Thursday, February 20, 2014

91% of Republicans – and 93% of Democrats – Think We Have Too Much Inequality

Politicians May Not Care About Inequality, But People Of Both Parties Do

A Gallup poll last month found that 54% of all Republicans think we have too much inequality.
A recent poll by leading behavioral scientist Dan Ariely of Duke University found that, in the abstract, 91% of Republicans favored Swedish levels of inequality instead of higher American levels … and the results for Democrats were virtually identical at 93%:

As Ariely notes, politicians may be trying to make us think we’re more different than we really are. We’re sure it has nothing to do with the fact that a majority of congress members are now millionaires, and that they profit handsomely from things that are destructive to the rest of us. And see this.
The discomfort of the American people is not entirely surprising, given that inequality in America today is twice as bad as in ancient Rome, worse than it was in Tsarist RussiaGilded Age America, modern Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen, many banana republics in Latin America, and worse than experienced byslaves in 1774 colonial America.And even the top 1% are getting peanuts compared to the top .01%.

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