SOCIOL 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Union Busting, Social Mobility, Outsourcing
13 Jul 2016
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Job polarization: middle-income jobs outsourced, automated, new jobs added at bottom and top (but more at bottom) De-unionization (contributes to about a 1/3 of the growth in inequality: outsourcing, union busting, sectoral change. Financialization: deregulation and growth of financial services sectors-->huge incomes at the top. Tax reforms favoring the wealthy: dramatic reduction in top marginal rates. Moderate economic inequality can be functional for societies. It is one way of providing incentives and rewarding talent and initiative. Extreme economic inequality, however, can be highly dysfunctional. Three arguments about why growing us inequality might not be dysfunctional. Sure, there"s been dramatic growth of incomes at the top and rich people in america earn a lot - but hey, they pay most of the taxes too (and taxes are out of control)! We have lots of (too many?) social programs to compensate for inequality! Inequality by itself is not a problem as long as we have healthy rates of social.
