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Start with these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects http://rooseveltinstitut

Start with these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects http://rooseveltinstitute.org/stiglitz-why-inequality-matters-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/stiglitz-why-inequality-matter... http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-rich-and-powerful-are-increasingly-well-suited-earning-wealth-and-power http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-ric... Also read "Twilight of the Elites" to learn about how inequality leads to greater "vertical social distance" and how the government now largely reflects the interests of those at the top (http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oli...)

cjlars 10y ago
Thanks for the links, I wasn't aware that the Wikipedia article was so flashed out on this topic. However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory. The economist article paints a link between education, IQ and income, but not political power. Stiglitz breifly asserts it's truth in point six in his article, but doesn't actually provide any documentation. And similarly, despite clicking through to a dozen promising sources in the wiki, I wasn't able to find any evidence of any sort of trend or change in political power associated to income inequality.
- mcguire 10y ago
  "However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory." I am a little unclear on what you specifically mean by "the power theory". Do you mean to question the proposed relationship between greater monetary resources and greater (political and social) power? This is something that seems pretty obvious but there are some interesting graphs presented in: "Economic Inequality and Political Power (Part 1 of 3)", Martin Gilens, 2012. http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-political-power-part-1/ http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-pol... "When preferences across income groups do diverge, however, I found that the association with policy outcomes persisted for the affluent but disappeared for the middle class and the poor, as the second chart shows...If federal policy more equally reflected the preferences of all Americans, we would see a more progressive tax structure, higher unemployment benefits, stronger regulation of business and industry, a more protectionist trade regime, more prayer in public life, and less access to abortion."[1] Another source is: "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans", Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright, ?. http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-... "There is good reason to believe that the wealthiest Americans exert more political influence than their less fortunate fellow citizens do. Historically oriented scholars like Thomas Ferguson, William Domhoff, Fred Block, and others have long argued that “major investors” or business elites dominate the making of public policy and the agendas of both the Republican and the Democratic parties.1 Jeffrey Winters maintains that the top one-tenth of 1 percent of US wealth-holders constitute an “oligarchy” with decisive power over certain key policy areas related to what he calls “income defense.”2 Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe how Washington has “made the rich richer.”3 "Even without being able to gauge the actual political power of wealthy citizens, we can confidently reject the view that extensive political power by the wealthy would be of little practical importance anyway because their policy preferences are much the same as everyone else’s. On many important issues the preferences of the wealthy appear to differ markedly from those of the general public. Thus, if policy makers do weigh citizens’ policy preferences differentially based on their income or wealth, the result will not only significantly violate democratic ideals of political equality, but will also affect the substantive contours of American public policy." Which I found from, "Wealth Inequality and Political Inequality" by Bruce Bartlett. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequality-and-political-inequality/?_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequali... Or, do you mean to question the proposed relationship between monetary inequality[2] and (political and social) power specifically? There are several links on the Wikipedia page concerning specifically inequality and social cohesion, crime, and social, cultural, and civic participation; all of these are more or less linked to perceived social and political power. However, more specifically: "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement", Frederick Solt, 2005. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602.5620&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602... "It finds that income inequality has a large negative effect on political interest, frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among those with median and lower incomes." Another source is: "Income Inequality and Participation: A Comparison of 24 European Countries", Bram Lancee and Herman van de w erfhorst, 2011. http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lancee,vdWerfhorst-2.pdf http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lanc... "To conclude, although resources are important to explain participation, there seems to be support for the theory that resources are not fully able to explain inequality effects on participation. In addition to the material or neo-material theory that explains inequality effects in terms of resources, we found support for the idea that inequality affects people of different income levels differently through non-material, inter-individual processes. " Also, Martin Gilens' subsequent blog posts provide further discussion of the effects of inequality specifically. [1] A blog post, yes, but I believe the data is taken from his book, Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. [2] Yeah, I'm assuming income inequality is strongly related to wealth inequality, at the very least.
- Futurebot 10y ago
  The ability to get the best jobs, go to the best schools, live where you want to live, retire while others cannot, and bend the government to your will are all forms of power. The last, in particular, is political power. From the Princeton study (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/government-wealthy-study_n_5154879.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/government-wealthy-...): U.S. government policies reflect the desires of the wealthy and interest groups more than the average citizen, according to researchers at Princeton University and Northwestern University. “[W]e believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened,” write Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page in an April 9 article posted on the Princeton website and scheduled for fall publication in the journal Perspectives on Politics. “Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all,” the researchers write in the article titled, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Affluent Americans, however, “have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy,” Gilens and Page write. Organized interest groups also “have a large, positive, highly significant impact upon public policy.”

cjlars 10y ago

Thanks for the links, I wasn't aware that the Wikipedia article was so flashed out on this topic. However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory. The economist article paints a link between education, IQ and income, but not political power. Stiglitz breifly asserts it's truth in point six in his article, but doesn't actually provide any documentation. And similarly, despite clicking through to a dozen promising sources in the wiki, I wasn't able to find any evidence of any sort of trend or change in political power associated to income inequality.

mcguire 10y ago
"However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory." I am a little unclear on what you specifically mean by "the power theory". Do you mean to question the proposed relationship between greater monetary resources and greater (political and social) power? This is something that seems pretty obvious but there are some interesting graphs presented in: "Economic Inequality and Political Power (Part 1 of 3)", Martin Gilens, 2012. http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-political-power-part-1/ http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-pol... "When preferences across income groups do diverge, however, I found that the association with policy outcomes persisted for the affluent but disappeared for the middle class and the poor, as the second chart shows...If federal policy more equally reflected the preferences of all Americans, we would see a more progressive tax structure, higher unemployment benefits, stronger regulation of business and industry, a more protectionist trade regime, more prayer in public life, and less access to abortion."[1] Another source is: "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans", Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright, ?. http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-... "There is good reason to believe that the wealthiest Americans exert more political influence than their less fortunate fellow citizens do. Historically oriented scholars like Thomas Ferguson, William Domhoff, Fred Block, and others have long argued that “major investors” or business elites dominate the making of public policy and the agendas of both the Republican and the Democratic parties.1 Jeffrey Winters maintains that the top one-tenth of 1 percent of US wealth-holders constitute an “oligarchy” with decisive power over certain key policy areas related to what he calls “income defense.”2 Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe how Washington has “made the rich richer.”3 "Even without being able to gauge the actual political power of wealthy citizens, we can confidently reject the view that extensive political power by the wealthy would be of little practical importance anyway because their policy preferences are much the same as everyone else’s. On many important issues the preferences of the wealthy appear to differ markedly from those of the general public. Thus, if policy makers do weigh citizens’ policy preferences differentially based on their income or wealth, the result will not only significantly violate democratic ideals of political equality, but will also affect the substantive contours of American public policy." Which I found from, "Wealth Inequality and Political Inequality" by Bruce Bartlett. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequality-and-political-inequality/?_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequali... Or, do you mean to question the proposed relationship between monetary inequality[2] and (political and social) power specifically? There are several links on the Wikipedia page concerning specifically inequality and social cohesion, crime, and social, cultural, and civic participation; all of these are more or less linked to perceived social and political power. However, more specifically: "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement", Frederick Solt, 2005. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602.5620&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602... "It finds that income inequality has a large negative effect on political interest, frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among those with median and lower incomes." Another source is: "Income Inequality and Participation: A Comparison of 24 European Countries", Bram Lancee and Herman van de w erfhorst, 2011. http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lancee,vdWerfhorst-2.pdf http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lanc... "To conclude, although resources are important to explain participation, there seems to be support for the theory that resources are not fully able to explain inequality effects on participation. In addition to the material or neo-material theory that explains inequality effects in terms of resources, we found support for the idea that inequality affects people of different income levels differently through non-material, inter-individual processes. " Also, Martin Gilens' subsequent blog posts provide further discussion of the effects of inequality specifically. [1] A blog post, yes, but I believe the data is taken from his book, Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. [2] Yeah, I'm assuming income inequality is strongly related to wealth inequality, at the very least.
Futurebot 10y ago
The ability to get the best jobs, go to the best schools, live where you want to live, retire while others cannot, and bend the government to your will are all forms of power. The last, in particular, is political power. From the Princeton study (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/government-wealthy-study_n_5154879.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/government-wealthy-...): U.S. government policies reflect the desires of the wealthy and interest groups more than the average citizen, according to researchers at Princeton University and Northwestern University. “[W]e believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened,” write Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page in an April 9 article posted on the Princeton website and scheduled for fall publication in the journal Perspectives on Politics. “Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all,” the researchers write in the article titled, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Affluent Americans, however, “have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy,” Gilens and Page write. Organized interest groups also “have a large, positive, highly significant impact upon public policy.”