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Analysis: Four Arguments Against The Extreme Concentration Of Wealth

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The first website that I visited for this project is the International Forum on Globalization. According to the website, “The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) is a North-South research and educational institution composed of leading activists, economists, scholars, and researchers providing analysis and critiques on the cultural, social, political, and environmental impacts of economic globalization” (Globalization). The organization also has a program specifically for the Asian-Pacific region.
The IFG was formed in 1994 because of global politics and economics was rapidly changing and there was no discussion of this within other prominent institutions at the time. The website states that the IFG’s work is “closely linked to social …show more content…

The subject of this article is wealth and the dangers of extreme wealth. According to Barbara, “Concentration of wealth is unjust and confers undue advantage to those with the most wealth, who then use this wealth primarily to usurp the democratic process and further enrich themselves at the expense of the majority, and the ecosystems that support all life” (Barbara). This is a global problem and although I have not learned much about other countries, this is prominent in the United States as well. People who have extreme wealth obtain it in legal ways, mostly by using their wealth to influence …show more content…

The first two myths seem to explain the beliefs about billionaire that are taken as fact and now examined further. The first myth is the fairness argument. This argument states that the people who have most of the wealth earned that wealth and therefore they deserve to keep the wealth. However, some people inherit their wealth that their family has been accumulating for several years. According to Barbara, “This unearned, inherited wealth grants enormous privileges and benefits that allow these inheritors to amass even larger fortunes and, if they so choose, to reshape society, the economy and even the political landscape” (Barbara). The myth that people deserve what they earn has been dispelled because most billionaires inherit at least some of their

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“The policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations, which openly favored the rich, abetted a secular trend already in motion, causing inequality to increase measurably between 1981 and 1992.” (Loewen, 215) The wealthy already had their advantage when they gained their wealth. The wealth they had helped greatly in the process

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390 Words | 2 Pages

In the video called "The One Percent" by Jamie Johnson, the heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune describes many instances where the very wealthy explains the importance of being rich and staying rich. Rich families like the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune gained their wealthiness by their forefathers. Every year the family of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company meets up with a family wealth adviser to keep their wealth flowing. The top one percent like the Johnson & Johnson company are at the one percent owns forty percent of the country's wealth which is opposite to the people at the bottom that makes up the 90 percent . In many different cases to preserve their wealth, companies are

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This statement still holds true in today's society. Many people see the ownership and distribution of property as a separation in class. The common translation between property and wealth is that one must have a certain amount of monetary value in order to purchase property, therefore, many view property and those who own property as wealthy. Another principle that is largely seen in today’s society is the system of checks and balances on government power.

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Conflict sociologists see this skewness as a problem in society. The people who become of wealth stay in wealth because they control the power due to the mass amount of money they have compared to the rest of the population. When we say wealthy, we are discussing the top two percent of wealthy people in America. The top two percent of people own over half the total wealth in the United States. Many cities and even states do not contain a single person that qualifies as being a part of the top two percent of wealthiest people in this country.

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Andrew Carnegie once raised the question of how to distribute wealth properly. He raised the argument on whether or not it was fair for so few to have so much and keep it away from the people who have so little. He asked this question when he realized that there are few people that are born into wealth and do nothing to earn it while there are people who live in poverty who work everyday just to keep their families alive. Carnegie explained how there were two types of wealth, there is comfort wealth and surplus wealth. Surplus wealth was an extreme unnecessary wealth that was never used to provide for family but instead for luxury items.

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158 Words | 1 Pages

. The book explains that in order for the ruling classes to maintain their control they would have to focus the lower classes of people and their energies into not hating them, the wealthy. Instead the wealthy introduced the concept of “the other” to the poor and fed them the concept that was the Revolution,that rising up against a tyrannical England and king was on the behalf of a united people. In today’s America the imbalance of wealth and power still exists, according to Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, “Because our public policies have been owned by the extremely wealthy they have been able to push that wealth even higher, 1% own more than the rest of us 99% combined.”

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Carnegie goes to say that it is rare for rich children to not be spoiled and to work for the greater good of the general public. Although there are exceptions Carnegie believes that this is the worst way to distribute wealth. Distribution after death, this consists

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Four hundred American billionaires own two trillion dollars, as much as the one hundred and fifty million Americans on the very bottom. The top one percent of the richest American own one fifth of the nation’s total income. Similar to the Gilded Age, people who do business and live in urban centers earn much more money than who do not. The unprecedented technological innovation cause the production easier and faster, which renders the employers benefits. Also, the economy gives huge advantage to those who control lots of money, causing the economic disparity even deeper and promoting the appearance of the “Robber Barons,” unscrupulous businessmen who achieve monopolies in their

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1151 Words | 5 Pages

Growing up in the lower class and making it up to the upper class is what John D. Rockefeller did. Growing up with nothing, to having what seems like an endless amount of everything is the definition of rags to riches. At one point, Rockefeller was the richest person in the world, but it was not always that way. Rockefeller's strong ambition and work ethic helped him become one of, if not, the wealthiest Americans in American history. One piece of evidence that showed Rockefeller was an ambitious man is that even though he grew up in a non-wealthy lifestyle, he always tried to earn money.

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It might be true that some of the 1% had chance, and took their family firm or they dad’s legacy however its not the case for everyone. Some built their own fortune

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Although this assumption did not apply to all wealthy men, it did in fact apply to a man named George Pullman. George Pullman was an American engineer who designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car. Although his invention did lead to a boom in business opportunities, it did end in a “great depression”. During this time, Pullman laid off workers and cut their wages, all while refusing to lower their rent for the model homes they lived in. This unfortunate reality can be depicted/proven through the political cartoon entitled “The Condition of the Laboring Man at Pullman”.

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This quote shows that wealthy individuals worry about how their money might affect their children's values and behavior, especially their moral development. Many of the super-rich do grow up entitled and dissatisfied, feeling pressured to maintain a certain lifestyle, but some grow up abused and neglected by their super-rich

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489 Words | 2 Pages

As outlined in chapter 10 of the course text, inequality in housing and wealth is a major problem. The United States is described to be the most unequal countries in the western hemisphere. But with the inequalities when it comes to wealth, the United States is one of the richest countries in the world. Wealth is the sum total of a person’s assets. These assets include, cash in the bank and value of all properties, not only land but houses, cars, stocks, and bonds, and retirements savings.

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The issue surrounding the wealthy class and their abundance of money is one that has been prominent for a long time. For many, the seemingly endless fortune these elite class people sit on has been deemed to be unfair and unnecessary, especially when there are people around the world who are not making enough money to obtain basic necessities. Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics, believes that the solution to this monetary problem is for the wealthy to simply donate money they don’t use on basic necessities back to the people in need. Although giving back to the less fortunate could potentially help in fixing many problems, prosperous people should not be obligated to donate money they “don’t need” to various organizations because since

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1909 Words | 8 Pages

The wealthier one gets, it seems, the more one rationalizes their decisions and actions. The more one stains their morality little by little until they no longer need to choose what’s right and wrong but what benefits them. Whether it’s right or wrong is then irrelevant. From people to companies, wealth is the source of

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