The Bloj

Are we all better off with equality?

Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Tim.
Categories: Philosophy, Tim.

Many people argue that the world would be a better place if there was more equality. In the extreme case, equality has become synonomous with “morality”. Would we actually be better off if there was more equality?

Not necessarily. A recent slate article examines the discrepancy between black and white spending on “visible goods” (like fancy clothes, luxury car, etc). The proposed explanation is that black people tend to live in neighborhoods of other black people of relatively similar income levels (compared to that of white people). The increased spending on visible goods has nothing to do with race, but simply a result of increased tendency for “signaling”. The net result of “signaling” is that more money is spent on “visible goods” and less is spent on health care and education.

Does this mean that equality is bad? Probably not, however it certainly means there are significant unintended consequences that are highly unintuitive.

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