Inequality’s Role in Economic Progress

Question 1: Would a society where everyone earned the same, regardless of their talents, be a society you would like to live in?

The social and financial fabrics of such a society where income inequality is nonexistent and where every working person, regardless of his or her individual capabilities or talents, is primarily formulated on the perspective of egalitarianism, from an absolutist perspective. The emphasis has to be primarily on the centralised economic administration as well as consistent redistribution of income and generated revenue within the members of this particular society on an equal basis. This process often has to disregard the fact that, in certain or majority of cases, depending upon the nature of economic value generation process to which such a society could subscribe to, the causality of inequality in income generation could be voluntary activities such as investing or utilising surplus value of wealth in particular economic undertakings which could provide different measures of dividends for different individuals. This fact has been consistently highlighted in the concerned chapter on inequality with the core emphasis upon the proposition that absolute equality imposition could only be effectual through stringent and restrictive interventions on part of the administrative and equality maintenance institutions and this would lead to the curtailment of any form of freedom of income and of that of expenditure. Thus, the fundamental feature of any such society would be centralised administration which could operate on a permanent and consistent interventionist basis to equalise the possession of wealth amongst the greater measures of the inhabitants of the society which could curtail individual freedom of expenditure, regardless of the source of surplus income being the resultant factor of voluntary investment or donation by the inhabitants of such as society. The aspect of personal choice is thus relative to the exactitude of financial and economic class lineage. For those who could be at the lowest section of the socio-economic ladder and could be leading a subsistence existence, the absolutist position of income equality could be considered to be a significant assistance in elevation of such financially emasculated sections of the society. From that perspective, any member of such lower income based classes could prefer to reside to any such structure of society where income equality is strictly maintained through government or social intervention and this could be a beneficial prospect for such a person as well. On the contrary, the lineage of either the most earning classes or to the middle or average income group based classes could prompt a person not to prefer to live in such a restrictive environment from an economic perspective where the surplus income earned from the voluntary donations or investments could be summarily confiscated and redistributed amongst others. The preference is always relative to the class identity of the individual.

Question 2: Does some inequality make us better off?

This could be a matter of conjecture from the perspective of socio-economic competitiveness since certain measure of inequality could be perceived as an instrument for the supposed improvement and success achievement for the low income groups and for the average income based classes. The prospect of progression economically through the surplus measure of income and revenue generation could be, at least on the theoretical level, a catalyst of socio-economic mobility and could thus ensure a fair prospect of options which could keep the factor of socio-economic stagnation away. The factor of response generation regarding the availability of incentives to be earned could be envisaged to be one such aspect which could prompt individuals to embark on realisation of the better income prospects. However, the downside of such an observation is to be understood from the factor that in the current globalised world, the income inequality could be well entrenched and the concentration of wealth could be effectively achieved by the wealthy classes to such a degree that it could be next to impossible to reverse the uncontrollable and detrimental effect of such income inequality.

Question 3: Should we tax those who own expensive houses?

This is often understood to be one of the methods through which the existence of housing inequality is meant to be addressed. The taxation of high value properties is thus one of the processes which could be envisaged to have the justification of extracting greater taxes from the owners of highly valued and expensive residences on the perception that such personnel could belong to the high income groups or households. This is further lent credence from the perspective that such personnel could be the recipients of substantial benefit from the extensive appreciation of the enhanced value of their assets. However, this could be considered only a vacuous argument for the reason that the correlation between the value of property and measure of income is not always a directly observable one. This aspect could be further explained from the fact that the property value of the assets which could be owned by such supposedly high income households, could be relative to the locations of such houses which could transform these into prime real estate. This leads to the proposition that, in all prospects, large sections of personnel who could own wealthy mansions could be pensioners who could have in their possession considerably higher value based residential assets which they could have purchased decades earlier, however, they could be now living on subsistence income derived from their pensions. Thus, imposing stringent mansion taxes upon such household owners could not be a completely logical method for addressing housing income inequality.