Ending Inequality...

At the end of class on Friday, Professor Bailey asked us to think about ways to minimize inequality. As I stated in class, I think that inequality will remain an elegant, unattainable theory always beyond the reach of reality based on our current economic structure. There are steps that humanity can take to lessen the great disparities that currently exist and are growing. Firstly, the education of every child could be emphasized. I admit, universal education is also idealistic, but steps towards universal education would begin the process of lessening inequality. Secondly, the empowerment of women would greatly lessen inequality. Women, which make up more than 50% of the population, are currently a marginalized population. By working to give power to women, we would be aiding half of our population to move in the direction of greater equality.

A third effort that could be made towards lessening inequality is to support self-sufficient economic endeavors. Supporting sustainable farming, a recently popular enterprise, is one example of a self-sufficient endeavor. Buying locally grown fruits and vegetables, apart from being far fresher and tastier, demonstrates an example of supporting a small-scale local business over a large corporation. Over the course of history, it has been shown that greater economic inequality goes hand-in-hand with the existence of large corporations.

The mechanisms I have listed above however, alone will not be able to end inequality. On of the driving forces of our economy is the scarcity of a product. This deficiency makes a product more desirable simply by the rules of supply and demand. In capitalism, the value of a product is completely arbitrary, but increases as the desirability of the product increases. If instead of basing our economy on scarcity, we began to produce an abundance of a product, enough so that the entire population would have access to the product; the inequality that results from the scarcity of the product would be eliminated. After reading the article, “Poverty fuels medical crisis: Access to care is difficult for rural, urban residents,” by Laura Ungar, it is clear that access to health care is a product that is valued highly because much of the population of rural Kentucky, does not have access to health care.

Another manner in which capitalism has fueled inequality can be seen through the type of good that has grown in production since the mass industrialization of the human race. For most of human history, agricultural products were the primary goods being produced by humans. However, since the industrial revolution, industries for luxury products have exploded. The existence of these luxury products has created two classes: the “have” and the “have not.” Inequality has resulted because there are objects that signify wealth and they are not owned universally within humankind.