Talk:Economic inequality/Archive 3

Almanac article in Wikipedia
I asked for clarification of a paragraph. This was deleted.

In effect, the paragraph said (several times over) that "Gulliver was taller than all the Lilliputians put together." This is not a significant statement in itself. If I turn this into an encyclopedic article, I might write, "This is important because Gulliver could step on one or more Lilliputians totally by mistake, killing them instantly. As a result, it is necessary for the inhabitants to tie Gulliver up when he is asleep in order to keep him from walking around, resulting in damage to people or property."

Without this sort of justification, the paragraph is merely a recitation of facts, like an almanac. See WP:NOT, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:NOTADVOCATE, etc.

In the article "The Bigness of New York City", I can either say, New York City is big. Really Big. Really really Big..." Or I can say, "New York City is the biggest city in the country. It is visited by a number of people for this reason. Philanthropists donate money for art museums because they know they will be visited by many tourists. etc." In other words, there is an actual reason for the article; not to chronicle the "bigness" which is the title, but to explain the other benefits/detriments that accrue as the result of being big. That is what defines an almanac article, mere statement of fact, from an encyclopedia, which gives supporting material. Student7 (talk) 17:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sympathetic to your line of argument, but this comment embedded in the article feels more like editorialising. How can we improve the content? bobrayner (talk) 19:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Have you read the Economic inequality section? Is there anything in it that you think is unclear or insufficiently supported by reliable sources? EllenCT (talk) 20:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the grasp of the article is just too great. It is neatly organized into Measurement, Causes and Effects. Sounds great, but they aren't equivalent in any way. Everything including the kitchen sink is in each part.


 * The pope becomes an "expert" on social justice. This would be fine, but the article title presumes a financial aspect.


 * Another piece suggests that we condone monopolies. Actually nearly everyone hates monopolies except the corporation/person controlling them. In a rural area, the undertakers have consolidated and become a monopoly. Do the bereaved bury the person out of the county? In all rural areas and many of the smaller metropolii, hospitals are a monopoly. The media carefully tiptoes around the topic. They may need the hospital themselves someday. One of the reasons American healthcare is so expensive, but no one dares say anything! (US-Centric)


 * Another piece suggests that we recognize equally the contribution of all people to an effort or service. Jimminy! Nice, But what does that have to do with anything?


 * Yes, I came to the talk page to initially complain about reporting Measurements, but now think that the topic just tries to be too much to too many people for too many reasons. Maybe the article should be split up into Economic inequality (social justice), Economic inequality {financial), Economic inequality (political), etc. This page would become a dab! Student7 (talk) 01:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Income inequality and wealth inequality should be separate articles
I was asked to post this by a student of mine with whom I have had a detailed discussion of this article:

There is a vast difference between income inequality, which is fairly harmful, and wealth inequality which most people have a more visceral opposition to but which is much less dangerous to society at large. Both of those redirect here. They not only have vastly different implications, but they are treated separately in reliable sources. Therefore this article should be split into those two redirects and replaced with a disambiguation page.

R9E2 (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Let me read-in some implications of the statement. (Basically, food for thought.) In R9E2's comment, I read that between the two, income inequality is harmful, but most people do not have opposition to it; whereas, wealth inequality is not so harmful, but people are opposed to it. (And tacitly, those people who are either opposed to these inequalities or who think they are harmful in any degree are people who are on the short/shorter end of the equality stick.) I bring these implications (overt and tacit) as a caution.  What sort of WP:POVs might be advanced with two articles?  And what WP:RS supports an analysis that the two are distinct? --S. Rich (talk) 00:05, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I was going to say that nobody in his right mind was opposed to either, but that's not quite correct. Still, they are different concepts, and, if reliable sources can be found to distinguish them, and there isn't much overlap in the commentaries on them, then they should be separate articles.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 03:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

To explain my comment, consider the French and Russian revolutions. Both were brought about entirely by hardships caused by income inequality, but the rallying and rhetoric behind them were limited exclusively to diatribes about the unfairness of the wealth inequality in those societies. The complaint was that Marie Antoinette and the Tsars were too rich while the people starved, not that there was a lack of aggregate demand caused by top-heavy incomes. The wealth at the top in both cases would only have lasted the masses a few years had it been completely distributed without resulting in greater aggregate demand. The same is true of most other less consequential revolutions and popular uprisings.

I propose to leave the present article in place while filling out the redirects with separate full-length articles so that anyone interested may compare and comment on all three and the sources requested to distinguish the terms before this article is replaced. I expect to have sufficient time for that on the coming weekends over the next month or two. R9E2 (talk) 21:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I think separating the two is a good idea, but both sides should be presented. For example, the idea that income inequality is harmful has to be offset by the idea that income equality is also harmful, and the harm from both stems not so much from the equality or inequality per se, but rather from the legal enforcement of the equality/inequality. In other words, income equality/inequality in the presence of equal opportunity is much less harmful than enforced income equality/inequality. It would be nice to include a rational analysis along with the chants from the cheerleaders of both teams. PAR (talk) 14:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)


 * We already have an article on "wealth inequality". It is titled Wealth concentration and it is linked/hatnoted in the article. How could a "wealth inequality" article be composed to distinguish it from wealth concentration? Moreover, this article needs fixing. Consider, the "Measurement of inequality in the modern world" section focuses on income differences. (Measurements of wealth differences are not discussed.)  Later on the article says "Entrenched strata of power – whether economic, political, status, ascribed, or meritocratic – can lead ...." and "Over time, wealth condensation can significantly contribute to the persistence of inequality within society." [Emphasis added.] Both statements are highly POV (and unsourced). Please consider these factors in light of my initial comment about splitting -- this stuff has all kinds of pitfalls. Also, please consider the POV in observations about wealth and income disparity. E.g., the implication that the economic disparities (and other problems) which lead to the French and Russian revolutions are at all similar to the world today. (To be clear, I do not think R9E2 is advocating this.) My concern is that other editors will latch onto these concepts to promote anti-wealth and/or anti-high-income positions. PAR is right. We need balance. Again, this article is the one that needs the work.--S. Rich (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, the bottom line is there should be two articles and if Wealth concentration fits the bill, then good. I think the cheerleader editors (i.e. those with unshakeable value judgements on the subject) should have their say, its valuable information on the values and persuasion techniques of both sides, but a value-free analysis, if possible, should be included as well. That's the hard part. PAR (talk) 18:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I fully agree that Wealth concentration and Income inequality are the correct titles. Since the first already exists, that makes the split somewhat easier, but I am beginning to see what a monumental task this split may be, and I've been putting it off. I don't suppose any of you more experienced editors would like to take a shot at it? R9E2 (talk) 23:39, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Does any one still wish to split this article? I note R9E2 seems to have stopped editing. Op47 (talk) 21:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree it should be split. EllenCT (talk) 07:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

There used to be a split tag which explains the source of frequent confusion, but it was removed several months ago. I put it back. EllenCT (talk) 22:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Ellen, after watching Income inequality in the United States for some time, I can certainly agree with the idea of splitting. The arguments (!) and the quality of the income inequality is just so much higher than what we have here. A factor better IMO. Student7 (talk) 18:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Chomsky and the other guy
I've removed "neoliberalism" from the section on "Causes" which was sourced to Chomsky, and some other guy. Neither of these individuals work in a field even remotely related to the topic of this article. When they write about stuff relevant to the topic, they do so as pundits and opinionators, not as qualified or knowledgeable experts. We don't go putting economists' or sociologists' opinions into articles about linguistics or communication studies as these wouldn't really be reliable sources for that particular topic. Same thing here.

Please discuss first. I'm open to "neoliberalism" being put back in there, although it should be properly attributed (according to whom?) and needs to be backed by a reliable source.  Volunteer Marek  01:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems to me you're splitting hairs in order to justify removing material you don't like. Academics who write on subjects outside of their particular field of study are cited on Wikipedia all the time. Noam Chomsky is cited on myriad articles outside of his fields of linguistics and philosophy and you know it! These qualify as reliable sources.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 02:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * These are WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments,. If Chomsky is cited outside of his field in some other articles (and these are articles not directly related to him), then that text should be removed from those articles, per WP:RS. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that. And no, it's not about "material I don't like". Like I said, I'm open to inclusion of this particular aspect, but I want to see it reliably sourced.  Volunteer Marek   02:11, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I fail to see where the book Profit over People is an unreliable source for this article. And "the other guy" actually is a sociologist. Nevertheless, other academic sources written by sociologists and economists make the same argument. I will revert and add the latter source shortly...--C.J. Griffin (talk) 02:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Because it's not a serious scholarly source, but rather plain ol' advocacy. Best as I can tell the other guy is in Communications. If you have better, serious, sources then please by all means re-add it. Maybe try Dani Rodrik.  Volunteer Marek   19:07, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I vehemently disagree. But anyways, "the other guy" is a Professor of Sociology in Iceland. It says so right in the link I provided. And the other source was written by sociologists and economists. I will restore it with the latter as a citation.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 22:22, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hey guys, check this out. The two of you are my favorite editors right now. Cheers! EllenCT (talk) 22:50, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * --C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:32, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Neoclassical and Marxian economic perspectives belong in causes section
The sections on Neoclassical economics and Marxian economic analysis of inequality were moved to "perspectives" which is an inappropriate section for them. The rest of the content gives prescriptive advice on what should be done about inequality, or an ethical perspective on whether or not inequality is justified, etc. In contrast, neoclassical and Marxian economics provide descriptive analyses on the cause or origin of inequality (Neoclassical economics attributes it to differences in the marginal product of labor, Marxian economics attributes it to technological change reducing the need for labor input and attributes inequality to the very structure of capitalism).

Both of these sections are more appropriate for the "causes" section or a separate subsection titled "economic/theoretical perspectives on the cause of inequality". - Battlecry 06:52, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits
Another recent edit to consider:


 * "income inequality, wealth inequality, or the gap between rich and poor is the disparity of any of various measures of economic well-being among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries."

The use of the word wellbeing is incorrect here. Well-being refers to someone’s physical or psychological health and not how much money they are receiving in the case of capitalism and income inequality. A persons well-being or health may be a result of their income or wealth but it is not what income is. In capitalism income is a reward from society from providing products or services that people want. Therefore an individuals, groups or countries income (money), is a measure of how effectively they have provided goods or services. In summary well-being is a health term and is not appropriate in this case. Money is a reward and the amount of money or income they have demonstrates the individuals, groups or countries success at providing services or products. “Success” is a better word than “well-being”.

Going through this diff of recent edits, a few jumped out at me:
 * "even life expectancy" was deleted even though it is clearly well-sourced to a secondary report of a peer reviewed study. There is much more abundant information on years of productive life lost under various conditions brought about by inequality (not just for the poor, because e.g. the rich have shorter lifespans when virulent and antibiotic-resistant diseases spread);
 * "Levels of inequality in the world" recapitulates the title, but this is minor;
 * "Referring to median incomes for the upper 10% contrasted with medians for the lowest 10%" -- does that phrase add any useful information? I'm not opposed to it, but it seems like excess verbiage;
 * I have serious questions about the rationale for deleting this paragraphs:
 * In 2001, 46% of people in sub-Saharan Africa were living in extreme poverty. Nearly half of all Indian children are undernourished, however, even among the wealthiest fifth one third of children are malnourished. An Oxfam report stated that the change in net worth of the top 100 wealthiest individuals from 2011 to 2012 was four times more than enough to eliminate global malnutrition in 2013. Oxfam Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said that "We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true."


 * On the other hand, I think I understand the rationale stated for this deletion, and I believe it is mistaken:
 * Over the two decades prior to the onset of the global financial crisis, real disposable household incomes increased an average of 1.7% a year in its 34 member countries. However, the gap between rich and poor widened in most nations – the OECD journalist resource (2011-05) entitled "Growing Income Inequality in OECD Countries" states that with the exceptions of only France, Japan and Spain, wages of the 10% best-paid workers have risen relative to those of the 10% least-paid workers and the differential between the top and bottom 10% varies greatly from country to country: “While this ratio is much lower in the Nordic countries and in many continental European countries, it rises to around 14 to 1 in Israel, Turkey and the United States, to a high of 27 to 1 in Chile and Mexico.”


 * This paragraph also seems like a poor choice to delete:
 * There is statistical evidence that shows strong links between single-parent families and lower income. In spite of the statistical evidence about the economic advantages enjoyed by married couples and also by their children, evidence that is at odds with ideological positions of many influential voices, Maranto and Crouch point out that "in the current discussions about increased inequality, few researchers... directly address what seems to be the strongest statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of single-parent families during the past half century."


 * I thought it was sad that the only things in this string of "mitigating factors" which survived were "market forces" and "propensity to spend":
 * Minimum wage legislation: raising the income of the poorest workers (for the ones that don't lose their jobs due to the minimum wage)
 * Nationalization or subsidization of products: providing goods and services that everyone needs cheaply or freely (such as food, healthcare, and housing), governments can effectively raise the purchasing power of the poorer members of society.
 * Unionization supportive legislation such as the Wagner Act.
 * These provisions may lower inequality, but have sometimes resulted in increased economic inequality (as in the Soviet Union, where the distribution of these government benefits was controlled by a privileged class). Political scientists have argued that public policy controlled by organizations of the wealthy have steadily eroded economic equality in the US since the 1970s.
 * Market forces outside of government intervention that can reduce economic inequality include:
 * propensity to spend: with rising wealth & income, a person must spend more. In an extreme example, if one person owned everything, they would immediately need to hire people to maintain their properties, thus reducing the wealth concentration.
 * Unionization: although not a market force, per se, labor organizations may reduce inequality by negotiating standard pay rates (though probably increasing unemployment). As union power has declined, and performance-related pay has become more widespread, economic inequality has mirrored productive inequality.

I intend to restore most if not all of that material absent persuasive arguments to the contrary. EllenCT (talk) 03:49, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I believe I gave adequate explanations for my removals in my edit summaries. For the most part, a lot of this text confuses poverty with inequality. They are not the same thing. This is most obviously true for parts which talk about absolute poverty and extreme poverty. You can have lots of inequality without poverty. And you can have lots of extreme poverty without much equality. It's basically off topic.
 * Other inappropriate text involves original research, sloppy and ungrammatical writing, cherry picked or unrepresentative sourcing, editorializing, misunderstanding of sources or more stuff that's off topic.
 * How about, instead of restoring this very ... poor ... text, you propose new text which you think addresses the same points (minus the off topic stuff) but based on actual sources and well written (for the record, I didn't bother checking how this former text got into the article in the first place). Then we can work on that. I think that would be a way for at least a potential improvement. Restoring this stuff just takes us back.  Volunteer Marek   04:28, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The lifespan source is clearly about inequality instead of poverty, and should be buttressed with WP:MEDRS sources e.g. and . I agree with removing the extreme poverty statistics from Africa. Why is "even among the wealthiest fifth, one third of children are malnourished" not about relative inequality? "The gap between rich and poor widened in most nations" is certainly about inequality, and the OECD statistics are from the OECD, not the entire world. The single-parent section refers to, "the strongest statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of single-parent families" (emphasis added.) And I'm not sure what the objection is to minimum wages, subsidies, or unions. Do you have any objection to the restoration of that specific subset? EllenCT (talk) 06:47, 20 September 2014 (UTC) Edited to replace first URL in paragraph, "lifespan source," which used to be which I don't know where that came from. EllenCT (talk) 00:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I would prefer that we stick to high quality scholarly sources, and that lifespan article is a pretty good example of why. Basically what it is saying is that income inequality can translate into life expectancy inequality. That's fine, we could say something about these two being linked (and given that life expectancy is a a function of income this isn't surprising). However, this is different than saying that *inequality* in itself causes lower life expectancy (though the concave nature of the relationship might give a result like that, though that's a question of properly defining your metrics). At the end of the day this is still about low income - poverty - not the distribution of income. If you got two societies, with the same average income, but one with higher inequality than the other, you would still get similar average life expectancy.
 * Can you provide that source for the correlation between "single parent families" and inequality? Was it sourced? Honestly, that sounds like total bunkum, seeing as how the growth in inequality has been fairly uniform - two parent working class and middle class families have also lost in relative terms.
 * With the other three, the Union stuff should be mentioned, though I fail to understand why it should be in a section titled "Market Forces". Also it needs solid sourcing. The decline of unions most likely did contribute to rising inequality in the US - again, this developed country, US-centric bias - but it's like in third place among possible explanations. The minimum wage should not come back. I believe I removed it because it was unsourced original research. In the US the minimum wage affects less than 5% of the labor force, so just by arithmetic alone it cannot account for any significant chunk of the observed change in inequality. It's just a hot button political issue, that's all.
 * "Subsidies" is too general. Which subsidies are we talking about? And I think this was also in the "Market forces" section for some reason. Is this just about the difference between pre-tax/pre-transfer income inequality and after-tax/after-transfer income inequality? If so, we need to write it better and get, again, solid sources.
 * "The gap between rich and poor widened in most nations" is certainly about inequality, and the OECD statistics are from the OECD, not the entire world Well, that's the point. OECD is NOT "most nations". Currently it's 34 countries out of something like 200+ countries world wide. And as I mentioned before, part of the missing story not covered here is that while inequality has risen in the past 20+ years in most developed countries it has actually *fallen* in many developing countries, including some historical bastions of inequality in Latin America and Sub Saharan Africa.  Volunteer Marek   19:41, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

People1750 : Marek, that is correct. People are confusing income inequality with some of the results of income inequality. I have made simular comments above on the introduction. Thank you.
 * On the "Oxfam Report" mentioned above. The report tends to suggest that (for example) if we force Bill Gates (and others) to sell Microsoft stock that rose during that period (or tax unrealized wealth or whatever), we could relieve world hunger during that period of time. Again, this does not seem like a serious report. It is "Gee Whiz." Moving largely unrealized wealth to (realized) income seems like an inane suggestion. Yes, they may have made that statement. And yes, they are usually regarded as a WP:RS. But on the surface, it is a truly naive, stupid idea. If the purpose of the paragraph was to demonstrate human stupidity in arriving at a solution to world hunger, it might make sense, but I doubt that was the intent.
 * While I have (somebody's) attention, (and off the topic of hunger which is somewhat measurable because it is observable), no one now believes "income" statistics from third world countries. I am not suggesting that they are now rich, just that they aren't quite as poor as they make out. They believe they have good reason to under report income. There are also farm-to-city arrangements that may bypass the statistics folks. Swapping, which bypasses banking statistics, etc. So not only do we not know exactly how poor a country is, neither do the people generating these supposedly WP:RS. That doesn't seem to phase them though...Student7 (talk) 18:59, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

References

Bibliography of WP:SECONDARY literature
These secondary sources' descriptions of the relationship between economic inequality and growth need to be included in the article: EllenCT (talk) 11:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Alesina, A., and Rodrik, D. (1994) "Distributive politics and economic growth" Quarterly Journal of Economics 109: 465-490. "Inequality in land and income ownership is negatively correlated with subsequent economic growth."
 * 2) Brescia, R. (2010) "The Cost of Inequality: Social Distance, Predatory Conduct, and the Financial Crisis" NYU Annual Survey of American Law 66. "'An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailments of all republics.' —Plutarch.... Income inequality and racial inequality ... crippled home finances and ultimately spread to all sectors of the economy."
 * 3) Clarke, G. (1995) "More evidence on income distribution and growth" Journal of Development Economics 47: 403-427. "Inequality is negatively, and robustly, correlated with growth. This result is not highly dependent upon assumptions about either the form of the growth regression or the measure of inequality."
 * 4) Easterly, W. (2007) "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument" Journal of Development Economics 84(2): 755-776. "high inequality [is] a large and statistically significant barrier to prosperity, good quality institutions, and high schooling."
 * 5) Persson, T., and Tabellini, G. (1994) "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth? Theory and evidence" American Economic Review 84: 600-621. "Both historical panel data and postwar cross sections indicate a significant and large negative relation between inequality and growth."
 * 6) Perotti, R. (1996) "Growth, income distribution and democracy: what do the data say?" Journal of Economic Growth 1: 149-187. "More equal societies have lower fertility rates and higher rates of investment in education. Both are reflected in higher rates of growth."
 * 7) Rajan, R. (2010) Fault Lines: How hidden fractures still threaten the world economy Princeton University Press. "Growing income inequality ... helped precipitate the ongoing housing catastrophe."
 * 8) Stiglitz, J. (2009) "The global crisis, social protection and jobs" International Labour Review 148(1-2). "For a robust and sustained recovery, we must also address the underlying problem of insufficiency of aggregate demand, caused by global inequality as well as inequality within countries, and the build-up of excessive reserves."
 * 9) Temple, J. (1999) "The New Growth Evidence" Journal of Economic Literature 37(1): 112-156. "High inequality lowers growth, perhaps by raising social and political instability."

Revert
Please undo this revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economic_inequality&action=edit&oldid=643661494

It contained:

Environment
The greater the economic inequality, the less environmental degradation there is. This is expressed by the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). It should be noted here however that the increase in environmental degradation is mainly the result of the fact that as the poor people in the society become more wealthy, it increases their yearly carbon emissions. Since there are such a large amount of people that have low incomes, this substantial increase of emissions per person is multiplied by a large amount of times. If there were less people however, this multiplier would have be lower, and thus the amount of environmental degradation would be lower as well. As such, the current high level of population has a large impact on this as well. If (as WWF argued), population levels would start to drop to a sustainable level (1/3 of current levels, so about 2 billion people ), human inequality can be adressed/corrected, while still not resulting in a increase of environmental damage.

I don't see what's quastionable on this; there are more references on the environmental kuznets curve article


 * It's questionable because industrialized countries start limiting their pollution, treating their effluents before releasing them, covering their landfills, and instituting higher environmental protection standards over time. Poor ghettos suffer from cholera, exposed trash piles, clearcutting forests without stewardship, and the like. EllenCT (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I see.
 * I changed the text to The smaller the economic inequality, the more waste and pollution is created, resulting in many cases, in more environmental degradation. This can be explained by the fact that as the poor people in the society become more wealthy, it increases their yearly carbon emissions. This relation is expressed by the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC).   It should be noted here however that in certain cases, with great economic inequality, there is nonetheless not more waste and pollution created as the waste/pollution is cleaned up better afterwards (water treatment, filtering, ...) ....

Also note that the whole of the increase in environmental degradation is the result of the increase of emissions per person being multiplied by a multiplier. If there were less people however, this multiplier would be lower, and thus the amount of environmental degradation would be lower as well. As such, the current high level of population has a large impact on this as well. If (as WWF argued), population levels would start to drop to a sustainable level (1/3 of current levels, so about 2 billion people ), human inequality can be adressed/corrected, while still not resulting in a increase of environmental damage. and reuploaded to the article. 109.130.210.170 (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The Environmental Kuznets Curve is a relationship between level of economic development and environmental pollution. The Kuznets curve is a relationship between level of economic development and economic inequality. They're two different things. One could hold, while the other doesn't etc.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Burkhauser's comment on this article
Dr. Burkhauser has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"This is so amazingly slanted as to be embarrassing. Aside from one brief reference to Barro one might think there was not an alternative view with respect to what has been happening to income inequality around the world and in individual countries including the USA. The same goes for the relationship between income inequality and economic growth.

Why not start with:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Escape-Origins-Inequality/dp/069115354X

which is hardly a conservative source.

But you might also report on some of the blow back on Piketty's book that has just come out in the May 2015 issues of the American Economic Review."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Burkhauser has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Stephen P. Jenkins & Shuaizhang Feng & Richard V. Burkhauser, 2007. "Using the P90/P10 Index to Measure US Inequality Trends with Current Population Survey Data: A View from Inside the Census Bureau Vaults," Working Papers 72, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 03:58, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

New IMF Staff Discussion Note
"if the income share of the top 20 percent (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth. The poor and the middle class matter the most for growth via a number of interrelated economic, social, and political channels." should be included. EllenCT (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Misinterpreted citations about environmental effects of economic inequality
An anonymous editor recently added a section about the environmental effects of economic inequality. This section directly contradicts the first citation that was given in the same section, which states that "the higher the income inequality the worse the environmental indicators such as waste production, meat and water consumption, biodiversity loss and environmental composite indices". How should we resolve this contradiction? Jarble (talk) 00:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It wasn't recent, and WWF seems a more credible source than the first citation. As far as I can tell, it seems reasonably well done.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 05:22, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The first sentence in this paragraph states that "The smaller the economic inequality, the more waste and pollution is created". This is the contradiction that I was referring to. Are there any citations in this paragraph that express this opinion? Jarble (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The WWF source seems to say exactly that. It doesn't express it well, but it seems to imply that increasing the income of the poor increases pollution, while not mentioning any effect of decreasing the income of the rich.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 05:33, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The source was there when I wrote the comment on June 20. I cannot find it now, at least on my smartphone. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 05:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I can no longer find it. If the EKC were to apply on an individual basis, then decreasing inequality without changing overall wealth would increase pollution, as the curve (appears) concave.  But that is WP:OR on my part, and shouldn't affect the article unless some reliable source has presented it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:02, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Gee Whiz statements under "Measurement of inequality" getting out of hand and unhelpful
The continued addition of outlandish media-type statements under "Measurement of inequality" needs to be addressed by the proponents of wealth redistribution. There seems to be no limit to crazy non-professional absurdities that are listed under this section. Section needs to be limited to professional financial-type statements which the IMF or Federal Reserve would make, not the National Inquirer!

It's all true I suppose, but so what? The 3 tallest people in the world have more height than the combined height of everyone is "Lilliput." But so what? In the era of soft money and a Federal/International Reserve, the wheels are kept greased by these agencies printing more money as needed and raising interest rates when the system becomes flooded. Carlos Slim, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates wealth does not PREVENT anyone from making money. Their money is mostly invested creating jobs. It is not under their respective mattresses! :) Money is simply another commodity like lead or wood. Agreed this wasn't true in Karl Marx's day. But it is true today. Continuing to come up with "Gee Whiz" statistics does not help the proponents of wealth redistribution. Coming up with statistics showing that this causes problems would be helpful.

If Slim, Gates and Buffet were to be audited, we would find (mostly) pieces of paper that represent ownership in other (essentially) pieces of paper, etc. Their "wealth" is not in their bank accounts! Student7 (talk) 12:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Although I agree that the proponents of wealth redistribution are taking over many of the economics articles on Wikipedia, some example measurements of inequality are relevant. As an example, the claim that the 400 wealthiest individuals have as much wealth as the poorest 50% would be an interesting statement, if it were not only a claim.  However, "statistics" showing that it causes problems seem not to be available; only through various unverifiable theories do such statistics appear.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:48, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * "proponents of wealth redistribution are taking over many of the economics articles on Wikipedia"
 * In terms of mainstream and fringe, what percentage of economists would you say are not proponents of wealth redistribution? Wealth redistribution is the only thing between retirees and starvation (and between minimum wage workers and starvation of their families in many areas.) EllenCT (talk) 20:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Student7, your post borders on soapbox, and most of the economics implied in it is false, but I find your remarks thoughtful and your conclusion is more or less correct as to how this article can be improved. SPECIFICO  talk  20:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Then, EllenCT, you do agree that this is pov? You seem to be saying, "What other position can Wikipedia take?" I don't think that Wikipedia should have a position. We can report that politicians don't want retirees or minimum wage earners to starve to death, so they support redistribution of wealth. That is fine. But suggesting there is only one position concerns me.
 * Also, it should bother everyone that most of these arguments are US-centric. Most countries worldwide don't have an enforced minimum wage law (for example). Reducing the scope of the article to worldwide definition and effects, etc. might shorten the article considerably. This article is really "economic inequality in the United States" or (at best) "Economic Inequality in Developed Countries." Student7 (talk) 01:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. Yes, that section's horrible. It's full of original research, non-sequitors, random factoids strung together, and lots of editorializing. And as a whole it suffers from very rich-country bias, with whoever wrote it confusing "OECD" for "most nations" for example.

Also, a section entitled "Measurement" should be about how economic inequality is actually measured. The metrics used, how the data is collected, comparisons of various estimates, difference in inequality measures resulting from household consumption surveys vs. income reports etc. This is just... junk.  Volunteer Marek  03:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * How inequality is measured is discussed in the paper below:


 * Phmoreno (talk) 02:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Remove Berg & Ostry paper
I am in agreement with Volunteer Marek's comments at Talk:Economic growth that the IMF paper does not meet the criteria for the purposes here, especially for the statement in the lede. In addition to not being peer reviewed there is no data or methodology shown. Also, this article is about the duration of growth, not the magnitude. The chart showing economic performance of selected countries includes Chile as the star performer. Last year I attended a lecture series by a retired U.S. Army Colonel who was in charge of U.S. military operations for South and Central America and had all of the intelligence info. He talked about the political and economic reforms in Chile being causing it to be the best economy in Latin America. He also discussed Argentina turning leftist and having serious economic problems. This is directly the opposite conclusion of the IMF paper about the importance of political institutions. Most likely, Chile reduced income inequality by forming better political institutions than that low income inequality being the cause of Chile's strong growth. The Berg & Ostry paper points out another problem with developmental economics: only developed countries provide sufficient economic statistics for neoclassical analysis such as calculating productivity. That is discussed in the Temple paper. Phmoreno (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, this paper's conclusions about income inequality being more important than political institutions contradicts economic history. (See Great divergence)Phmoreno (talk) 21:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that dropped his opposition to that report after examining its data set breadth, citing, and concurring sources in January. EllenCT (talk) 23:09, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Inequality myths- U.S.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/inequality-myths http://fortune.com/2015/03/02/economic-inequality-myth-1-percent-wealth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/05/08/dispelling-myths-about-income-inequality/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/01/02/the-five-biggest-myths-about-income-inequality/ http://www.cnbc.com/id/101367332 http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/02/24/Incessant-Myth-Growing-Wealth-Gap http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/09/inequality

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/01/06-income-gains-and-inequality-burtless


 * These primary source op-eds and advocacy sites are poor quality sources. Please remember to sign your posts with four tildes. EllenCT (talk) 18:00, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Excepy that they are not advocacy sites and not op-eds. The Economist is neither and advocacy site nor an editorial. Neither is the CNBC article. Cato is a think tank, and not a poor one. The Fiscal Times piece is a reprint of a paper by a Manhattan Institute economist, hardly fly-by-night advocacy orgs. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The Forbes pieces are opinion pieces, but notable ones and hardly an advocacy site. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:13, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The Fortune piece is a straight news article written by a Fortune reporter. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:13, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Added a paper by the Brookings Institute that backs up some of these claims.Phmoreno (talk) 19:21, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Primary sources inserted to push a political point of view and/or not backed up by WP:SECONDARY peer reviewed sources will be removed along with the statements they purport to support. EllenCT (talk) 23:11, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

EllenCT: It would serve you and everyone else here better if you read things before making your comments. The Brookings Institution paper is a secondary source for a Congressional Budget Office publication.Phmoreno (talk) 02:30, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore: "Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense...WP:SECONDARY"Phmoreno (talk) 02:48, 8 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, also it would be a good idea to read WP:SECONDARY again. The refs above are not primary documents, nor do we remove Reliably Sourced refs if they are not peer removed. Peer review is nice but not required at wikipedia. Capitalismojo (talk) 03:00, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

EllenCT: What is your basis for mentioning a political POV in reference to this material? I don't see any way any of the facts in these articles can be attributed to POV, unless you are saying that people who want the facts to be known have a political POV.Phmoreno (talk) 02:54, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Housing
I added the expansion and Georgism tags to this section but have to wait until tomorrow to give a more detailed explanation. However; I will say that housing is a very legitimate area to consider in terms of economic inequality and deserves much more attention than it gets. More tomorrow.Phmoreno (talk) 03:28, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

What to do about the IMF paper?
I thought this was a lousy paper.

"'despite the attention given to an International Monetary Fund paper purporting to find that countries with more inequality experience weaker recoveries from recessions, the academic literature comes to no consensus. Studies are as likely to find that more inequality corresponds with higher growth, as they are to find a negative relationship. The IMF study was primarily focused on developing countries, while including only a few industrialized nations in Asia. The liberal Center for American Progress has published no fewer than three studies concluding that, among the studies which directly examine the question, there is little evidence that higher inequality harms growth.'"Phmoreno (talk) 20:28, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Questionable revert
I strongly disagree with your edit and edit summary here. I think each one of the changes you reverted are substantial improvements. What are your reasons for saying they aren't? Would you please try to use more meaningful edit summaries when reverting multiple editors' work? EllenCT (talk) 01:56, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * @: FWIW - Thank you for your comments - yes - the rv edits seem substantial improvements to me as well - and have now been restored - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 02:12, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd like to thank both of you for your comments and restoring these edits. There certainly appears to be consensus that they should stay. The editors who keep removing them should explain themselves here. I have a feeling it basically boils down to I just don't like it.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree with you, although I think the association with neoliberalism is weak, and possibly non-mainstream. Still, it is by an economist, which would make it reliable, provided that there is no evidence that he misunderstands "neoliberalism".  Many economists do.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:11, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I can list several other academic sources which also link neoliberalism to inequality, written by economists and sociologists (the latter seem to have a much better understanding of neoliberalism from what I've been reading). It seems to me that, outside of the United States, the whole concept of neoliberalism and its relationship to growing inequality is quite mainstream, especially in Latin America and Europe. I can add some or all of these as sources if necessary (there are still others):
 * Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy (2004). Capital Resurgent: Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674011589
 * David M Kotz (2015). The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674725654
 * Susan Braedley and Meg Luxton (2010). Neoliberalism and Everyday Life. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0773536922
 * Vincent Lyon-Callo (2004). Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance: Activist Ethnography in the Homeless Sheltering Industry. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 1442600861
 * David Coburn. Income inequality, social cohesion and the health status of populations: the role of neo-liberalism. Elsevier, Volume 51, Issue 1, July 2000, pp 135–146.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 19:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a fine feat of cherrypicking. However, that's not the way to build good content. bobrayner (talk) 23:15, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * When someone disagrees with reliable sources it becomes "cherrypicking" apparently. Too bad that myriad scholars link the social and economic problems we face, including inequality, to the contemporary capitalist model and the free market ideas which spawned it.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 00:10, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting facts regarding inequality and poverty: Economic Growth Barro & MArtin (2003) p-9 Fraction of the world living in poverty shrank from 20% in 1970 to 7% in 2000. p-10 Income inequality declined slightly from 1980 to 2000. So what changed since 2000, other than development in China that moved millions of people from agriculture to a market economy?Phmoreno (talk) 15:18, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Economic inequality. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061218012948/http://www.landandfreedom.org:80/ushistory/us13.htm to http://www.landandfreedom.org/ushistory/us13.htm
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Definition of Economic Inequality
"income inequality, wealth inequality, or the gap between rich and poor is the disparity of any of various measures of economic well-being among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries."

The use of the word wellbeing is incorrect here. Well-being refers to someone’s physical or psychological health and not how much money they are receiving in the case of capitalism and income inequality. A persons well-being or health may be a result of their income or wealth but it is not what income is. In capitalism income is a reward from society from providing products or services that people want. Therefore an individuals, groups or countries income (money), is a measure of how effectively they have provided goods or services. In summary well-being is a health term and is not appropriate in this case. Money is a reward and the amount of money or income they have demonstrates the individuals, groups or countries success at providing services or products. ie Bill Gates has been very successful at providing products we all want and hence our capatalist society society has rewarded him with income and the associated wealth. “Success” is a better word than “well-being”. Please suggest any other alternative but i think "well-being" is a meaningless term here.

See also : meaning of money/income is success. http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1993.73.3f.1079?journalCode=pr0

Further note: money can also be said to be a measure of productivity but I am not sure this helps us.

Please comment as I would like to change the first paragraph to success instead of well-being. Thank you.

Also I think we should have a sentence from a laymans perspective that says simply what its meaning is.

Any thoughts ?

Thanks

(People1750 (talk) 23:20, 2 January 2016 (UTC)).

Causes of Economic Inequality
Sorry everyone but this section is a mess. As User:Volunteer Marek pointed out above the causes and association of inequality have been confused.

"Economist Thomas Piketty, who specializes in the study of economic inequality, argues that widening economic disparity is an inevitable phenomenon of free market capitalism when the rate of return of capital (r) is greater than the rate of growth of the economy (g).[39]"

Economists say he has left out the risk premium amongst other things ! see below :

What about all the good things that capitalism does ?

Thomas Piketty might be a well known economist but introducing this equation here is not helpful. Not only will most people not understand it, but its probably incorrect as well - I got to the bottom of the equation and piketty has got his maths the wrong way round. A good article that explains it : http://georgecooper.org/2014/04/29/does-pikettys-r-g-hold-in-a-low-growth-world/

Piketty's work is not accepted yet, there has been much criticism of his conclusions and the way he has used the evidence. Arguing that inequality is the fundamental weakness of modern capitalism, while ignoring capitalism’s achievements, without acknowledging that the market economy has served us well by creating growth and reducing poverty. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10816161/Capital-in-the-Twenty-First-Century-by-Thomas-Piketty-review.html

The current list of causes is all over the place. If we apply some common sense we can see that the major cause of the difference in peoples income is the type of jobs they do, or if they have a job.

The causes should be in order of impact - so the greatest influence first etc. Also pointed out above by User:Marek that some causes clearly are correct by so small in effect that they should not be mentioned or if mentioned then in a special section. I usually follow the 5% rule to focus attention on the most important items in an article. If it has less than 5% effect you don't need to include it, at least not on the first draft.

We can't forget where we come from and the mechanisms of capitalism that underpin our whole society where the main principle is the more useful we are to society the more we get paid. So our success at being capitalists is the most common differentator of inequality. How many people have there primary source of income as there jobs ? The majority.

I am talking OECD countries here. Coruption and all its associated bedfellows destroy any fairness in any society.

The IMF back me up on this : https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf see point 6.

People1750 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Overall Article
A couple of things stand out from this article :

1. It does not tell us how we get inequality, where it comes from, there is no context with our society. 2. After a brief, slightly academic definition it goes straight into saying how bad inequality is.

As capitalism is the basis of the inequality, it comes across as a rant against capitalism.

Yes some of the statements might be correct, some data sets might be correctly interpreted, but how relevant to the big picture are all these variances. This needs to be addressed because looking at this article now inequality seems to be responsible for all the ills of the world and nothing good.

I am sure this is not the intention and everyone wants a more correct and balanced article.

People1750 (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Per your comment I restored the Undue emphasis tag to the Economic growth section. The whole article fails to point out that wealth and income are far higher in capitalistic societies than in communist societies, overregulated economies and economies that have poor systems for registering property rights.Phmoreno (talk) 02:16, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

That Credit Suisse table
The table in the article is based on this report. Anyone know how they managed to a get a Gini coefficient > 100? By definition, a Gini index is between 0 and 100, so there's got to be something extra here. I can't find an explanation in the text of the source.

Also, how did they get Denmark to have such a high Gini (that's what made me suspicious)? And Latin America with a very low level of inequality? Since when? Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:56, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Good Question PAR (talk) 08:14, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Restore Stiglitz, etc.
The Stieglitz paragraph had the reference in the middle, implying the following was not referenced. Restored the paragraph with reference at end.

Also, I think the paragraph that was condensed and combined with the first should be restored, but without implying that the improvements are not necessarily blanket and universal. PAR (talk) 08:14, 7 February 2016 (UTC)