The Pros And Cons Of Inequality

Let us say that the rich, on average, made 1 million dollars on average, and that the average middle class worker made $40,000. These both seem like reasonable, livable wages, although one is significantly higher than the other. Now imagine that middle class workers continued to make $40,000, while the income of the rich began to climb to reaches of five, 50, or even 500 million dollars. Now some may argue that there is nothing wrong with this situation. The middle class are still living, and the rich doing even better than they were doing before. Isn’t is selfish to not want anyone to do better because a portion of society will not benefit?

However, this rising inequality of incomes, would not be inconsequential, and the same could be said for inequality of wealth. Inequality has been linked to many negative factors, including health problems (Wilkinson), low class mobility (Krueger), social unrest (cite), and a lower level of productivity among the poor and middle class (cite).

So what is the solution to a clear disparity of incomes in a society? According to Anthony Atkinson, a possible answer is the proportional taxation of property. The tax would be enacted by charging the owner of a property an annual fee amounting to a specific percentage of the property value, based on the value of the land and the

He argued that land taxes are superior to property taxes. He asserted that land taxes, in contrast to property taxes, do not penalize entrepreneurs for the development of their land. While property taxes will go up with time with the development of land, land taxes will stay the same, so that the marginal cost for development is lower when only land taxes are in place. The development of land is certainly potentially positive for society, as it encourages the growth of business and other economic