded a significant priority.
In my opinion, this is a mistake. Economic equality is not, as such, of any particular moral importance; and by the same token, economic inequality is not in itself morally objectionable. From the point of view of morality, it is not important that everyone should have the same. What is morally important is that each should have enough. If everyone had enough money, it would be of no special or deliberate concern whether some people had more money than others.
I shall call this alternative to egalitarianism the "doctrine of sufficiency" — that is, the doctrine that what is morally important with regard to money is that everyone should have enough.
5. The fact that economic equality is not in its own right a morally compelling social ideal is in no way, of course, a reason for regarding it as being, in all contexts, an unimportant or an inappropriate goal. Indeed, economic equality may have very significant political or social value. There may be quite good reasons to deal according to an egalitarian standard with problems having to do with the distribution of money. Hence it may at times make sense to be more immediately concerned with attempting to increase the extent of economic equality than with trying to regulate the extent to which everyone has enough money.
Even if economic equality itself and as such is not important, commitment to an egalitarian economic policy might be indispensable for promoting the attainment of various desirable social and political ends. Also, the most feasible approach to reaching universal economic sufficiency might actually turn out to be, in fact, a pursuit of equality. That economic equality is not a good in itself leaves open the possibility, obviously, that it may be instrumentally valuable as a necessary condition for the attainment of goods that do genuinely possess intrinsic value.
So a more egalitarian distribution of money would certainly not be objectionable. Nevertheless, the widespread error of believing that there are powerful moral reasons for caring about economic equality for its own sake is far from innocuous. As a matter of fact, this belief tends to do significant harm.
6. It is often argued as an objection to economic egalitarianism that there is a dangerous conflict between equality and liberty. The argument rests on the assumption that if people are left freely to themselves, there will inevitably be a tendency for inequalities of income and wealth to develop. From this assumption, it is inferred that an egalitarian distribution of money can be achieved and sustained only at the cost of repressing liberties that are indispensable to the development of that undesired tendency.
Whatever may be the merit of this argument concerning the relationship between equality and liberty, economic egalitarianism engenders another conflict, of more fundamental significance. To the extent that people are preoccupied with economic equality, under the mistaken assumption that it is a morally important good, their readiness to be satisfied with some particular level of income or wealth is — to that extent — not guided by their own most distinctive interests and ambitions. In- stead, it is guided just by the quantity of money that other people happen to have.
In this way, economic egalitarianism distracts people from calculating their monetary requirements in the light of their own personal circumstances and needs. Rather, it encourages them to aim, misguidedly, at a level of affluence measured by a calculation in which — apart from their relative monetary situation — the specific features of their own lives play no part.
But, surely, the amount of money available to various others has nothing directly to do with what is needed for the kind of life a person would most sensibly and appropriately seek for himself. Thus a preoccupation with the alleged inherent value of economic equality tends to divert a person's attention away from trying to discover — within his experience of himself and of his life conditions — what he himself really cares about, what he truly desires or needs, and what will actually satisfy him.
That is to say, a preoccupation with the condition of others interferes with the most basic task on which a person's intelligent selection of monetary goals for himself most decisively depends. It leads a person away from understanding what he himself truly requires in order effectively to pursue his own most authentic needs, interests, and ambitions. Exaggerating the moral importance of economic equality is harmful, in other words, because it is alienating. It separates a person from his own individual reality, and leads him to focus his attention upon desires and needs that are not most authentically his own.
7. To be sure, noticing the economic circumstances of others may make a person aware of interesting possibilities. Furthermore it may provide data for useful judgments concerning what is normal or typical. A person who is attempting to reach a confident and realistic appreciation of what to seek for himself may well find this helpful.
Moreover, it is not only in suggestive and preliminary ways such as those that the economic situations of other people may be pertinent to someone's efforts to decide what monetary ambitions it would be most suitable for him to entertain. The amount of money someone requires may depend in a more direct way on the amounts of money that are available to others. Comparatively large amounts of money may — as is well known — bring exceptional power, or prestige, or other competitive advantages. Therefore, a calculation of how much money would be enough for a person cannot intelligently be made, if that person is likely to be engaged in a pertinent variety of competition, without consideration of how much money is likely to be available to those with whom the person may be required to compete.
The false belief that economic equality is important for its own sake leads people to separate the problem of estimating their proper monetary ambitions from the problem of understanding what is most fundamentally significant to themselves. It influences them to take too seriously, as though it were a matter of great moral concern, a question that is inherently rather insignificant and not directly to the point — namely, the question of how their economic status compares with the economic status of others. In this way the doctrine of equality contributes to the moral disorientation and shallowness of our time.
8. The prevalence of egalitarian thought is damaging in another way as well. It not only tends to divert the attention of people from considerations that are of greater moral or human importance to them than the question of economic equality. It also diverts the attention of intellectuals from the quite fundamental philosophical problems of understanding just what those more important considerations are, and of elaborating — in appropriately comprehensive and perspicuous detail — a conceptual apparatus that might reliably guide and facilitate their inquiries.
Calculating the size of an equal share of something is generally much easier — a more straightforward and well-defined task — than determining how much a person needs of it in order to have enough. The very concept of having an equal share is itself considerably more transparent and intelligible than the concept of having enough. A theory of equality is much easier to articulate, accordingly, than a theory of sufficiency. The widespread appeal of economic egalitarianism has, unfortunately, masked the importance of systematic inquiry into the analytical and theoretical issues raised by the concept of having enough. Needless to say, it is far from self-evident precisely what the doctrine of sufficiency means, and what applying it entails. But this is hardly a good reason for adopting, in preference to it, an alternative that is incorrect.
II
9. There are a number of ways of trying to establish the false thesis that economic equality is actually important. For instance, it is sometimes argued that fraternal relationships among the members of society are desirable, and that economic equality is more or less indispensable for this. Or it may be maintained that inequalities in the distribution of money are to be avoided because they lead invariably to undesirable discrepancies of other kinds — for example, in social status, in political influence, or in the abilities of people to make effective use of their various opportunities and entitlements.
In both of these arguments, economic equality is endorsed because of its supposed importance in creating or in preserving certain noneconomic conditions. Considerations of this sort may well provide convincing reasons for recommending equality as a desirable social good. However, each of the arguments regards economic equality as valuable only derivatively — that is, as possessing value only on account of its contingent or instrumental connections to other things. Neither argument attributes to economic equality any unequivocally intrinsic value.
10. A rather different kind of argument for economic equality comes closer to regarding the value of that equality as being intrinsic. The argument — promulgated most notably by Professor Abba Lerner (of Columbia, the University of California–Berkeley, and the New School for Social Research) — is grounded on the principle of diminishing marginal utility. This principle of economics implies, it is maintained, that an equal distribution of money maximizes aggregate utility — the aggregated satisfactions of the members of society. That is to say, given the total amount of money in a society, the aggregate utility provided by that money would be greater if the money were distributed equally than if it were distributed unequally.
The argument depends on two assumptions: (a) for each individual, the utility of money invariably diminishes at the margin; and (b) with respect to money, or with respect to the things money can buy, the utility functions of all individuals are the same.
Given the assumption both of (a) and of (b), it follows that a marginal dollar always brings less utility to a rich person than it would bring to a person who is less affluent.
This may appear to entail, further, that aggregate utility must increase when inequality is reduced by giving a dollar to someone who is less affluent than the person from whom it is taken, for the utility the recipient will ac quire from the transfer will exceed the utility the donor will lose.
11. This further reasoning fails to take into account, however, the inflationary effect that is likely to be caused by taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. The supply of goods available for consumption does not increase, after all, when money is redistributed. On the other hand, the demand for certain goods by people who were formerly too poor to afford them is very likely to increase. Thus prices of those goods will probably rise.
This inflationary pressure will entail a corresponding reduction of consumption, perhaps not by the very rich — who will still have plenty of money with which to cope with the price increases — but by members of an intermediate class, who will be unable to maintain their accustomed level of consumption in the face of higher prices. The reduction of their standard of living will tend to offset the gain made by the formerly poor. This trade-off will mean that aggregate utility does not increase. The aggregate of utility cannot reliably be increased, then, by taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.
12. In any event, the fact is that both (a) and (b) are false. In virtue of their falsity, the reasoning that links economic equality to the maximization of aggregate utility does not even get off the ground. The argument from diminishing marginal utility fails to render the desirability of redistributing money at all plausible.
So far as concerns (b), it is evident that the utility functions for money of different individuals are not even approximately alike. Some people suffer from physical, mental, or emotional weaknesses or incapacities that limit the levels of satisfaction they are able to enjoy. In addition to the effects of specific disabilities, some people simply enjoy things more heartily than other people do. Everyone knows that, at any given level of consumption, there are large differences in the utility derived by different consumers.
So far as concerns (a), there are strong reasons for not expecting any general decline in the marginal utility of money. That the marginal utilities of certain goods do indeed tend to diminish is clearly not an a priori principle of reason. It is a psychological generalization, based on the fact that our senses characteristically lose their freshness as a consequence of repetitive stimulation: after a time, people tend to be satiated with what they have been consuming. It is common knowledge that experiences of many kinds become increasingly routine and unrewarding as they are repeated.
It is questionable, however, whether this provides any reason at all for expecting a diminution in the marginal utility of money — that is, of something that functions as a generic instrument of exchange. Even if the utility of everything money can buy were inevitably to diminish at the margin, the utility of money itself might nonetheless exhibit a different pattern. It is quite possible that money would be exempt from the phenomenon of unrelenting marginal decline, because of its limitless versatility.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from On Inequality by Harry G. Frankfurt. Copyright © 2015 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Preface ix1 Economic Equality as a Moral Ideal 1
2 Equality and Respect 63
Acknowledgments 91
Notes 93
What People are Saying About This
"Economic equality is one of today's most overrated ideas, and Harry G. Frankfurt's highly compelling book explains exactly why."—Tyler Cowen, author of Average Is Over"Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is doing well, if not good, by reducing the debate about equality to resentment of large fortunes. He should read Harry G. Frankfurt's new book On Inequality. It is so short (89 pages) that even a peripatetic candidate can read it, and so lucid that he cannot miss its inconvenient point."—George Will"Relevant, persuasive, and a pleasure to read, this is the sort of philosophy that ought to be more widely available."—Gideon A. Rosen, Princeton University"Many people who worry about inequality will want to read this wonderful book and will be profoundly influenced by Frankfurt's clear and forceful arguments. In part, he argues that if we are preoccupied with equality rather than with alleviating poverty we will be estranged from our own lives. That insight alone is worth the price of the book."—Richard Robb, Columbia University"Social justice issues are at the forefront again today, and it's important that we get the goals right. Frankfurt is not alone in arguing that equality is beside the point. But his important book, infused with characteristic insightfulness, is written in such a way that those who need to hear the message might actually listen."—Jason Brennan, Georgetown University