United for a Fair Economy has done a wonderful video piece on inequality by expressing it in terms of sound. Watch and jump the break for my commentary.
For me this video really challenges the notion that there is not enough for everyone when we try to share wealth — a falsehood that many use to justify inequality’s existence by saying that sharing wealth leaves everyone worse off since there isn’t enough to go around in the first place. I’m less struck by the difference in wealth between bottom 50% of the U.S. population and the wealthiest 1% than I am by how much wealth there is when it is all shared. Even I thought it would be less.
Inequality is not a fact of life. It’s not gravity. It’s a choice. It is a difficult one to escape through individual effort since it is a collective choice, but it is a choice nonetheless. And it is anything but inevitable.
Economics is about values and how we structure our relationships to each other. I'm writing this blog because I am passionate about helping you see the values and relationships in the economic policy decisions we have to make.
