Hexis in Plato's Republic: definition and philosophical significance

Price of Inequality

In the wake of the most recent economic downturn and an apparently ongoing depression in the world markets, many economists, political scientists, and social theorists have examined the roots of these dire times. For the most part, it appears that many blame "unstoppable developments" (Edsall, 2012), and particularly in the forms of globalization and automation, as being responsible. Joseph E. Stiglitz uses his new work, The Price of Inequality, to outline his reasons for not believing that these forces are unstoppable or even inevitable. Instead, Stiglitz suggests that, by addressing the political and economic roots of inequality in an integrated way, new frameworks can be constructed for a better and more sustainable economy.

According to Stiglitz (2012), the main driving force for the "two-tier" society in evidence today is the somewhat toxic integration of politics with the economy. According to Stiglitz, politics have played a major role in shaping the economy in ways that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the rest. Globalization has played a major role in this, with a basic lack of regulation resulting in poverty-perpetuating practices like child labor and a lack of environmental control. Indeed, Stiglitz (2012) argues that it is a basic lack of regulation and oversight that perpetuated these practices and result in solidifying basic inequalities. Further conducive to this problem is a basic lack of moral compass that perpetuates the top economic and political sectors today. These sectors feed each other in a toxic cycle of wealth perpetuating wealth but not creating wealth for those in the lower tiers. This is an unsustainable, benefiting only a few and not making use of the vast potential of human and natural resources across the world. As a result, what Stiglitz terms "the engines of growth" suffer since the investments that should be due to systems like education and infrastructure are channeled instead to the pocket lines of the already wealthy. This creates a stagnant system in which wealth is maintained but not created.

There are two major important lessons inherent in Stiglitz's work. The first is that factors like globalization and automation can be regulated in such a way to benefit all rather than a few wealthy persons. In the world today, the tendency is towards some sense of fatalism, where society is a victim of forces beyond its control. Stiglitz teaches his readers that this is not the case. Another important lesson is that not only politicians, but members of society itself, despite inequality, have the power to effect change, even if only slowly. Indeed, the power of protests, even on a global scale, should not be underestimated. In my view, this could be the only way to force change in an economic and governmental system in which the elite are unwilling to relinquish the highly unequal power they have gained as a result of corruptions in the current system. What was most surprising to me is the honesty with which Stiglitz indicts the elite for their loss of basic morality, even in terms of often stated values such as "equal opportunities" or "separate but equal."