Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All? E-Book

Zygmunt Bauman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 96

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

It is commonly assumed that the best way to help the poor out of their misery is to allow the rich to get richer, that if the rich pay less taxes then all the rest of us will be better off, and that in the final analysis the richness of the few benefits us all. And yet these commonly held beliefs are flatly contradicted by our daily experience, an abundance of research findings and, indeed, logic. Such bizarre discrepancy between hard facts and popular opinions makes one pause and ask: why are these opinions so widespread and resistant to accumulated and fast-growing evidence to the contrary? This short book is by one of the world's leading social thinkers is an attempt to answer this question. Bauman lists and scrutinizes the tacit assumptions and unreflected-upon convictions upon which such opinions are grounded, finding them one by one to be false, deceitful and misleading. Their persistence could be hardly sustainable were it not for the role they play in defending - indeed, promoting and reinforcing - the current, unprecedented, indefensible and still accelerating growth in social inequality and the rapidly widening gap between the elite of the rich and the rest of society.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright page

Epigraph

Introduction

1: Just how unequal are we today?

2: Why do we put up with inequality?

3: Some big lies on which a bigger one floats

Economic growth

Rising consumption

The ‘naturalness’ of social inequality

Rivalry as the key to justice

4: Words against deeds: an afterthought …

Copyright © Zygmunt Bauman 2013

The right of Zygmunt Bauman to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7108-6

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7109-3(pb)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7921-1 (epub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7920-4 (mobi)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

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For the man who has will be given more, till he has enough to spare; And the man who has not will forfeit even what he has.

(Matthew 13.12)

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor.

(Adam Smith)

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

(Adam Smith)

do not banish reason

For inequality; but let your reason serve

To make the truth appear where it seems hid

And hide the false seems true.

(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)

Introduction

A recent study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the United Nations University reports that the richest 1 per cent of adults owned 40 per cent of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10 per cent of adults accounted for 85 per cent of the total wealth of the world. The bottom half of the world's adult population owned 1 per cent of global wealth. This, though, is only a snapshot of an ongoing process. Even more bad news for human equality, and , is lining up daily, and getting ever worse.