Dept. of Naming Things: Inequality

A story in today's New York Times about how people have lost faith in the American Dream has this interesting passage:

“I don’t know what you mean by an unequal distribution of wealth,” said Robert Monti, a 74-year-old retired social studies teacher from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who identified himself as “a registered Democrat but haven’t voted Democrat in years.” 

 He said, “It’s a proven fact that everybody can’t make the same amount of money, and it’s a ridiculous assumption that they can. You’ll never have economic equality. Ever.”

Well, he's got a point. If inequality is the problem, surely what we want is equality. And practically nobody believes in equality of wealth or income.

So people should stop talking about economic inequality as the problem. The problem is really (choose one or more):

• the concentration of wealth and income at the top

• the fact that wealth and income are so skewed

• economic inequity

• economic unfairness

• the redistribution of income from the 99% to the 1%

There is one kind of equality, though, that Americans do believe in: political equality. Political inequality--the fact that the rich have so much political power--is at least as great a concern to Americans as the increasing concentration of wealth and income. And, of course, it will be hard to do much about the unfair income distribution without doing something about political inequality.

But the latter requires the Democrats to make a serious effort toward campaign finance reform.  So far, they've lacked the ganas for that. Or maybe the cojones.