Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All?It is commonly assumed that the best way to help the poor out of their misery is to allow the rich to get richer, that if the rich pay less taxes then all the rest of us will be better off, and that in the final analysis the richness of the few benefits us all. And yet these commonly held beliefs are flatly contradicted by our daily experience, an abundance of research findings and, indeed, logic. Such bizarre discrepancy between hard facts and popular opinions makes one pause and ask: why are these opinions so widespread and resistant to accumulated and fast-growing evidence to the contrary? This short book is by one of the world’s leading social thinkers is an attempt to answer this question. Bauman lists and scrutinizes the tacit assumptions and unreflected-upon convictions upon which such opinions are grounded, finding them one by one to be false, deceitful and misleading. Their persistence could be hardly sustainable were it not for the role they play in defending - indeed, promoting and reinforcing - the current, unprecedented, indefensible and still accelerating growth in social inequality and the rapidly widening gap between the elite of the rich and the rest of society. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Just how unequal are we today? | 6 |
Why do we put up with inequality? | 20 |
Some big lies on which a bigger one floats | 27 |
Words against deeds an afterthought | 90 |
Notes | 97 |
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Common terms and phrases
abilities accessed Jan average Barrington Moore Jr beliefs benefit bottom Bourguignon Canetti capacity catastrophe cent chance change one’s choices client–commodity com company’s con consumer markets consumption Cost of Inequality countries credit collapse Daniel Dorling deepening deregulation desire doubting and thinking economic growth Electronic gadgets François Bourguignon friendly global inequality golden handshake growing number happiness hierarchy human bonds human cohabitation income individual insistently Jeremy Warner John Maynard Keynes life’s live means measure ment million natural needs offer oneupmanship poorest tenth problems promise pursuit real economy realistic realities reason recently resistance rewards rich Richard Branson richer richest tenth rising rivalry salary self Sir Ian Blair Slow Food social inequality society of consumers some stationary statistics status Steve Jobs Stewart Lansey Stiglitz subject–object relation sumer talents tends tenets of injustice things tion tively top executives wage wealth wellbeing words Worldly Philosophers