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Mind the gap: facing up to inequalities
Christian Century, June 14, 2003 by Harlan Beckley
Some critics of this view understandably object to holding politically powerless people accountable for their behavior while the very rich are not subject to structures of accountability. However, if the vulgar incomes of the richest Americans result from relaxed social norms rather than from productive forces inherent in the market economy, as Krugman surmises, then social and political changes, such as those advocated by Hollenbach and Hicks, can extend the structure of accountability to these upper echelons of the income scale.
Taken together, these four books offer theological, ethical and empirical reasons to be indignant about persistent domestic and global poverty and inequality. Their empirical and policy analyses lead to morally prudent political and civic efforts to diminish these attacks on human dignity. Poverty and inequality are, as Hicks argues and Page and Simmons assume, interrelated. Moreover, the inequalities occur in multiple spheres: education, health and political participation as well as income. To address these dimensions of poverty, we need a solidarity in which all persons are accountable for a common good that advances the equal dignity and freedom of all citizens.
Harlan Beckley is Fletcher Otey Thomas Professor of Religion and director of the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability at Washington and Lee University. He is a theological ethicist who teaches and writes on economic justice and poverty.
COPYRIGHT 2003 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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