# Is income inequality bad for a society?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 14, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170 "2011-12-14T15:12:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 33

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**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-income-inequality-bad-for-a-society/606170/33 "2011-12-14T19:03:53Z")

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> [@smiling\_bandit](#):
>
> 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.

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.

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