Wealth and income inequalities are worldwide issues that are having crushing effects on billions of people around the world.  They are most pronounced in the United States.  They must be reversed before it is too late.  Assertions to the contrary, unequal economic and social outcomes are not the natural consequence of skills, hard work, superior work ethics, or resolve.  They are the manipulated outcomes from laws enacted to give the wealthy an increasing number of advantages via taxes, inheritances, regulations, and direct monetary support from central banks.  Ironically, everyone would be better off—including the very wealthy—if these manipulated advantages were slowed and reversed.  Too much money and wealth that is directed into the bloated personal stock, bond, and real estate accounts of the wealthy deny societies the needed stimuli for additional growth, for greater profits, for more employment; for higher incomes; for greater personal savings by the many; for higher tax revenues and for lower budget deficits; for investments in education, in infrastructures, in research and development for health care and in the sciences; for a lowering of all the conditions of poverty including hunger, crime, illegal drugs, incarcerations, suicides, mental health issues, illiteracy, teen pregnancies, lower life expectancies, and social immobility.   

In the past I have written about ways to break the stranglehold the ultra wealthy have on inequality of both incomes and wealth based on facts and logic.  But there are other approaches that come to mind when intellectuals think about these issues.  The first is that major shifts in social and economic outcomes are extremely difficult to accomplish.  Most must take place incrementally over time.  Argumentatively, such changes can be achieved by following a format of positing an argument, then by introducing its opposite, and then by seeking an accord somewhere in between the two positions. This approach can be repeated until the desired outcome is achieved.  It is known in philosophy as the Hegelian Dialectic, summarized as thesis/antithesis/synthesis.  It is framed in mental constructs that are relatively easy to see thus clearing the way to make the transition from where we are to where we could be a bit easier..     

In the 18^th century philosophers articulated a variation on that approach by offering the framework termed “Dialectical Materialism” as the means for making real societal changes.  They substituted material objects in place of the mental constructs, and suggested that socioeconomic interactions produce sociopolitical realities through the same thesis to antithesis to synthesis triad. 

We can also inject Thomas Kuhn into the fray with his ideas concerning how societies shift from one paradigm to another.[1]  His ideas have been overlaid onto many issues since he published his views about how the scientific community moves slowly while shifting from one model of how something is achieved, to a new way of pursuing a different course of action.  He outlined them in an essay some 15 years later.  They are:[2]

1.     Accuracy – empirically adequate with experimentation and observation.

2.     Consistency – internally consistent, but also externally consistent with other theories.

3.     Broad in Scope – a theory's consequences should extend beyond that which it was initially designed to explain.

4.     Simplicity – the simplest explanation, principally similar to Occam's razor.

5.     Fruitful – a theory should disclose new phenomena or new relationships among phenomena 

Giving due consideration to all these great minds, and others, here is the excessive inequality issue in argumentative format:  

I.   Dialectics 

Thesis:  Excessive flows of income and wealth within our society result in two observable and undesirable outcomes:  First, a small percentage of residents control huge sums of income and wealth that now constitute family dynasties, with concomitant excessive influences over economic, political, and social outcomes to themselves.  The same excessive flows to the top come at the expense of excessive shortages among a much larger segment of society.  These shortages are directly linked to poverty and its many social blights and dehumanizing outcomes.    

Antithesis:  Those living at both ends of this spectrum, and all those in between, would have enhanced lifestyles if these flows of income and wealth were redirected equitably. 

Acceptable Synthesis:  The one change that would have immediate positive results with no bad consequences would be for central banks to inject all new money directly into circulation. This would allow the forces of supply and demand in the marketplace to allocate new currencies equitably, thus creating new GDP, new empolyment opportunities, greater profits, higher incomes, more taxes, and everything that flows from greater prosperity.

Occam’s Razor: Excessive inequalities of income and wealth are rigged outcomes.  These flows are controlled by laws, at the direction of the wealthy, for their own benefit, but at the expense of the many.  Redirecting future flows of money can reverse the inequality gaps, restore economic health of society, and all would benefit from such changes including the very wealthy,

Broad and Consistent in Scope:  Gini coefficients (0.47 and 0.87) for the past 30 years show the excessive distributions of income and wealth are widespread and are increasing over time. These outcomes have been repeated and reported in hundreds of studies.[3] Inequality is power driven, the result of laws, not the natural outcome of economic forces at work. This conclusion is supported by many economists including two Nobel Prize winners, Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.  

Fruitful:  Epidemiological studies show a wide array of undesirable outcomes of excessive inequalities are significantly higher among nations with high Gini coefficients, and significantly lower among nations with lower Gini coefficients.[4]  Meta analyses show significant relationships across at least 10 major conditions of poverty. 

The foregoing points of argumentation do not involve one theory versus another.  They posit arguments against an unjust outcome and in favor of a just outcome.  In that sense they give undue status to injustice.  They are intended to show that the status quo is utterly without merit, a condition that exists because they are wrapped in laws duly passed by a representative government.  The arguments presented are intended to bring clarity to these issues.  It is important that the issues surrounding the status quo are widely understood, otherwise, we might never unravel the facts and issues behind “what is,” and then proceed to a new state of “what can be.”  Overcoming this gap is now clouded, in part, by irrelevant arguments that appeal to ignorance. 

Time is of the essence.  We cannot wait a generation or two before acting.  In the U.S. wealth doubles in value every 10 years.  In just 40 years wealth at the top could reach $2.4 quadrillion only if its historical growth rate continues.  That outcome is 32 times greater than it is today.  What is needed is a Presidential commission led by men and women of great distinction.  Those who come to mind are Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stigler, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.  You may know of others.  Who is up to sending letters, faxes, and emails to the White House, to the Federal Reserve, and to newspaper with this or other written appeals?