First class! The problem of widening inequality (Wealth & Poverty class 1)
Get ready for the ride.
Welcome to the first day of my class, Wealth and Poverty. Just click on the video below, and you’re in.
Even though this isn’t a real classroom and I’m not with you in person, I hope you find this both enjoyable and challenging. Don’t expect to learn by just watching and listening, though. I want you to be an active learner — which means answering questions I pose and putting various puzzle pieces together. I’m not going to tell you what to think. I’m going to try to provoke you into thinking harder and more deeply.
I’ve also selected some readings for you, which are listed right after the class video. Just click on the link. My goal is to expose you to a variety of perspectives. Don’t worry if you can’t get to all of them. There’s no exam! But as I tell my students, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
Finally, here are the questions we’ll focus on today (you may want to watch the class with someone else, and discuss them): Is some inequality both inevitable and necessary? At what point, if ever, does inequality become a problem? How do income and wealth inequalities overlap with race and gender? Why did these inequalities begin to widen so dramatically starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and why have they continued widening since then? Finally, where do our about what constitutes a fair economic and political system come from?
Ready? Here goes!
Readings:
A huge thanks to the Wealth and Poverty team — to Michael Lahanas-Calderón, Kyle Parker, Dan Davis, and Jordan Alport for preparing these course videos to be shared with all of you. And to Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse for making all this happen on this page.
https://substack.com/profile/88831324-fay-reid
Thank you. a very thought provoking class. I'm glad you explained so clearly the difference between income and wealth. One thing I have noticed is the anger of the younger generation on the unfairness of both income and wealth today. I am 90. I had 4 children (all deceased now) Everyone of them owned a home. Although not all of them made more money than me, partly it was due to their untimely death between the ages of 39 and 69. However, none of my grandchildren, even those with college degrees is making even close to a decent living. Two own property, the other two will probably never earn enough money to purchase a home and all are resentful. I agree with them, somewhere along the line my generation became unwatchful and allowed the government to favor wealth and power over the citizenry.
Serfdom, slavery, the “laws” of supply and demand are all extensions of our nature, a nature that we must find a path above if we are to stay alive on this planet. What happened to “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” a philosophy pushed by some guy 2000 years ago.
The US is a bastion of Christianity except forget loving your neighbor, and Thou Shalt Not Kill is a forgotten edict.
It’s like climate change, the solution is to stop using fossil fuels, but it’s not going to happen unless?!?
How about Thou Shalt Pay a Living Wage?