# Does this article destroy the 99% versus the 1%?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-article-destroy-the-99-versus-the-1/684991>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 31, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-article-destroy-the-99-versus-the-1/684991 "2014-03-31T15:37:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 8

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-article-destroy-the-99-versus-the-1/684991/8 "2014-03-31T20:51:39Z")

</div>

> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> [QUOTE=septimus]  
> The debate is about whether encouraging income inequality is good or bad for society.

I don’t think there’s the slightest argument, outside of Wall Street clubs, that extreme income inequality is good for anyone.  
[/QUOTE]

It’s a leap from my sentence to yours. I’ll demonstrate the debate I posited (by quoting from one prior thread), not the exaggeration.

> [@Is income inequality bad for a society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170/26):
>
> No, income inequality is not bad for society. Anyone can perform unskilled labor, so it pays low wages. Not everyone perform skilled labor so those fields pay better. This is natural, and the way things should be. The way to improve one’s lot in life is to acquire more marketable skills, and there is ample opportunity to do so. There is no guarantee of success.

> [@Is income inequality bad for a society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170/29):
>
> Brainglutton, thank you for not saying anything of relevance or utility to the debate. Adam Smith’s preference for progressive taxation does not say anything about income equality’s good or bad effects. Nor does him pointing to the difficulties of the poor living up to a middle-class lifestyle in any way address the point.
> 
> I hear a lot of people say inequality is bad. When critically rpessed, they resort to hemming and hawing and talking about nonsequiturs.

> [@Is income inequality bad for a society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170/54):
>
> Well, all we have to do is determine what that amount is (for the CEO) and we’re set. Piece of cake, right?

Some criticism is more nuanced:

> [@Is income inequality bad for a society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170/33):
>
> My own opinion is not that inequality is per se bad (I think inequality is the inevitable consequence of freedom and meritocracy), but rather that _too much_ inequality, when transmitted through generations, _can_ have bad effects on society - in that it can create a self-perpetuating cycle in which those who ‘have not’ face difficult barriers to social mobility, thus threatening the very freedom and meritocracy that (presumably) gave rise to the inequality in the first place.

> [@Is income inequality bad for a society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170/2):
>
> Inequality of opportunity is bad for society. Inequality of outcomes should be treated as neutral. So, income inequality is not bad if opportunities are equal…

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-article-destroy-the-99-versus-the-1/684991)._