Wealth Inequality

Social Implications

It's quite obvious to see that from a social standpoint, tension has just been growing and growing between the working class and the upper class. With the advent of social media, information spreads like wildfire and so do emotions and argumentation. As social media has grown and grown, so has online contention, which has bled into the real world. One way these contentions have grown is due to the dissatisfaction of the working class, as people are becoming increasingly more aware that they're not being compensated justly, and thus has led to a recent mass drop of workers in industries all across America. It is a very common sentiment that wages need to be higher and workers need more benefits in order to keep up with the ever-growing cost-of-living. The wealthy have become a symbol of the economic oppression that people across America have come to feel, as the working class believes it is unfair for a select few group of people to have so much money, while a large majority of people are struggling. However, despite the tension between these groups of people, misunderstandings can still happen and social tensions do not equate to one side being right and the other wrong. These social tensions plainly exist, however they could have initialized for a variety a reasons and blaming a specific part is not feasible with the dynamic nature of the social climate.

Economic Implications

As wealth inequality describes the difference in economic goods between different groups of people, the economic implications are quite literally defined in the phrase "wealth inequality." However, the effects of wealth inequality on our economy go deeper than a perceived difference in the net worths of many different people. For example, as major corporations sponge up more money as business continues to grow, then there tends to be less money existing for the average working person to use at their leisure, which very slowly stifles economic growth. However, one could also argue that wealth inequality can assist in growing the economy, as wealthy people have the ability to create and expand into new idustries, which can create new markets and drive more economic cash flow. Despite this, there still seems to be a slight negative trend in economic growth recently. Wealth inequality also tends to show an increase in poverty and crime, which damages the economy even more. In the current state of America, the wealthy tend to get wealthier while the poor tend to get poorer. While the rich are getting richer, they also invest funds in ways that mostly benefit their own self interests rather than using their money in a way that would allow more cash flow for the rest of society, as well as implementing policies and/or legislation that allows the rich to retain more of their money. The biggest example of this is tax legislation, which is inherently lax on the rich, which is contradictive to the point of taxes in the first place and shows that government funding relies more on taxing the working class rather than the top 1% who own around 30% of the country's total wealth.

Political Implications

The political implications of the wealth disparity are immense. As a result of the large gap in monetary value between the working class and the upper class, political power tends to exist solely in the hands of whoever has the money to buy off representatives. A lot of legislation is passed and funded by major companies and corporations, purely in their own interets rather than in the interests of the working class and the world. For example, Coca-Cola has put an immense amount of money into dietary research in order to hide the fact that Coke and other sodas are incredibly unhealthy and are one of the biggest factors to weight gain and the obesity pandemic across America. However, rather that find healthier ways to make a tasty drink, they act in their own interest and do their best to make the most money, at the expense of poor nation-wide dietary health.

Conclusion

In conclusion, wealth inequality seems to be a problematic issue in society that has only been getting worse and worse. This growing wealth inequality has been at least somewhat responsible for growing social tensions, slowing economic growth, and implementations of policies that are against the working class. While there be misunderstandings or gray areas where evidenceisn't the strongest to determine whether wealth inequality is unequivocably to blame for several different issues plagueing society today, it is clear that there is some degree of negative influence that has been causing social, economic, and political issues.

“It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country is prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people . . . It is the struggling masses who are the foundation [of this country]; and if the foundation be rotten or insecure, the rest of the structure must eventually crumble.”