Recap

Basic Income pt. 2

Basic Income pt. 1

Online Movements for Equality

The Spectrum of Communism

Annotations

Altman, D. (2013). Are international differences in living standards really so hard to explain?. 

A small number of predetermined factors can account for 80% of the variation in living standards between countries today. This might be useful in describing the fatalism and arbitrary nature of global inequality. Luck! 

Bessenoff, G. R. (2006). CAN THE MEDIA AFFECT US? SOCIAL COMPARISON, SELF‐DISCREPANCY, AND THE THIN IDEAL. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(3), 239-251. 

Written by Gayle R. Bessenoff of the University of Connecticut. This study showed that women who were exposed to media depicting thin women had increased body dissatisfaction, negative mood, and levels of depression and lowered self-esteem. Women with high levels of body image self-discrepancy were more likely to engage in social comparisons. This could be useful in drawing a correlate between body-image and social status. Although I couldn’t find literature about socioeconomic comparisons over the web, this demonstrates a similar line of thinking in terms of body image.  

Blake, P. R., & Rand, D. G. (2010). Currency value moderates equity preference among young  

children. Evolution and human behavior, 31(3), 210-218. 

Written by Peter R. Blake, professor of Human Development and Psychology, and David G. Rand, of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, at Harvard University. This article looks at preference for equitable outcomes in children. Children donated more of what had little value to them (least favorite stickers), and giving increased with age (3-6). Resource value affects preference for equity and altruistic giving consists of both the decision to give and home to give. This paper could be useful in talking about how perceptions of value of material goods affect willingness to share and cooperate for the common good.  

Clark, A. E., & Senik, C. (2010). Who compares to whom? the anatomy of income comparisons in europe*. The Economic Journal, 120(544), 573-594. 

Survey data on income comparisons in Europe. An introduction to the term relative income theory. Definitely worth researching more.  

Gonzales, A. L., & Hancock, J. T. (2011). Mirror, mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of exposure to Facebook on self-esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(1-2), 79-83. 

Shows that becoming self-aware by viewing one’s own Facebook profile enhances self-esteem.  Selective self-presentation in digital media improves impressions of self. 

McLeod, J. D. (2013). Social stratification and inequality. In Handbook of the sociology of mental health (pp. 229-253). Springer Netherlands. 

Written by Jane McLeod of the department of Sociology at Indiana University. Dominant groups assert and maintain control over valued social resources. Produce and reproduce social advantages for dominant groups. How experiences of advantage and disadvantage affect individual well-being. Effects of stratification on mental health. This article could be useful in commenting on the psychology of dominant society affecting well-being in observers.  

Muise, A., Christofides, E., & Desmarais, S. (2009). More information than you ever wanted:  

does Facebook bring out the green-eyed monster of jealousy?.CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(4), 441-444. 

Study explores the role of Facebook in the experience of jealousy. Increased Facebook use significantly predicts Facebook-related jealousy. Negative feedback loops in the romance department.  

Pea, R., Nass, C., Meheula, L., Rance, M., Kumar, A., Bamford, H., ... & Zhou, M. (2012). Media use, face-to-face communication, media multitasking, and social well-being among 8-to 12-year-old girls. Developmental psychology,48(2), 327. 

Online survey of girls 8-12 exploring relationship between media use and social well-being. Negative social well-being was positively associated with levels of uses of all types of media. Face-to-face communication was strongly associated with positive social well-being. This is useful in showing that social and emotional development is not helped by interactive types of media.  

The Trifecta

Hello, World!

A friend might describe me as an average student from an average family living an average life in sunny Southern California. Yet, from another perspective I am one the happiest, most privileged, wealthy and well-educated individuals in the world. The many barriers between me and the rest of the world create an illusion of normalcy, effectively concealing the relative opulence I live in. Coming to terms with my own ignorance to the disparity in living conditions in my own backyard has inspired me to dig deeper into the concept of inequality and its greater implications.  

http://pswlwiffle.webstarts.com/uploads/joes.jpg

After entering college dead-set on becoming a doctor, a class I took in my first semester opened my eyes to the potential for impact the field of global health offers. Since then I have invested my energies into acquiring the tools I believe to be necessary for impact through studying Global Health and Mathematics/Economics. Professionally, I am interested in Health Metrics and Evaluation, particularly in developing settings. I am optimistic about the future, but plagued by the lingering fear that widespread suffering is intrinsic to human existence.

Incredible economic growth over the past century drastically improved standards of living though out the world. Innovations in health and technology completely shift the outlook for the future of mankind. In spite of this, people die of starvation every year. Can humanity eradicate the most basic causes of human suffering while maintaining acceptable standards of living for the rich world? If this is possible, would the necessary ethical shift diminish incentive for progress at the frontier of innovation? Is human satisfaction a zero-sum game in which one man's happiness necessitates another man's suffering? These are questions which frame my future professional pursuits, and therefore an analytical look at existing critical thought on this topic is of great interest to me.  

While I am by no means an expert in economics, wealth distribution, or life satisfaction, my education has provided me with a basic literacy to understand and synthesize useful information. I hope to focus my passion about these topics into productive critical thought. I am an optimist and so my posts will often take a positive viewpoint when possible. Despite this caveat, I am not afraid of conceding to harsh conclusions given proper justification. The value of this blog will not be derived from my personal expertise, but rather from my open-minded approach to a topic of genuine interest to me.  

I developed a cursory framework for my future posts which I hope will give you an idea of whether or not you are interested in the direction of this blog. First, I would like to look at inequality and resource distribution from an evolutionary perspective. The history of life on earth has been a constant competition for limited resources and a refinement processing rewarding the best survivors with the ultimate prize of continued existence. By addressing the origins of resource competition, I hope to highlight our inherent desire to accumulate, sometimes beyond logic.  

http://warpandwoof.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/greed-Donald-Duck.jpg

Later on, I will discuss some of the measures of inequality and how different countries stack up against each other (now and in the past). Next, I will highlight some of the political systems which attempt to address the issue of wealth distribution. I plan to continue on by looking at how different religious theologies address inequality and the ethical backing they give to particular responses to privilege. I would then like to see how levels of inequality affect health and life satisfaction in different countries. By doing this, I hope to close in on whether or not minimizing inequality is important for raising overall life satisfaction.  

Finally I would like to write about different social movements like the Occupy movement or the Basic Income Guarantee concept of redistributing wealth by giving every citizen a check to cover basic life needs. I believe understanding these ideas provides perspective on what possible steps forward may be. Furthermore, I hope to forecast whether or not the world is prepared to make changes for the goodness of all.  

By the end of it all, I hope that both my readers and I have a more informed opinion on whether or not life is a zero-sum game or rising waters raise all ships. I'm hoping for the latter! 

Profile:

Getting a group of academics in the same room together can be incredibly difficult. With busy class schedules, research, and personal lives, it is rare that individuals with common interests have free time to meet up for collaboration and exchange of ideas. While this fact holds for professors who are at the top of their field, it is especially true for young researchers who are just beginning to make a name for themselves. Luckily the internet provides a forum for discussion and opportunity for collaboration which doesn’t require a major sacrifice in time committed to other aspects of life. The ability to simply log-in and connect with a discussion sustained by a collection of like-minded colleagues is an incredible phenomenon that benefits not only those participating in the discussion, but interested observers as well.

The blog, “Inequalities: Research and reflectionfrom both sides of the Atlantic,” was started in September 2010 by a group of young academic researchers who met at a ‘Social Change: a Harvard-Manchester Initiative’ (SCHMI) workshop in Crewe, England. Their decision to continue working together after the conference had ended took the form of a collaborative blog. The fields covered by the collective range between sociology, political science, geography, demography, social policy, and economics. They come from “universities on both sides of the Atlantic,” and aim to provide:

"… a space to critically discuss research on inequality, both our own research and the most interesting research we come across; and… a community of people who want to try and tackle the injustices they see in the world by shedding light on things that would otherwise be invisible."

I am really excited to share this blog, and I think that the posts will be relevant to all readers who have taken interest in my writing so far. While the broad base of posters limits the continuity of the blog as a whole, I welcome the variety as refreshing. I often get caught on a single track or mindset when it comes to inequality, and reading informed posts from different points of view serves as a great reminder of the number of factors which impact this topic.

I’ll share a couple of my favorite posts to set you off in the right direction and give you an idea of what to expect from “Inequalities.” A post questioning the purpose of elite universities brings to light some interesting questions about the goal of higher education. The author draws an analogy between elite universities and the preparations of a country’s Olympic program. He highlights how, similar to an Olympic training program, our elite universities pick out the best and brightest and cultivate them to be the very best in the world. To go along with the idea of competing countries, each country’s universities may exist only to produce the best intellects who will compete intellectually with the innovators of other countries. I appreciate the efforts the post makes to look at the how the composition of existing institutions may unintentionally contribute to inequality. The post provides a unique sociological perspective to a topic which is most often seen through an economic lens.

http://marshallramsey.com/wp-content/uploads/mathlete2.jpg

Another post I wanted to highlight pulls some interesting points out of a book called, “Doormen,” by Peter Bearmen. The book details how a close look at the seemingly minor details surrounding the job of a doorman reveal interesting aspects about social status and function. The post provides a succinct summary and guides readers of shorter blog-based material to more in-depth and thorough reading by highlighting relevant literature.

While this blog is not going to be your front page for the latest in inequality, it can provided thoughtful and insightful reading for whenever you want to check-in for an update. I really enjoy learning from those who are in the trenches at universities, doing the research necessary to push for evidence-based reform. While there may be some overlap in the content posted on my blog, I think that “Inequalities” is likely to take a more diverse and original approach, whereas my blog largely serves as a place for synthesis of existing material that is on the web. It appears others have found their blog to be useful as well; according to majesticseo.com, the blog has accumulated more than 100,000 backlinks in the last 5 years.

Although nothing will beat good old-fashioned in-person collaboration, one benefit of the transition in academic discourse to the web is that public documentation allows for amateurs to read and participate in a way that was previously not possible. It is important to take advantage. If you are an amateur, read and discuss the content produced by experts in your field of interest. And if you are one of those experts, share your knowledge with the rest of the world by engaging in online discourse. The “Inequalities” blog bridges the gap between amateur and academic, and serves as a testament to the power of online collaboration.

Voice:

One of my favorite bloggers, Karl Widerquist, writes in association with the United States Basic Income Guarantee website. His credentials are substantial: A Ph. D. in Political Theory from Oxford University and a Ph. D. in Economics from the City University in New York. Dr. Widerquist’s blog is a space where he partially steps away from the formal writing found in his books and journal entries, and writes freely about a topic he is passionate about.

I take personal interest in analyzing the voice that Karl uses in his posts. To me he represents the rational yet passionate expression that I would like to have come across in my own writing. On the whole, I feel convinced and moved by Karl’s writing because he appeals to logic in an engaging way.

In a post titled, “Conservative website finds USBIGbehind vast government conspiracy,” Widerquist employs a number of techniques which epitomize the effectiveness of his voice. One of his favorite techniques is the use of parenthesis to provide qualification to statements.

“Although this is the first time (I know of) that the USBIG website has caught the attention of conspiracy theorists, it is not the first time that BIG has caught their attention.”

Here Widerquist moderates his statement by acknowledging his potential inaccuracy rather than making his statement unequivocal. Often times the parenthesis allow him to make a broad and strong statement that is quickly tempered by an aside in parenthesis. While this weakens the strength of his arguments on the whole, he gains credibility by not overstepping what is rationally justified.

Another technique he uses is a repeated simple sentence structure to display passion in an escalating argument.

“Over the last 30 years or more, the U.S. welfare system has been slowly but consistently         dismantled. The minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation. Individuals’ rights to organize unions have been reduced. Taxes on the wealthy have fallen while government favors for the wealthy have increased.”

To me, this repeated sentence structure connotes an individual speaking to a crowd, getting louder and more expressive, ushering the audience along to the peak of her argument. A lot of very important information is contained in these short sentences. If each point were elaborated upon by Karl, he would run the risk of his readers losing sight of his overarching point. Instead he lists them off, rapidly and with confidence, maintaining the readers focus and steadily building to the overall point.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02329/afp_2329741b.jpg

In another of Karl’s posts titled, “What does theStone Age have to do with us?” he uses rhetorical questions on multiple occasions to further his own argument while encouraging the reader to think for themselves about the topic in question. Readers frequently bring entrenched viewpoints to an article. To get them to even consider an alternative point of view, one must first get them to question the certainty of their original belief.

In Winderquist’s article, he wants his readers to rethink what appears to be a rather obvious statement that modern man is better off than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. He creates room for discussion on the topic through rhetorical questions:

“How do we know that property began as private property? Are we sure that every single modern worker is better off than our hunter-gatherer ancestors?”

Rather than immediately making a statement in conflict with a reader’s intuition, he eases into his argument by simply raising a question. This voice technique reduces the abrasiveness of topics that are not predisposed to be well-received by their audience.

Although I don’t agree with all of the arguments Winderquist makes in his blog, I have immense respect for the voice he uses in his writing. I hope to incorporate a number of his techniques into my own writing. I am passionate about a number of divisive issues which require rational and informed arguments, but also need to keep readers engaged. Finding a balance between evidence-based argumentation and gripping prose requires practice and guidance. For me, Karl Winderquist offers an effective style I hope to emulate in my future writing.

Voice Post

One of my favorite bloggers, Karl Widerquist, writes in association with the United States Basic Income Guarantee website. His credentials are substantial: A Ph. D. in Political Theory from Oxford University and a Ph. D. in Economics from the City University in New York. Dr. Widerquist’s blog is a space where he partially steps away from the formal writing found in his books and journal entries, and writes freely about a topic he is passionate about.

I take personal interest in analyzing the voice that Karl uses in his posts. To me he represents the rational yet passionate expression that I would like to have come across in my own writing. On the whole, I feel convinced and moved by Karl’s writing because he appeals to logic in an engaging way.

In a post titled, “Conservative website finds USBIG behind vast government conspiracy,” Widerquist employs a number of techniques which epitomize the effectiveness of his voice. One of his favorite techniques is the use of parenthesis to provide qualification to statements.

“Although this is the first time (I know of) that the USBIG website has caught the attention of conspiracy theorists, it is not the first time that BIG has caught their attention.”

Here Widerquist moderates his statement by acknowledging his potential inaccuracy rather than making his statement unequivocal. Often times the parenthesis allow him to make a broad and strong statement that is quickly tempered by an aside in parenthesis. While this weakens the strength of his arguments on the whole, he gains credibility by not overstepping what is rationally justified.

Another technique he uses is a repeated simple sentence structure to display passion in an escalating argument.

“Over the last 30 years or more, the U.S. welfare system has been slowly but consistently              dismantled. The minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation. Individuals’ rights to      organize unions have been reduced. Taxes on the wealthy have fallen while government      favors for the wealthy have increased.”

To me, this repeated sentence structure connotes an individual speaking to a crowd, getting louder and more expressive, ushering the audience along to the peak of her argument. A lot of very important information is contained in these short sentences. If each point were elaborated upon by Karl, he would run the risk of his readers losing sight of his overarching point. Instead he lists them off, rapidly and with confidence, maintaining the readers focus and steadily building to the overall point.

In another of Karl’s posts titled, “What does the Stone Age have to do with us?” he uses rhetorical questions on multiple occasions to further his own argument while encouraging the reader to think for themselves about the topic in question. Readers frequently bring entrenched viewpoints to an article. To get them to even consider an alternative point of view, one must first get them to question the certainty of their original belief.

In Winderquist’s article, he wants his readers to rethink what appears to be a rather obvious statement that modern man is better off than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. He creates room for discussion on the topic through rhetorical questions:

“How do we know that property began as private property? Are we sure that every single modern worker is better off than our hunter-gatherer ancestors?”

Rather than immediately making a statement in conflict with a reader’s intuition, he eases into his argument by simply raising a question. This voice technique reduces the abrasiveness of topics that are not predisposed to be well-received by their audience.

Although I don’t agree with all of the arguments Winderquist makes in his blog, I have immense respect for the voice he uses in his writing. I hope to incorporate a number of his techniques into my own writing. I am passionate about a number of divisive issues which require rational and informed arguments, but also need to keep readers engaged. Finding a balance between evidence-based argumentation and gripping prose requires practice and guidance. For me, Karl Winderquist offers an effective style I hope to emulate in my future writing.

A Worthwhile Blog!

In today’s post I want to profile another blog which might be of interest to some of my readers. The blog, “Inequalities: Research and reflection from both sides of the Atlantic,” was started in September 2010 by a group of young academic researchers who met at a ‘Social Change: a Harvard-Manchester Initiative’ (SCHMI) workshop in Crewe, England. The fields covered by the collective range between sociology, political science, geography, demography, social policy, and economics. They come from “universities on both sides of the Atlantic,”  and aim to provide:

… a space to critically discuss research on inequality, both our own research and the most interesting research we come across; and
 … a community of people who want to try and tackle the injustices they see in the world by shedding light on things that would otherwise be invisible.

I am really excited to share this blog, and I think that the posts will be relevant to all readers who have taken interest in my posts. While the broad base of posters limits the continuity of the blog as a whole, I welcome the variety as refreshing. I often get caught on a single track or mindset when it comes to inequality, and reading informed posts from different points of view serves as a great reminder of the number of factors which impact this topic.

I’ll share a couple of my favorite posts to set you off in the right direction. A post questioning the purpose of elite universities brings to light some interesting questions about the goal in higher education. The author draws an analogy between elite universities and the preparations of a country’s Olympic program. He highlights how, similar to an Olympic training program, our elite universities pick out the best and brightest and cultivate them to be the very best in the world. To go along with the idea of competing countries, each country’s universities may exist only to produce the best intellects who will compete intellectually with the innovators of other countries. I appreciate the efforts the post makes to look at the way existing institutions may unintentionally contribute to inequality. The post is very well written and forces readers to think in a new way about inequality.

Another post I wanted to highlight pulls some interesting points out of a book called, “Doormen,” by Peter Bearmen. The book details how a close look at the seemingly minor details surrounding the job of a doorman reveal interesting aspects about social status and function. The post provides a succinct summary and guides readers of shorter blog-based material to more in-depth and thorough reading through relevant literature.

While this blog is not going to be your front page for the latest in inequality, it can provided thoughtful and insightful reading for whenever you want to check for updates. I really enjoy learning from those who are in the trenches at universities, doing the research necessary to push for evidence-based reform. While there may be some overlap in the content posted on my blog, I think that “Inequality” is likely to take a more informed and original approach, whereas my blog largely serves as a place for synthesis of existing material that is on the web. It appears others have found their blog to be useful as well; According to majesticseo.com, the blog has accumulated more than 100,000 backlinks in the last 5 years. I hope that you go and check it out! I think it will be worth your time.

My Social Bookmarking Soulmate!

I found who I believe to be my “social bookmarking soulmate” while browsing del.icio.us. Interestingly enough, the person that I found was the former president of del.icio.us when they were sold to Yahoo. I found him by looking up wealth distribution, and he was one of the top commenters on an article I found to be interesting.

            When I first went to his profile, I knew I was encountering a social bookmarking pro. With almost 3,000 public links and 58 followers, this guy had to be a big deal within the social bookmarking sphere. He has over 1,000 tags, but they are each fairly unique and relatively well-organized. You can tell that he must use the filter function well so that he doesn't have to organize perfectly. Some of the tags that confirmed to me that I had stumbled upon a match were “subjective well being”, “income”, “revolution”, “capitalism”, and “morality”. Not to mention that fact that he is a tech/math nerd like me. Sprinkled among his posts on economics are links to sites detailing the Fourier Transformation and String Theory. Academically grounded and socially driven.

            Following the link in his description brought me to his blog, Continuations.com. While there I gathered a couple more pieces of information about who this person was. His name is Albert Wenger and he is a partner at a venture capital firm which has companies like Twitter, Etsy, Tumblr, and Kickstarter in its portfolio. He has a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT and is fully engaged in Web 2.0. He has multiple posts each week on his blog, and the posts generate comments and fruitful discussion.

            By looking through his tags on del.icio.us I was able to find a number of good blogs on income inequality. One was on basic income guarantee, laying out what type of political action will be necessary for basic income to be introduced. I will have to reference it when I post later about basic income guarantee. Another intriguing blog I found from looking through Albert’s tags Lane Kenworthy’s “Consider the Evidence.” He has a very intellectually driven blog that dives deeply into the issue of wealth distribution and the pathway to potential solutions in the US. On the blogging end, I might say that Lane is my blogger soulmate. I find myself learning and wishing I spent more time on my own blog after reading his thorough and well-linked posts.        I am hoping to learn from these advanced web users so that I can keep myself at the forefront of content and dissemination of content on the web. To me, the sustained engagement with the web that I see in professional adults reminds that communicating and sharing content over the web is not a pastime of teenagers, but an incredibly valuable tool. Connecting with like-minded and driven individuals can help to promote ideas and growth. I am looking forward to improving the quality of my own blog by serving as a conduit to even more advanced content on the web.

            So why don’t my readers just climb the ladder and take me out as a middle man?  My particular contribution will hopefully be to contribute a naïve but interested opinion that others who are new to the topic can empathize with. I am looking forward to strengthening the network of information presented on this blog so those who wish to dive deeper are in a position to do so. 

Is Welfare Fair?

For today's post on welfare, I want to give a brief history of welfare states, look at some places where it seems to be working today, and highlight some of the inherent drawbacks to the system.

Welfare is the redistribution of wealth through contribution into a pool of money which is provisioned to provide basic levels of well being to everyone in a community. This can take the form of government programs, charities, or religious endeavors. The history of such programs is quite rich, dating back as far as the Roman Empire! Upon realization that their empire had grown too large for local crops to feed the populace, they developed a program called annona which consisted of large collections of crops in storehouses, sold to the poor at a very cheap rate during times of scarcity. The emperors would collect this tax from landowners within the empire. Historians have found that the great Roman Coliseum was used as a form of public welfare, and nearby people could collect their food. 

                               

                                      

These Roman coins called tesserae were the Roman equivalent to food stamps

This quote from Henry Joseph Haskell's 1939 book "New Deal in Rome" portents an ominous future for countries following a trend similar to ancient Rome:

The failure of the Roman system to furnish decent minimum standards of living for the mass of the people was a fundamental cause of instability, both political and economic. The decay of character that attended the sudden rush of great wealth undermined the Republic even before it was submerged by civil wars. Later, in a society unstable through social bitterness, extravagant public spending proved fatal. A British commentator, Professor F. E. Adcock of Cambridge University, remarks on the price the world finally had to pay for ” the gilding of the Golden Age of the Antonines.” The spending for non-productive public works, for the bureaucracy, and for the army, led to excessive taxation, inflation, and the ruin of the essential middle class and its leaders. It destroyed the men whom Leon Homo, French historian, calls, in a brilliant phrase, “the general staff of civilization.” These facts have implications that may be pertinent today

In modern day, Otto von Bismarck of Germany ushered in our current notion of the welfare state. He established pensions, medical care, and accident insurance through the strong ties with the business sector. In America, the Great Depression motivated a reevaluation of the role of government in maintaining the well-being of its citizens. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal created many of the social programs we still support to this day. Overtime, these systems of welfare have become more and more holistic, with some European countries offer nearly holistic social safety nets.

One of the main sources of conflict over the welfare state is the requirement for people to pay into a system regardless of whether or not they think the system is effective. Not paying taxes is punishable by law, yet many feel as if they would rather choose how they would like to spend their money, rather than have that decision made for them by the government. There are strong arguments to be made on both sides of the debate. Often times the scale of operations in a welfare state produce incredible bureaucracy and stagnation. Programs are slow to adjust to demand, and even smallest of decisions are hard to make with so many affected parties. Additionally, the distance of the welfare system from the refinement mechanisms of the free market contribute exacerbate the inefficiencies of government social programs even further. On the other hand, social safety nets really are a public good, and those who at highest risk for needing support are rarely in a position where they can find help in times of need. A country without a welfare system would rely on the privileged to be charitable towards the lesser privileged. While this is most definitely possible, and many wealthy people are incredibly charitable global citizens, there is no guarantee that the level charitable people will match the great demand for support.

I believe that the values of a particular society dictate the importance of a welfare program and the scale to which it should be provisioned. For example, in countries where family and community are of greater importance, there is an inherent system of welfare which would make large government programs less efficient than the direct support of family and friends. Alternatively, in a country like the US which is very individualistic, it may be more important to include welfare as a major component of taxation because people are less compelled to help out their neighbor.

Although the Romans happened upon an important social innovation in the form of welfare, there is still a great deal of refinement necessary to address the root motivations for welfares existence. Opinions on welfare nearly divide the US in half, demonstrating the incredibly divisive nature of the subject. We may to reconsider our preconceptions about welfare in order to find a more suitable compromise. I am excited to talk about these divisions, and possible ways to re-envision welfare in future posts.

Post #4

Finding the Human in the Digital Humanities

Gini Coefficient

Part of assessing the effects of inequality is understanding the different ways in which inequality is measured. I am going to give a brief introduction to the Gini coefficient, a commonly used metric for the amount of inequality in a particular population. I will then show a brief example of how the Gini coefficient can be used to put economic development in perspective in a way that facilitates better policy making.

            The Gini coefficient was first used by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912. It is probably best understood by looking at the graph from which the measure comes from. In the above graph you can see the x-axis holds the cumulative share of people in the population from lowest to highest incomes. That means that 25% represents the poorest quarter of the population. The y-axis displays the cumulative share of total income earned a particular percentage of the population receives. The point (25%, 15%) represents the fact the poorest quarter of the population accounts for 15% of total income earned. In a society where wealth is perfectly equally distributed, the graph would be a 45 degree straight line where everyone earned the same amount of income. This is represented by the “Line of Equality” in the above image.

            

             In reality, income earned varies among the population, creating a curved line. The Gini coefficient is equal to the area between the line of equality and the curve that represents income distribution for a particular population, divided by the total area underneath the line of equality. In our picture this is represented by A divided by A + B. This number is really only useful when put into relative terms. Below are the values of the Gini coefficient for a number of countries to provide some intuition for what normal values are. Remember, the higher the number, the more inequality in that country.

South Africa: 63.1

Costa Rica: 50.7

China: 47.0

United States: 45.0

Qatar: 41.1

Japan: 38.1

United Kingdom: 34.0

Afghanistan: 27.8

Denmark: 24.0

           

            As we can see, the numbers vary quite a bit, and the Gini coefficient isn’t necessarily a good indicator of economic prosperity within a country. But it can be very useful for a number of practical purposes like looking into the role inequality plays when conducting policy planning for development.

            This graph pulled from Martin Ravallion’s 2005 paper Inequality is Bad for the Poor shows how reduction of poverty associated with changing mean incomes has a positive relationship with the amount of inequality in a country. Effectively, the less inequality in a region, the more poverty reduction occurs from raising the mean income. This finding is crucial for policy makers who are looking at the most important factors to address when aiming to reduce poverty in a country.

            

        I plan to bring the Gini coefficient back up throughout my blog so that readers can have a numerical grounding when reading about levels of inequality. Although it is a very simple measure and leaves room for more investigation, its simplicity allows for easy comparison and basic quantification of income distribution. Maybe by looking at how different levels of inequality affect prosperity and happiness in different countries we will be able to get a better understanding for whether or not inequality really is so bad.

Meow

Last night I saw a cat limping down the street, one paw held limp at its side. All I wanted to do was help it, take it home, heal it, feed it, make it better. My emotional response was so strong that I could physically feel my mood deteriorate as I watched the cat disappear into the darkness. But I wasn’t compelled enough to do anything other than stand passively and watch. I thought to myself, “There are millions of cats like this on the streets, why should I take care of this one? I can’t respond to all of the suffering I see. I’ll run out of time and money!”

3.5 billion years ago, when life first emerged out of the primordial ooze, Earth provided all the necessities to foster growth. A competition for resources began and continued existence was the grand prize. Each stage of the continuous competition required adaptation and increasing sophistication in order to capture limited resources better than all other organisms. Soon, organisms began to consume each other in order to procure the steady supply of energy necessary to sustain their living processes. A beautiful yet harsh process of adaptation, competition, and death created the incredible variety of plants, animals, insects and more that populate the earth today. Humans survived through intellect. The ability to plan, communicate, use tools, and act as a community all contributed to the endurance of our species. But as we grew in size, we began to compete amongst ourselves.

Today we distribute resources through an economy, and money serves as a certificate for the right to a percentage of resources. We are living in an age of excess. More than a third of Americans are obese¹. At the same time, 870 million people were severely undernourished in between 2010 and 2012². Some humans are clearly winning the resource battle, and others are not. But what benefit is it to gorge yourself in response to excess availability? Drastically disproportionate levels of accumulation within humanity don’t appear to be contributing to the continuation of our species. Yet our drive to gather more wins out over the opportunity to lend a hand to fellow man. This drive has a distinct evolutionary origin, but it is not impossible to rationalize away.

The same night I saw the injured cat, I saw a homeless man rifling through a trash bin in search of cans and bottles. I see this everyday actually. The first time I saw it I reacted in a fashion similar to my poignant response to the suffering cat. But overtime I have become to numb to the spectacle. How demeaning is that? I barely even notice a fellow human who has been reduced to rummaging around in waste, collecting bottles worth less than a dime. My perception of the inevitable stratification of society effectively absolves me of all responsibility to assist a man who is visibly suffering right in front of me. Still, my indifference robs him of his humanity. Am I responsible? Are we responsible? My answer is yes. I am complicit to the system which actively contributes to the degradation of portions of society. Yes, society is complex, but so are rocket ships. I believe that the human faculties of compassion and ingenuity can combine to rework society in a way which doesn’t not condemn billions to poverty and suffering. We can help each other out. Unfortunately, it is against our nature.

¹ CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) 2010

² United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization 2012

Hello, World!

A friend might describe me as an average student from an average family living an average life in sunny Southern California. Yet, from another perspective I am one the happiest, most privileged, wealthy and well-educated individuals in the world. The many barriers between me and the rest of the world have created an illusion of normalcy which conceals the relative opulence I live in. Coming to terms with my own ignorance to the disparity in living conditions in my own backyard has inspired me to dig deeper into the concept of inequality and its greater implications.  

After entering college dead-set on becoming a doctor, a class I took in my first semester opened my eyes to the potential for impact the field of global health offers. Since then I have invested my energies into understanding the field of global health and acquiring the tools I believe to be necessary for impact. I am studying Global Health and Mathematics/Economics. Professionally, I am interested in Health Metrics and Evaluation, particularly in developing settings. I am optimistic about the future, but plagued by the lingering fear that human suffering is intrinsic to human existence. Incredible economic growth over the past century has drastically improved standards of living though out the world. Innovations in health and technology have completely shifted the outlook for the future of mankind. Nevertheless, people die of starvation every year. Can humanity eradicate the most basic causes of human suffering while maintaining acceptable standards of living for the rich world? If this is possible, would the necessary ethical shift slow down human progress at the frontier of innovation? Is human satisfaction a zero-sum game in which one man's happiness necessitates another man's suffering? These are questions which frame my future professional pursuits, and therefore an analytical look at existing critical thought on this topic is of great interest to me.  

While I am by no means an expert in economics, wealth distribution, or life satisfaction, my education has provided me with a basic literacy to understand and synthesize useful information. I hope to focus my passion about the topic into productive critical thought. I am an optimist and so my posts will often take a positive viewpoint when possible. Despite this caveat, I am not afraid of conceding to harsh conclusions given proper justification. The value of this blog will not be derived from my personal expertise, but rather from my open-minded approach to a topic of genuine interest to me.  

I have developed a cursory framework for my future posts and will present it now in order to preview for my readers what they are in for if they choose to continue reading. First, I would like to look at inequality and resource distribution from an evolutionary perspective. The history of life on earth has been a constant competition for limited resources and a refinement processing rewarding the best with the ultimate prize of continued existence. By addressing the origins of resource competition, I hope to partially justify our inherent desire to accumulate, sometimes beyond logic.  

Then I will discuss some of the measures of inequality and how different countries stack up and now and in the past. Next, I will highlight some of the political systems which attempt to address the issue of wealth distribution, both current and historical. I want to continue on by looking at how different theologies address inequality and the ethical backing they give to particular responses to privilege. I would then like to see how levels on inequality affecting health and life satisfaction in different countries. By down this I hope to key into whether or not minimizing inequality is important for raising overall life satisfaction.  

Finally I would like to write about different social movements like the occupy movement or the Basic Income Guarantee concept to radically redistributing wealth. I believe understanding these ideas helps to understand what possible steps forward may be, and whether the world is prepared to make what may be necessary changes for the goodness of all.  

By the end of it all, I hope that both myself and my readers have a more informed opinion on whether life is a zero-sum game or whether rising waters raise all ships. I'm hoping for the latter!