Reducing Income Inequality Is an Essential Characteristic of Democracy

Reuveny, Rafael, and Quan Li. "Economic Openness, Democracy, and Income Inequality: An Empirical Analysis." Comparative Political Studies 36.5 (2003): 575-601. Print.
The period studied was 1960 - 1996 and the analysis included 69 countries. National income inequality is measured from a Gini coefficient data set. The authors established that democracy is able to reduce income inequality, while foreign direct investments increase income inequality. The authors note income inequality declines when there is economic development, which confirms their hypothesis that democracy does reduce income inequality.
Solt, Frederick. "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement." American Journal of Political Science 52.1 (2008): 48-60. Print.
The study was conducted to establish the effect of economic inequality on political engagement. The authors discovered that higher levels of income inequality will depress political interest and this will result in the individuals continuing being marginalized. Democracy has the potential to reduce this inequality if it embraces these individuals instead of the most affluent citizens.
Knutsen, Carl Henrik, and Simone Wegmann. "Is Democracy About Redistribution?" Democratization 23.1 (2016): 164-92. Print.
This is an empirical study aimed at establishing the individual opinions of citizens on whether progressive taxations and redistribution are the central characteristics of democracy. A majority of people associate redistribution with democracy, but it was surprising that few considered redistribution to be a central characteristic of democracy. The people who believe that redistribution is central to democracy are the ones who have more to gain and belong to the lower classes.
Huber, Evelyne, and John D Stephens. "Income Inequality and Redistribution in Post-Industrial Democracies: Demographic, Economic and Political Determinants." Socio-Economic Review 12.2 (2014): 245-67. Print
The authors wanted to analyze the determinants of the market income distribution. Understanding the reason for increased income inequality would help in determining the appropriate policies that could counter this rise. This article aims at establishing what causes the rise in inequality with an aim of proposing solutions that could be used to create policies.
Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice. "Information, Inequality, and Mass Polarization: Ideology in Advanced Democracies." Comparative Political Studies 48.13 (2015): 1781-813. Print
The authors analyze individual-level data from 20 democracies and establish that there two kinds of democracies. One with high inequality and the other with low inequality. Democracies with high inequality have low mass polarization, while the ones with low inequality have high mass polarization. This shows the role democracy plays in reducing inequality.
Literature Review
There are numerous studies that have attempted to study the effects of democracy and economic freedom on income inequality. It is no secret that a more economic freedom is mainly associated with greater inequality. It is not easy to clearly point the effect that democracy has on reducing income inequality. However, in countries where citizens understand and know what to expect from their government the level of inequality is reduced. As Solt posits, the power of the wealth increases and this makes them more interested in determining the politics of the country. This then results in the less affluent citizens being uninterested in politics and the margin of inequality increases. It is hard for a democracy to continue actively engaging its citizens when income inequality is increasing. It has been shown that economic inequality will greatly depress political interest, political discussion, and the participation in elections. Reducing income inequality should be the central role for democracy, but this will not be the case when only the affluent are left to be involved in political decisions. They would only be concerned with their own welfare and how they could benefit.
As far back as the 18th century, democracy has been championed to be a promoter of opportunities and it allows the poor to demand more equitable income redistribution. Elected leaders are accountable to their voters and they should be more attuned to the needs of the voters. This would result in the leaders pushing to give their voters more opportunities. It is the inclination of democratic governments to help the poor and middle classes by adopting redistributive policies like progressive taxation, welfare spending, minimum wage laws, public work provision, and price subsidies (Reuveny and Li). Therefore, democracy will play a vital role in the reduction of income inequality. Since democracy promotes equal distribution of political power, it will give rise to labor unions and political parties that would represent the lower and middle classes. This would be beneficial for the individuals because they would now have a voice and they could push for their agenda and have income inequality reduced. In as much as scholars are in agreement that democracy does reduce income inequality, there are mixed results when scholars attempt to study in order to have evidence of the effect (Huber and Stephens).
Aggregate inequality in income distribution has increased substantially. The increases in income inequality are onto only attributed to democracy, but there are other underlying concerns like globalization, declining union strength, household structure changes, changes in distributive effects of transfers and taxes, and skill-biased technological change. These aspects should also be analyzed when discussing income inequality. Failure to analyze might result in skewed views that would only be biased towards democracy. Politics through policy has the potential to counteract the effects that these other variables have on inequality (Huber and Stephens). This is because there would be better policies geared towards addressing the issues facing the citizens. Democracy is charged with ensuring that there are enough schools and all children are encouraged to attend school. Failure to fund schools’ results in students not getting the requisite education and this could be why people are unable to adapt to the technological changes (Iversen and Soskice). The factors mentioned are not lone standing, they are dependent on democracy in that with proper policies in place, these issues should not result in income inequality that is as high as it is now.
Education and knowledge play a vital role in reducing income inequality. It has been shown that high polarization results in high-income inequality. This is quite true, especially in third-world countries. The lower classes do not have access to education and this results in them not being involved in political discussions. Their failure to participate in this discussion means that they cannot fight for their needs (Iversen and Soskice). Informed voters are more likely to challenge the leaders and will be more aware of the policies being developed. However, the opposite occurs with the lower class. Since they are not educated and lack the knowledge they are more likely to follow the leader they believe in and they will hold on to what he/she tells them. This results in increased inequality since some of the leaders will only push for their personal agenda. It is for this reason that a majority of the lower-class individuals have joined unions, which they believe will assist in voicing their needs and reduce income inequality. Therefore, there is need to stop seeing polarization as a problem with democracy and actually embrace it since it will mean that more voters are well-informed and they can make better decisions.
The redistribution of resources in order to reach all the citizens should be the main target of democracy. Favoring the rich and pushing for them to gain even more should be discouraged and instead, democracy should look out for the interests of all its citizens. Ensuring that resources and taxes are properly put to use will allow the citizens to have access to requisite facilities and assistance that would assist in reducing income inequality. Even though redistribution is not seen as a central characteristic of democracy (Knutsen and Wegmann), it should be noted that redistribution is one of the ways that democracy can reduce income inequality. Distributing economic resources will ensure that citizens will equally share the resources and this would positively impact them.


References
Huber, Evelyne, and John D Stephens. "Income Inequality and Redistribution in Post-Industrial Democracies: Demographic, Economic and Political Determinants." Socio-Economic Review 12.2 (2014): 245-67. Print.
Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice. "Information, Inequality, and Mass Polarization: Ideology in Advanced Democracies." Comparative Political Studies 48.13 (2015): 1781-813. Print.
Knutsen, Carl Henrik, and Simone Wegmann. "Is Democracy About Redistribution?" Democratization 23.1 (2016): 164-92. Print.
Reuveny, Rafael, and Quan Li. "Economic Openness, Democracy, and Income Inequality: An Empirical Analysis." Comparative Political Studies 36.5 (2003): 575-601. Print.
Solt, Frederick. "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement." American Journal of Political Science 52.1 (2008): 48-60. Print.