Arthur Brooks, Maura Pennington, Charles Murray

In Arthur Brook’s article “Inequality and Unhappiness in America”, he makes it a solid point that inequality does not directly correlate with unhappiness. If our leaders focus on getting rid of income inequality then the underlying problem, lack of income mobility and unhappiness, will not improve. Brooks believes that we are mistaking symptom for root cause. In Maura Penningtons article, “To Fix Income Inequality, the Have- Nots Must Become the Do- Somethings” she states that we must “forget our misguided and nihilistic inclinations to pillage the wealthiest among us.” Pennington does not believe that the wealthy are the reason for inequality. She thinks that we should look up to the wealthy and use their success as motivation to do better for ourselves. Instead of redistributing a static supply of resources to the poor and middle class, Pennington believes we must establish stable institutions to empower people to be free and productive. In the article “New American Divide” by Charles Murray, he states that “everyone in the new monetary upper class has the resources to make a wide variety of decisions that determine whether they engage themselves or their children in the rest of America or whether they isolate themselves from it” Murray believes that culture is the main reason for economic inequality. All of these articles make is seem like economic inequality is not the major issue. Each article brings up different reasons for the struggle our economy is facing rather than blaming it solely on economic enequality.

Reich would disagree with many of these articles. Reich said that the united state has the most unequal distribution of income out of all the countries and this is the reason we are struggling as a nation. Like I stated earlier, Pennington makes it a point that inequality is not the issue. Instead we should see economic inequality as motivation to do better and move up the economic latter to achieve success. Reich said that in order to have a strong and successful economy it is crucial to have a vibrant and growing middle class. Brook’s would say to this that the middle class needs to work harder in order to help themselves. Reich also stated that it is extremely important to invest in people, the workforce and the middle class. According to Pennington, redistributing resources to the middle class is not going to do anything. We need to encourage people instead to be free and productive on their own. Krugman and Reich believe inequality is a problem when it is extreme and when it is connected with low levels of mobility and opportunity. Because then it makes it hard for people to get out of their social standings. 

Inequality for All and Krugman questions

According to Reich, the United States has the most unequal distribution of income out of all countries. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million US citizens combined. Inequality started to increase in the 1970’s-80’s. As income got more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands the financial sector bloomed on certain things. The middle class’s incomes were stagnating and so the middle class went deeper and deeper into debt to maintain their living conditions. Reich makes it a point that it is extremely necessary to have a strong vibrant and growing middle class in order to have a good economy. The problem isn’t that the rich spend too much its actually that they spend too little and this ultimately results in not enough economic activity. Instead they end up saving that money and become part of the global economic market rather than solely the United States economic market. Most of the return they get on their invested money doesn’t do anything for our economy it only gives return to their specific bank accounts, which is a huge issue. People would be less concerned about inequality and wealth if they were able to move up the income latter and make it financially. However as income inequality rises, upward mobility is way less likely than it was before. Inequality is clearly linked to higher education because it helps to lift people out of poverty. However by the 70’s higher education was becoming harder to obtain. Reich believes the most important thing is to invest in people, our work force and middle class. He believes if workers don’t have a voice then their wages will suffer. Big companies are not designed to create good jobs in the united states they are designed to make profit, and that’s an issue.  

·                                  Krugman believes that Americans do not have equal opportunity. Because children from low income families are usually uninsured they are now more likely to have health issues that could affect decisions they make throughout the rest of their lives. Inequality corrupts our politics. High levels of inequality also strains the bond that holds us together as a society. Krugman says “there is convincing evidence that growing inequality is behind our growing cynicism, which is making the united states seem growingly like a Latin American country” He believes that getting rid of inequality means undoing many of the tax cuts for the wealthy the movement conservatives pushed through since 1980. Krugman stated that he believes in order to progressively restore the tax system the Bush tax cuts for the very well off need to expire at the end of 2010 as planned. He also believes that a newly empowered US union movement would reduce inequality.  

Analyze a Fallay

Demonizing is a very prevalent fallacy used by Wallace in his speech. When describing the government he makes multiple references to satan. He states, “We find we have replaced faith with fear and though we may give lip service to the Almighty, in reality, government has become our god. It is, therefore, a basically ungodly government and its appeal to the pseudo-intellectual and the politician is to change their status from servant  of the people to master of the people, to play at being God without faith in God and without the wisdom of God. It is a system that is the very opposite of Christ for it feeds and encourages everything degenerate and base in our people as it assumes the responsibilities that we ourselves should assume.” He uses words like “ungodly” and then claims that the government is “the very opposite of christ” to make the federal government seem devilish. He uses this in order to have a stronger affect on his audience. By making the government seem like the devil, people will see them in a different light and are more likely to agree with Wallace’s argument. Wallace demonizes the government to make it hard for his audience to disagree with him. If they were to disagree then they can personally be demonized. 

Wallace Scapegoating and Weaknesses

Scapegoating: 

According to Roberts miller, “Parties must not prevent each other from advancing stand- points or casting doubt on standpoints.”41 Various strategies that attempt to do this—threatening harm, engaging in personal attack, trying to discredit the interlocutor—are fallacious because they try to prevent the disagreement from happening at all, thereby precluding its being resolved”. Wallace does this quite a bit when he talks about the government. He uses ad hominen to blame and personally attack the government for its mistakes. He states, “It is a government that claims to us that it is bountiful as it buys its power from us with the fruits of its rapaciousness of the wealth that free men before it have produced and builds on crumbling credit without responsibilities to the debtors, our children.” Instead of fairly representing his opponents view he uses demogogues to misrepresent the argument. The way Wallace bashes the government makes it seem like they are doing everything wrong and not protecting the people. The easiest way out of a sticky situation is to place blame on someone, therefore Wallace is giving the people someone to point fingers at. In some ways this tactic makes his audience feel hopeful because to find a solution you must first discover what the problem is. If the problem is the government, then they now know what needs to be changed.

Weakness:

Roberts Miller states, “interlocutors must defend their standpoints with relevant forms of argumentation.” However in the beginning of Wallace’s speech he compares his safety in Washington D.C. to a terrorist attack by saying, “I was safer in a B-29 bomber over Japan during the war in an air raid, than the people of Washington are walking to the White House neighborhood.” Instead of defending his standpoint and discussing why he is in the right he attacks his opponents and puts them into a bad light. According to Roberts Miller, Wallace is “Misattributing an argument (such as accusing someone of being on the side of terrorists for disagreeing with the United States), or distorting an argument (such as presenting the weakest version) constitutes violations of this rule.” This is Wallace’s biggest weakness, instead of talking about how the government is doing wrong for Alabama he should be talking about how he can make it better and going into more depth about the benefits of segregation.