Economic inequality

February 10, 2015

How Christianity Gave Us the Modern World

“Christianity undergirded the development of Western liberalism (in the old, good sense of the word),” says Rich Lowry. In fact, without Christianity there would probably not be anything like what we conceive as true liberty: The indispensable role of Christianity in the creation of individual rights and ultimately of secularism itself is the subject of the revelatory new intellectual history Inventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop. Continue Reading...

February 06, 2015

Is Your Child “Richer” Than the “Poorest” 2 Billion People in the World Combined?

“The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.” The stat was quoted last month in a report by the development organization Oxfam, but similar claims have become common. Continue Reading...

January 21, 2015

3 Disturbing Facts About the Social Mobility of Black Americans

One of the most important important socio-economic factors in America is also one of the least talked about: social mobility. Social mobility is the ability of an individual or family to improve (or lower) their economic status. Continue Reading...

January 21, 2015

Redistribution and the State of the Union

Today at Think Christian I reflect on President Obama’s State of the Union message last night. I think it was perhaps the best speech I have heard him give in terms of delivery and general tone. Continue Reading...

December 02, 2014

I’m a Giant in Japan. Or, Why Income Inequality is Irrelevant

For most of my life I was, at 5-foot-10, of exactly average height. But in the span of one day in 1989 I became freakishly tall. While I hadn’t grown an inch upward, I had moved 6,000 miles eastward to Okinawa, Japan. Continue Reading...

August 28, 2014

Explaining Social Mobility Using Legos

“Can you explain that important economic concept using Legos?” Apparently, someone must have said that to Richard Reeves, an economist at the Brookings Institution economist, because he’s made a brief video using Legos to visualize social mobility. Continue Reading...

August 27, 2014

Which Inequality? Trends Toward Equality in Lifespans and Education

Earlier this month, I wrote a two part article for the Library of Law & Liberty, critiquing the uncritical condemnation of income inequality by world religious leaders. In part 1, I pointed out that “while the Pope, the Patriarch, the Dalai Lama, and others are right about the increase in [global income] inequality, they are wrong to conclude that this causes global poverty—the latter is demonstrably on the decline. Continue Reading...

August 07, 2014

Post Tagged 'Economic inequality'

The Connection Between Inequality and Poverty Alleviation