Economic inequality and the long-term future

Abstract

Why, if at all, should we object to economic inequality? Some central arguments – the argument from decreasing marginal utility for example – invoke instrumental reasons and object to inequality because of its effects. Such instrumental arguments, however, often concern only the static effects of inequality and neglect its intertemporal consequences. In this article, we address this striking gap and investigate income inequality's intertemporal consequences, including its potential effects on humanity's (very) long-term future. Following recent arguments around future generations and so-called longtermism, those effects might arguably matter more than inequality's short-term consequences. We assess whether we have instrumental reason to reduce economic inequality based on its intertemporal effects in the short, medium, and the very long term. We find a good short and medium-term instrumental case for lower economic inequality. We then argue, somewhat speculatively, that we have instrumental reasons for inequality reduction from a longtermist perspective too, primarily because greater inequality could increase existential risk. We thus have instrumental reasons to reduce inequality, regardless of which time-horizon we take. We then argue that from most consequentialist perspectives, this pro tanto reason also gives us all-things-considered reason. And even across most non-consequentialist views in philosophy, this argument gives us either an all-things-considered or at least weighty pro tanto reason against inequality.

Consequentialism and the Role of Practices in Political Philosophy

“…Consequentialism accounts well for many of the plausible arguments to have emerged from the Practice Debate. The argument runs like this: 14 See Bailey (1997), Goodin (1995), Gray (2013), Hardin (1990), Kelly (1990), Mill (1871, Pettit (2012), Rawls (1955), Schmidt and Juijn (2023), Sidgwick (1891Sidgwick ( , 1907, Sumner (1987) and Woodard (2019) for some such arguments to vindicate normative principles---for example around punishment, democracy, freedom, equality and so on---through consequentialism. We can also include Hart, who argued that a plausible justification of the institution of punishment must be consequentialist (the 'general justifying aim'), although he argues whether and how we punish in individual cases needs to be guided and constrained by non-consequentialist considerations (the 'distribution' of punishment) (Hart 1968, chap.…”