Inequality is a continuous, as in "how inequal is it," while unequal is binary as in "is it equal or unequal." Germany has been trending toward more inequality over the years, and has finally arrived at unequal.
I am being at least 83.4% inserious, but not unserious.
I'm always torn by stuff like this. On the one hand, I think people who have more do have a moral obligation to spread the wealth better (though I tend to feel uneasy with many of the ways we try to use government to force that to happen).
OTOH, comparison is the thief of joy. There will always be people dramatically wealthier than me, and I'm not sure that's a problem. We are living in an era in which so many people are fantastically well off compared to any other time in history. In absolute terms compared to all of human history, there are very few poor people in Germany, for example, and many (most?) of those deemed poor in Germany have a standard of living quite a bit higher than millions in other parts of the world.
So... I don't know what the right balance is. I'm very open to discussions about improving peoples' lives, but the focus on inequality specifically seems largely unhelpful and a source for perpetual grievances. Maybe it's just a matter of tone or perspective - "look at all these people that have more than you" seems much less compelling than "compared to the past, things are quite good, but let's see if we can do even better".
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 20.8 ms ] threadI am being at least 83.4% inserious, but not unserious.
Has there ever been a (real) attempt at fixing it?
OTOH, comparison is the thief of joy. There will always be people dramatically wealthier than me, and I'm not sure that's a problem. We are living in an era in which so many people are fantastically well off compared to any other time in history. In absolute terms compared to all of human history, there are very few poor people in Germany, for example, and many (most?) of those deemed poor in Germany have a standard of living quite a bit higher than millions in other parts of the world.
So... I don't know what the right balance is. I'm very open to discussions about improving peoples' lives, but the focus on inequality specifically seems largely unhelpful and a source for perpetual grievances. Maybe it's just a matter of tone or perspective - "look at all these people that have more than you" seems much less compelling than "compared to the past, things are quite good, but let's see if we can do even better".