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The Price Of Inequality Summary

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Joseph E. Stiglitz defines inequality as “disparities in equalities, in fairness, and in justice that create huge unmet needs, weakened safety nets, lowered political and economic efficiency, disenfranchisement and imperiled democracy.” Stiglitz uses the novel The Price of Inequality as a platform to educate many Americans into the in’s and out’s of inequality and all that it entails.
While Stiglitz discusses various components of inequality, he makes sure to point out early on in the novel that inequality is nowhere near new in the United States. In chapter two Stiglitz discusses the history of inequality and how power for a long time was linked to religion and the divine right. And while relating religion and power, and thus dividing American …show more content…

Stiglitz defines rent seeking as “getting income not as a reward to creating wealth but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort” (Page 40). Rent seeking continues to help the upper class at the expense at the rest of America, and takes many different forms. One example of rent seeking discussed by Stiglitz has to deal with counties that have an abundance of natural resources. This wealth of natural resources could greatly benefit the lower class, but “the countries with the greatest inequality are those with the most natural resources” (Page 49). An additional example of rent seeking discussed by Stiglitz has to deal with noncompetitive procurement. Stiglitz describes this form as rent seeking as companies or organizations that sell products to the American government at prices well above the marker value (Page 50). Two groups that excel at this form of rent seeking are military contractors and drug companies. Stiglitz goes on to describe various other examples and forms of rent seeking and how they contribute to the inequality in this country, but acknowledges that trying to list and describe each one would take an entire other …show more content…

Based on the history of inequality in this country, it doesn’t appear that it will stop growing anytime soon, and as a result, the price that Americans pay will continue to grow as well. The middle and lower economic classes will pay the highest price, but contrary to popular belief, the upper class will soon begin to suffer as well. “Widely unequal societies do not function efficiently, and their economics are neither stable more sustainable in the long term” (Page 104). An example of this is an interest group holding too much power, and in return getting policies passed that benefit itself instead of the society as a whole. The upper class cannot continue to succeed and make money if they do not have a functioning society beneath

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On March 16th, 2015 Jill Lepore wrote an article that was published by The New Yorker entitled “Richer and Poorer Accounting for inequality”. Inside this 10 paged article Jill Lepore dives into an economic issue of an growing gap between the common wealth of the people and the rich. These issues were based greatly on a statistical chart called the “Gini index” for which Jill Lepore used to form a better picture of what is going on in our society. Jill Lepore shows this by stating on page 2 “Economic inequality has been an academic specialty at least since Gini first put chalk to chalkboard.” Using a form of Ethos.

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Rent Seeking by an American Economist In the American Economist Joseph Eugene Stiglitz’ essay, ‘Rent Seeking and the making of an Unequal Society,’ he argues, with the help of examples, that most of today’s economic and political problems are caused by the government. He goes in depth to explain why the government policies are a major factor in creating these problems, as well as the market forces itself. In addition to this, he discusses the relationship between income inequality and societal growth, and how rent seeking contributes to it. The following is main ideas from his essay that help to further prove his point of how rent seeking provides for income inequality, as well as how the government policies help in the making of an unequal society. Firstly, because the government policies shape the market forces, they are able to shape the degree of inequality.

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As the middle class continues to dissolve, the issue in America becomes more chaotic. The article, "The Inequality Hype", by Neil Gilbert, criticizes, quite simply, the hype on the income inequality between the classes in America. Although Gilbert does agree on the inequality present, he brings up many good points as to why this issue is more exaggerated than should be. Gilbert brings up the point that America is doing better than it believes to be doing according to recent data. Moreover, Gilbert explains, "Progressives tend to think that inequality is the story and that, as already noted, nearly everything wrong in U.S. society stems from it. ..

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