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On Inequality
Economic inequality is one of the most divisive issues of our time. Yet few would argue that inequality is a greater evil than poverty. The poor suffer because they don't have enough, not because others have more, and some have far too much. So why do many people appear to be more distressed by the rich than by the poor?
In this provocative book, the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author of "On Bullshit" presents a compelling and unsettling response to those who believe that the goal of social justice should be economic equality or less inequality. Harry Frankfurt, one of the most influential moral philosophers in the world, argues that we are morally obligated to eliminate poverty--not achieve equality or reduce inequality. Our focus should be on making sure everyone has a sufficient amount to live a decent life. To focus instead on inequality is distracting and alienating.
At the same time, Frankfurt argues that the conjunction of vast wealth and poverty is offensive. If we dedicate ourselves to making sure everyone has enough, we may reduce inequality as a side effect. But it's essential to see that the ultimate goal of justice is to end poverty, not inequality.
A serious challenge to cherished beliefs on both the political left and right, "On Inequality" promises to have a profound impact on one of the great debates of our time.
In this provocative book, the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author of "On Bullshit" presents a compelling and unsettling response to those who believe that the goal of social justice should be economic equality or less inequality. Harry Frankfurt, one of the most influential moral philosophers in the world, argues that we are morally obligated to eliminate poverty--not achieve equality or reduce inequality. Our focus should be on making sure everyone has a sufficient amount to live a decent life. To focus instead on inequality is distracting and alienating.
At the same time, Frankfurt argues that the conjunction of vast wealth and poverty is offensive. If we dedicate ourselves to making sure everyone has enough, we may reduce inequality as a side effect. But it's essential to see that the ultimate goal of justice is to end poverty, not inequality.
A serious challenge to cherished beliefs on both the political left and right, "On Inequality" promises to have a profound impact on one of the great debates of our time.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2015
70 people are currently reading
1387 people want to read
About the author
Harry G. Frankfurt
18 books347 followersHarry Gordon Frankfurt was an American philosopher. He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, where he taught from 1990 until 2002. Frankfurt also taught at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Ohio State University.
Frankfurt made significant contributions to fields like ethics and philosophy of mind. The attitude of caring played a central role in his philosophy. To care about something means to see it as important and reflects the person's character. According to Frankfurt, a person is someone who has second-order volitions or who cares about what desires he or she has. He contrasts persons with wantons. Wantons are beings that have desires but do not care about which of their desires is translated into action. In the field of ethics, Frankfurt gave various influential counterexamples, so-called Frankfurt cases, against the principle that moral responsibility depends on the ability to do otherwise. His most popular book is On Bullshit, which discusses the distinction between bullshitting and lying.
Frankfurt made significant contributions to fields like ethics and philosophy of mind. The attitude of caring played a central role in his philosophy. To care about something means to see it as important and reflects the person's character. According to Frankfurt, a person is someone who has second-order volitions or who cares about what desires he or she has. He contrasts persons with wantons. Wantons are beings that have desires but do not care about which of their desires is translated into action. In the field of ethics, Frankfurt gave various influential counterexamples, so-called Frankfurt cases, against the principle that moral responsibility depends on the ability to do otherwise. His most popular book is On Bullshit, which discusses the distinction between bullshitting and lying.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
January 2, 2020
I’ve read some of Dr. Frankfurt’s other essays and very much enjoyed them. On Inequality, in contrast, reminded me of a person who comes into the middle of a conversation, doesn’t quite understand what the subject is and then argues against everyone else, all while missing the point.
Inequality is a popular buzzword in American culture right now – and understandable for those who look at the state of American society from the statistics of wealth disparity or student debt to the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan. And yes, like any word having its moment in the pop culture spotlight, inequality has taken on meanings that deviate from its traditional definition.
This seems to bug Dr. Frankfurt, who argues we should instead be using ‘doctrine of sufficiency’ in these discussions. That may be a more accurate term, but I’d suggest it doesn’t have the same resonance as ‘income inequality.’
For that matter, Dr. Frankfurt is right: People are not equal. I have no doubt there are many people better equipped to not take pop-culture terminology quite so literally or get quite so worked up over it.
So Dr. Frankfurt looks at the ‘inequality’ in the literal sense, has apparently heard a couple of people argument for total equality, and taken that to mean that the whole movement is a bunch of misunderstood idiots. Now, he does very nicely disclaim that he doesn’t think people should live in extreme poverty, although he does so in a way that’s reminiscent of an attorney acknowledging the other side’s strongest arguments before casually dismissing them as poppycock.
I don’t disagree with some of Dr. Frankfurt’s arguments or his desire to look at how we use words and how we often say one thing when we mean another. The problem is that, as soon as he casts his argument in economic terms and current events, he pulls in the realities of the moment in which he is writing. As a result, he comes across not as a wise man adding a needed counterbalance to popular rhetoric but instead as an out-of-touch, privileged academic of an older generation who is still screaming about the Soviet Union.
What a tremendous disappointment. Not recommended.
Inequality is a popular buzzword in American culture right now – and understandable for those who look at the state of American society from the statistics of wealth disparity or student debt to the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan. And yes, like any word having its moment in the pop culture spotlight, inequality has taken on meanings that deviate from its traditional definition.
This seems to bug Dr. Frankfurt, who argues we should instead be using ‘doctrine of sufficiency’ in these discussions. That may be a more accurate term, but I’d suggest it doesn’t have the same resonance as ‘income inequality.’
For that matter, Dr. Frankfurt is right: People are not equal. I have no doubt there are many people better equipped to not take pop-culture terminology quite so literally or get quite so worked up over it.
So Dr. Frankfurt looks at the ‘inequality’ in the literal sense, has apparently heard a couple of people argument for total equality, and taken that to mean that the whole movement is a bunch of misunderstood idiots. Now, he does very nicely disclaim that he doesn’t think people should live in extreme poverty, although he does so in a way that’s reminiscent of an attorney acknowledging the other side’s strongest arguments before casually dismissing them as poppycock.
I don’t disagree with some of Dr. Frankfurt’s arguments or his desire to look at how we use words and how we often say one thing when we mean another. The problem is that, as soon as he casts his argument in economic terms and current events, he pulls in the realities of the moment in which he is writing. As a result, he comes across not as a wise man adding a needed counterbalance to popular rhetoric but instead as an out-of-touch, privileged academic of an older generation who is still screaming about the Soviet Union.
What a tremendous disappointment. Not recommended.
March 18, 2024
Excellent book that looks at inequality as the 'tree' that bears 'rotten fruit' when poverty is the 'root'; it is the root that nourishes the tree - to blame the fruit for being rotten is fail to establish what is the cause and what is the effect. Reminded me of Jesus cursing the fig tree: I guess we all have to be better 'gardeners' if we want equality to flourish.
December 10, 2015
Harry Frankfurt’s “On Inequality” is a cogent and compelling argument against the commonly accepted assumption that economic equality is a morally compelling ideal. While it’s more of an essay than a book - it’ll take you an hour or two to finish - it’s long enough for Frankfurt to drive his point home convincingly. And while though some of the implications of his thesis are underdeveloped (where that this were a book!), on the whole, “On Inequality” is a quick and well-reasoned read that will challenge you to reconsider seemingly unassailable moral assumptions.
Frankfurt’s thesis is that economic inequality, in and of itself, is not morally objectionable. After all, he asks, wouldn’t you rather live in today’s unequal world than in a world where everyone lives equally low below the poverty line? As an alternative to “economic egalitarianism,” Frankfurt presents the “principle of sufficiency.” This principle states that, instead of striving for everybody to have the same amount, we should focus on making sure everyone “has enough.” In other words, the morally relevant problem we face today is not that incomes are unequal - it’s that many people are poor.
Now, it could very well be that the most effective way to banish poverty is, in fact, to strive for equality. Or it might not. That’s for policy makers to decide. Frankfurt is a philosopher, and his point is simply that equality is, in and of itself, not a morally compelling ideal. To the extent that equality is sometimes desirable, it’s because it has derivative value: it can be a means to accomplish something else that has inherent moral value.
Frankfurt goes on to make a stronger claim. Not only is economic egalitarianism not a moral value: treating it as if it were can be harmful. The problem is that when people are “preoccupied with economic equality… their readiness to be satisfied with some particular level of income or wealth is… not guided by their own most distinctive interests and ambitions.” (10) In other words,being preoccupied with how much you have, relative to others, distracts you from thinking about what matters to you specifically, in absolute terms. In this sense, focusing on economic equality can be both alienating (we focus on others’ differences) and distracting (we don’t focus on ourselves).
So what does it mean to “have enough”? Frankfurt states that “to say that a person has enough money means - more or less - that he is content, or that it is reasonable for him to be content, with having no more money than he actually has.” (48) As best I understand it, the principle of sufficiency states we’re obligated to ensure everyone has “enough to be happy” - or enough to where it would be unreasonable to point to insufficient resources as the cause of unhappiness.
If you think that sounds a bit vague, it is. I found Frankfurt’s limited investigation into what it means to have “enough” to be the weakest part of his argument. For better or for worse, a person’s happiness is partially a function of what they have, relative to what other people have (see Robert Frank’s Falling Behind for a nuanced discussion of this point). Frankfurt also states that “equality of opportunity, equal respect, equal rights, equal consideration, equal concern… none of these modes of equality [are] intrinsically valuable” (68) This isn’t as contentious a claim as it seems (again, these things might end up having derivative value) - but they’re provoking claims nonetheless and merit further investigation.
“On Equality" is a bit of a tease, then: it cogently presents a provocative thesis, but doesn’t fully explore its implications. What if “having enough” is subjective? Are you sure "equality of rights" truly isn't a morally compelling ideal? And if we accept your thesis - how should it affect our daily actions? Frankfurt doesn’t dig very deeply.
And yet, this weakness might also be the book’s greatest strength. Frankfurt’s laser focus on his core thesis ensures partisan readers don’t get distracted by it’s implications, and the repetitive but systematic way he drives home his point ensures a casual audience won’t misconstrue his claims. I still wouldn’t recommend this to anyone that sits on either extreme of today’s political spectrum, but if you’re willing to think critically and your opinions leave room for nuance, definitely check it out.
Notable quotes:
“The fact that some people have much less than others is not at all morally disturbing when it is clear that the worse off have plenty… we tend to be quite unmoved, after all, by the inequalities between those who are very well-to-do and those who are extremely rich.” (42)
“Proponents of egalitarianism frequently suppose that they have offered evidence for their position when what they have in fact offered supports only the doctrine of sufficiency.” (43)
“The doctrine of equality contributes to the moral disorientation and shallowness of our time.” (14)
Frankfurt’s thesis is that economic inequality, in and of itself, is not morally objectionable. After all, he asks, wouldn’t you rather live in today’s unequal world than in a world where everyone lives equally low below the poverty line? As an alternative to “economic egalitarianism,” Frankfurt presents the “principle of sufficiency.” This principle states that, instead of striving for everybody to have the same amount, we should focus on making sure everyone “has enough.” In other words, the morally relevant problem we face today is not that incomes are unequal - it’s that many people are poor.
Now, it could very well be that the most effective way to banish poverty is, in fact, to strive for equality. Or it might not. That’s for policy makers to decide. Frankfurt is a philosopher, and his point is simply that equality is, in and of itself, not a morally compelling ideal. To the extent that equality is sometimes desirable, it’s because it has derivative value: it can be a means to accomplish something else that has inherent moral value.
Frankfurt goes on to make a stronger claim. Not only is economic egalitarianism not a moral value: treating it as if it were can be harmful. The problem is that when people are “preoccupied with economic equality… their readiness to be satisfied with some particular level of income or wealth is… not guided by their own most distinctive interests and ambitions.” (10) In other words,being preoccupied with how much you have, relative to others, distracts you from thinking about what matters to you specifically, in absolute terms. In this sense, focusing on economic equality can be both alienating (we focus on others’ differences) and distracting (we don’t focus on ourselves).
So what does it mean to “have enough”? Frankfurt states that “to say that a person has enough money means - more or less - that he is content, or that it is reasonable for him to be content, with having no more money than he actually has.” (48) As best I understand it, the principle of sufficiency states we’re obligated to ensure everyone has “enough to be happy” - or enough to where it would be unreasonable to point to insufficient resources as the cause of unhappiness.
If you think that sounds a bit vague, it is. I found Frankfurt’s limited investigation into what it means to have “enough” to be the weakest part of his argument. For better or for worse, a person’s happiness is partially a function of what they have, relative to what other people have (see Robert Frank’s Falling Behind for a nuanced discussion of this point). Frankfurt also states that “equality of opportunity, equal respect, equal rights, equal consideration, equal concern… none of these modes of equality [are] intrinsically valuable” (68) This isn’t as contentious a claim as it seems (again, these things might end up having derivative value) - but they’re provoking claims nonetheless and merit further investigation.
“On Equality" is a bit of a tease, then: it cogently presents a provocative thesis, but doesn’t fully explore its implications. What if “having enough” is subjective? Are you sure "equality of rights" truly isn't a morally compelling ideal? And if we accept your thesis - how should it affect our daily actions? Frankfurt doesn’t dig very deeply.
And yet, this weakness might also be the book’s greatest strength. Frankfurt’s laser focus on his core thesis ensures partisan readers don’t get distracted by it’s implications, and the repetitive but systematic way he drives home his point ensures a casual audience won’t misconstrue his claims. I still wouldn’t recommend this to anyone that sits on either extreme of today’s political spectrum, but if you’re willing to think critically and your opinions leave room for nuance, definitely check it out.
Notable quotes:
“The fact that some people have much less than others is not at all morally disturbing when it is clear that the worse off have plenty… we tend to be quite unmoved, after all, by the inequalities between those who are very well-to-do and those who are extremely rich.” (42)
“Proponents of egalitarianism frequently suppose that they have offered evidence for their position when what they have in fact offered supports only the doctrine of sufficiency.” (43)
“The doctrine of equality contributes to the moral disorientation and shallowness of our time.” (14)
August 29, 2016
Excellent read on the moral relevance of income inequality.
January 1, 2017
Here's Branko Milanovic's review of the thesis (and later the book) which to me is the best critic one can have on Frankfurt's work on inequality:
"For simplicity, I divide my argument into three parts.
We are social beings. It was stated by Adam Smith very nicely that our needs vary in function of what we consider to be socially acceptable. In a much quoted passage, Smith contrasts a man living in a relatively poor society who is content with a roughly-hewn shirt and another one, living in a richer society, who would be ashamed to be seen in public without a linen shirt. Smith was drawing on his own experience, having observed how what is socially acceptable, i.e., what are our “needs”, has changed in his own lifetime as England and Scotland had become richer.
Here is the quote:
“[Under necessities] I understand not only the commodities that are indispensable for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without.” (Book 5, Chapter 2)
Smith’s observation has far-reaching consequences. If our needs depend on what is socially acceptable, then they will clearly vary as between different societies. They will depend on the wealth of such societies or wealth of our peer groups. Consequently, our needs are (1) even in theory endless (because development has no material limit), and (2) they are thoroughly relative. We cannot distinguish between that part of the needs which is presumably due to ourselves, our “real” needs that, according to Professor Frankfurt, determine whether “[we] have good lives, and not how [our] lives compare with the lives of others” and the other part which is presumably due to the environment.
It is futile to try to distinguish between the two. We do not know what are our needs until we live in a society and observe the needs of others. So, pace Professor Frankfurt, we cannot just imagine that others do not exist as he enjoins us to do. All our needs are social.
But my friend Carla Yumatle, in a discussion on Twitter, has made a point against this interpretation (I paraphrase her): yes, all our needs may be social, but it does not mean that a moral theory, whose objective is to provide us with some moral guidance, needs to take this into account. Actually, it may deplore that we have such needs. Carla draws the distinction between Rousseau’s amour propre (which is basically vanity, or what used to be called “pride” or self-love in relationship to others) and amour de soi (which is concern with ourselves as such). The latter would be, if I understand her well, acceptable, according to Frankfurt, but the former (which obviously relies on our comparisons with others) would not.
Authenticity. But that too depends on a false dichotomy between amour de soi and amour propre. The two are indistinguishable. To show that they are different we have to prove somehow that only amour de soi is authentic, while amour propre is not. Or as Professor Frankfurt claims: “It [concern with inequality] leads a person away from understanding what he himself truly [sic!] requires in order to pursue his own most authentic needs, interests, and ambitions.”
But similarly to the previous argument, here too we cannot tell what are authentic and unauthentic needs. I really have no idea what are my authentic needs as compared to the needs that I develop from living in New York. If I lived in Belgrade (as I did) or Chennai (as I did not), I would have had entirely different needs. Does anyone doubt that? So what are my “authentic” needs?
Do I have an “authentic” need for an iPhone? No, I did not have an “authentic” need so long as iPhones did not exist. But now I do have an “authentic” need for an iPhone. However much we might like the fact that somebody decides not to own an iPhone when everybody else has it, we cannot claim that she is more authentic or somehow unconcerned with her relative position. She might decide not to have an iPhone because she does not like to talk on the phone or because she likes to be contrarian but there is nothing more authentic in rejecting to follow the crowd than in deciding to go with it. We might like those who reject crowd-behavior or even admire them, but they are not by any means more “authentic” than the rest.
Welfare function. Finally, an economic argument is that once we allow for our concern with the poor to enter our utility function, as Professor Frankfurt tells us to do, there is nothing to stop us from introducing in that same utility function our concern with incomes of those who are richer than ourselves.
Moreover, if Professor Frankfurt keeps on insisting that despite all we should be concerned only with incomes of the poor, neither Professor Frankfurt nor anybody else can tell us what is that income at which we should begin to worry about other human beings whose “resources are too little”. He cannot tell us what this “too little” is. Does he want us to be concerned only with incomes of those who live below 1 international dollar per day, or those below $5, or those below $15? If it is only those below the absolute poverty threshold ($1 per day per capita), then we should not be concerned with poverty in the US at all because nobody lives below that level. Is this okay with Professor Frankfurt?
But if Professor Frankfurt wants us to be concerned with poverty in the US, then he is introducing precisely the relative poverty measure, that is the poverty which varies with income level of a society where we live, a concept which he has banished before under the guise of not being “authentic”.
So, his reasoning brings him back to the beginning where he is unable to define needs as separate from the context where they are expressed. He is unable to do so because he is unable to distinguish between the so-called “authentic” needs and those that we develop simply by living in a society from the very moment when we are born. We cannot define what the "good life" is independently of the others.
So, his whole edifice crumbles."
"For simplicity, I divide my argument into three parts.
We are social beings. It was stated by Adam Smith very nicely that our needs vary in function of what we consider to be socially acceptable. In a much quoted passage, Smith contrasts a man living in a relatively poor society who is content with a roughly-hewn shirt and another one, living in a richer society, who would be ashamed to be seen in public without a linen shirt. Smith was drawing on his own experience, having observed how what is socially acceptable, i.e., what are our “needs”, has changed in his own lifetime as England and Scotland had become richer.
Here is the quote:
“[Under necessities] I understand not only the commodities that are indispensable for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without.” (Book 5, Chapter 2)
Smith’s observation has far-reaching consequences. If our needs depend on what is socially acceptable, then they will clearly vary as between different societies. They will depend on the wealth of such societies or wealth of our peer groups. Consequently, our needs are (1) even in theory endless (because development has no material limit), and (2) they are thoroughly relative. We cannot distinguish between that part of the needs which is presumably due to ourselves, our “real” needs that, according to Professor Frankfurt, determine whether “[we] have good lives, and not how [our] lives compare with the lives of others” and the other part which is presumably due to the environment.
It is futile to try to distinguish between the two. We do not know what are our needs until we live in a society and observe the needs of others. So, pace Professor Frankfurt, we cannot just imagine that others do not exist as he enjoins us to do. All our needs are social.
But my friend Carla Yumatle, in a discussion on Twitter, has made a point against this interpretation (I paraphrase her): yes, all our needs may be social, but it does not mean that a moral theory, whose objective is to provide us with some moral guidance, needs to take this into account. Actually, it may deplore that we have such needs. Carla draws the distinction between Rousseau’s amour propre (which is basically vanity, or what used to be called “pride” or self-love in relationship to others) and amour de soi (which is concern with ourselves as such). The latter would be, if I understand her well, acceptable, according to Frankfurt, but the former (which obviously relies on our comparisons with others) would not.
Authenticity. But that too depends on a false dichotomy between amour de soi and amour propre. The two are indistinguishable. To show that they are different we have to prove somehow that only amour de soi is authentic, while amour propre is not. Or as Professor Frankfurt claims: “It [concern with inequality] leads a person away from understanding what he himself truly [sic!] requires in order to pursue his own most authentic needs, interests, and ambitions.”
But similarly to the previous argument, here too we cannot tell what are authentic and unauthentic needs. I really have no idea what are my authentic needs as compared to the needs that I develop from living in New York. If I lived in Belgrade (as I did) or Chennai (as I did not), I would have had entirely different needs. Does anyone doubt that? So what are my “authentic” needs?
Do I have an “authentic” need for an iPhone? No, I did not have an “authentic” need so long as iPhones did not exist. But now I do have an “authentic” need for an iPhone. However much we might like the fact that somebody decides not to own an iPhone when everybody else has it, we cannot claim that she is more authentic or somehow unconcerned with her relative position. She might decide not to have an iPhone because she does not like to talk on the phone or because she likes to be contrarian but there is nothing more authentic in rejecting to follow the crowd than in deciding to go with it. We might like those who reject crowd-behavior or even admire them, but they are not by any means more “authentic” than the rest.
Welfare function. Finally, an economic argument is that once we allow for our concern with the poor to enter our utility function, as Professor Frankfurt tells us to do, there is nothing to stop us from introducing in that same utility function our concern with incomes of those who are richer than ourselves.
Moreover, if Professor Frankfurt keeps on insisting that despite all we should be concerned only with incomes of the poor, neither Professor Frankfurt nor anybody else can tell us what is that income at which we should begin to worry about other human beings whose “resources are too little”. He cannot tell us what this “too little” is. Does he want us to be concerned only with incomes of those who live below 1 international dollar per day, or those below $5, or those below $15? If it is only those below the absolute poverty threshold ($1 per day per capita), then we should not be concerned with poverty in the US at all because nobody lives below that level. Is this okay with Professor Frankfurt?
But if Professor Frankfurt wants us to be concerned with poverty in the US, then he is introducing precisely the relative poverty measure, that is the poverty which varies with income level of a society where we live, a concept which he has banished before under the guise of not being “authentic”.
So, his reasoning brings him back to the beginning where he is unable to define needs as separate from the context where they are expressed. He is unable to do so because he is unable to distinguish between the so-called “authentic” needs and those that we develop simply by living in a society from the very moment when we are born. We cannot define what the "good life" is independently of the others.
So, his whole edifice crumbles."
December 21, 2015
This book is really an expanded version of Frankfurt’s essay “Equality as a Moral Ideal,” with some new stuff about equality and respect. The original essay contains 75% of the ideas here for less than three-quarters of the price.
Frankfurt’s book is a model of how public philosophy should work—by keeping political discourse honest. He is interested in the reasons why distributive justice matters and to distinguish the good reasons from the bad ones.
Frankfurt’s argument in this book is unassumingly radical. He claims that “equality as such has no inherent or underived moral value at all.” This is a significant claim in light of the refrain made popular by Amartya Sen that every serious political theory is a theory of equality. In place of equality, Frankfurt defends a principle of sufficiency. What has inherent and underived value (to use a phrase) is that people have enough.
Frankfurt attacks two defenses of equality in this book: first, that an equal distribution of money maximizes utility, and second, that equal treatment is a form of respect.
The first argument for equality is appeals to the well-known principle of diminishing marginal utility: the utility of each additional unit of a commodity tends to decline. In the case of money, this means that an additional dollar to Donald Trump is worth less than an additional dollar to a homeless man outside Trump Tower. The implication, the argument continues, is that redistribution from Trump to the homeless man will increase overall utility until the point of equal marginal utility between them—an equal distribution.
Frankfurt’s criticisms of this argument are several. The most original, perhaps, is that the while the value of individual commodities may diminish at the margin, there is no reason to think that the value of consumption, that is, the value of money, need to diminish at the margin. There are also effects like thresholds or “warm-up” effects that make value increase at the margin. Finally, as economists have long observed, the argument assumes that we can make inter-personal utility comparisons. This is a fine assumption if people’s utility curves are in fact the same. But that assertion itself is unlikely to be true.People differ in their enjoyments of the same goods, their general capacity for enjoyment, and the rate at which their utility curves diminish. (An argument with equality as its conclusion assumes people are the same? Whodathunkit?)
Equal distribution is also defended on grounds of respect. It is disrespectful, many claim, to treat people unequally. However, Frankfurt notes that unequal treatment is only disrespectful if there are no grounds for treating people differently. If we face a situation where you and I must decide how to cut a cake, there is a sense in which it would be disrespectful for me to take the lion’s share of the cake. However, if there were grounds for giving me more of the cake—perhaps I am starving—then there are grounds for unequal distribution. Equality does no work in the cake argument. Rather, it is disrespectful to cut the cake unequally because an unequal distribution would be arbitrary, or without grounds. When we disrespect a person, Frankfurt claims, “the person is dealt with as though he is not what he actually is.” There is no conceptual relationship between respect and equality.
Frankfurt finally has a very interesting claim, anticipated by Tocqueville, about the effect of equality on our attitudes toward ourselves. The demand for equal treatment makes our needs and wants a function of what others have, rather than what is most important or vital to us as individuals. Equality tends to alienate us from ourselves and cause each person to see herself “from the outside” rather than as someone with a life to lead. This effect of equality tends to lead us away from the singular task of thinking for ourselves what we need and want. Frankfurt claims that this effect is in part the consequence of a false belief that equality is what really matters.
Just to be clear, Frankfurt is not arguing against some forms of redistribution, and he is not advocating for a limitless ceiling to wealth so long as the least-advantaged has enough. He claims that regulation and taxation is likely necessary, for example, to prevent manipulation of the political process by the most-advantaged. Similarly, he also claims that egalitarian policies may be the most effective strategy to meet the demands of his principle of sufficiency. Frankfurt is not taking any positions here about actual policies, only about the reasons for those policies.
Frankfurt’s book is a model of how public philosophy should work—by keeping political discourse honest. He is interested in the reasons why distributive justice matters and to distinguish the good reasons from the bad ones.
Frankfurt’s argument in this book is unassumingly radical. He claims that “equality as such has no inherent or underived moral value at all.” This is a significant claim in light of the refrain made popular by Amartya Sen that every serious political theory is a theory of equality. In place of equality, Frankfurt defends a principle of sufficiency. What has inherent and underived value (to use a phrase) is that people have enough.
Frankfurt attacks two defenses of equality in this book: first, that an equal distribution of money maximizes utility, and second, that equal treatment is a form of respect.
The first argument for equality is appeals to the well-known principle of diminishing marginal utility: the utility of each additional unit of a commodity tends to decline. In the case of money, this means that an additional dollar to Donald Trump is worth less than an additional dollar to a homeless man outside Trump Tower. The implication, the argument continues, is that redistribution from Trump to the homeless man will increase overall utility until the point of equal marginal utility between them—an equal distribution.
Frankfurt’s criticisms of this argument are several. The most original, perhaps, is that the while the value of individual commodities may diminish at the margin, there is no reason to think that the value of consumption, that is, the value of money, need to diminish at the margin. There are also effects like thresholds or “warm-up” effects that make value increase at the margin. Finally, as economists have long observed, the argument assumes that we can make inter-personal utility comparisons. This is a fine assumption if people’s utility curves are in fact the same. But that assertion itself is unlikely to be true.People differ in their enjoyments of the same goods, their general capacity for enjoyment, and the rate at which their utility curves diminish. (An argument with equality as its conclusion assumes people are the same? Whodathunkit?)
Equal distribution is also defended on grounds of respect. It is disrespectful, many claim, to treat people unequally. However, Frankfurt notes that unequal treatment is only disrespectful if there are no grounds for treating people differently. If we face a situation where you and I must decide how to cut a cake, there is a sense in which it would be disrespectful for me to take the lion’s share of the cake. However, if there were grounds for giving me more of the cake—perhaps I am starving—then there are grounds for unequal distribution. Equality does no work in the cake argument. Rather, it is disrespectful to cut the cake unequally because an unequal distribution would be arbitrary, or without grounds. When we disrespect a person, Frankfurt claims, “the person is dealt with as though he is not what he actually is.” There is no conceptual relationship between respect and equality.
Frankfurt finally has a very interesting claim, anticipated by Tocqueville, about the effect of equality on our attitudes toward ourselves. The demand for equal treatment makes our needs and wants a function of what others have, rather than what is most important or vital to us as individuals. Equality tends to alienate us from ourselves and cause each person to see herself “from the outside” rather than as someone with a life to lead. This effect of equality tends to lead us away from the singular task of thinking for ourselves what we need and want. Frankfurt claims that this effect is in part the consequence of a false belief that equality is what really matters.
Just to be clear, Frankfurt is not arguing against some forms of redistribution, and he is not advocating for a limitless ceiling to wealth so long as the least-advantaged has enough. He claims that regulation and taxation is likely necessary, for example, to prevent manipulation of the political process by the most-advantaged. Similarly, he also claims that egalitarian policies may be the most effective strategy to meet the demands of his principle of sufficiency. Frankfurt is not taking any positions here about actual policies, only about the reasons for those policies.
May 12, 2016
I'm a huge Miami Heat fan. Miami had a good team back in 1999, but the NBA and its players couldn’t agree on money. Consequently, the season was all but canceled. Our best player, Alonzo Mourning, wanted to help the poorer players survive the lockout. He hosted a charity basket ball game. The media erupted in derision. Charity for professional athletes who make $200,000 per year!
This anecdote proves Frankfurt's theses in On Inequality. Inequality on it's own isn’t an evil. The lower paid NBA players aren’t doing as well as Kobe Bryant, but they ain't doing bad.
Frankfurt argues that the focus should be on making sure the poorer among us have *enough*.
Notes:
--Focus on sufficiency instead of equality.
--Occurs to me that this would be unsatisfying. It doesn't create a villian that can be politically exploited.
--Personal note: part of the problem is the abstractness of money. In a barter system you can better see how the goods symbolize service.
--Doing worse doesn't necessarily entail doing badly.
This anecdote proves Frankfurt's theses in On Inequality. Inequality on it's own isn’t an evil. The lower paid NBA players aren’t doing as well as Kobe Bryant, but they ain't doing bad.
Frankfurt argues that the focus should be on making sure the poorer among us have *enough*.
Notes:
--Focus on sufficiency instead of equality.
--Occurs to me that this would be unsatisfying. It doesn't create a villian that can be politically exploited.
--Personal note: part of the problem is the abstractness of money. In a barter system you can better see how the goods symbolize service.
--Doing worse doesn't necessarily entail doing badly.
December 8, 2015
interesting but not convincing. when at the beginning of final chapter frankfurt claims to be argueing outside ideology and dogma (what a presumptuous assertion) I strongly felt that I need to quit this, nevermind the brevity.
March 27, 2017
Understanding that using overly convoluted language does not make a book art is often forgotten by some authors with great ideas.
The ideas here are clearly communicated which makes the opinion sharper and stronger.
The ideas here are clearly communicated which makes the opinion sharper and stronger.
December 26, 2017
At the outset, Frankfurt’s analysis is devoid of the work done by Wilkinson and Pickett in “The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better,” which makes clear that beyond the level of subsistence-level poverty, economic inequality is the single greatest indicator of social malaise at all levels of the socioeconomic strata, from levels of trust, rates of mental illness, and rates of bullying, to women's political participation, employment and earnings, and social and economic autonomy, to rates of violent acts, incarceration, teenage pregnancy, and infant mortality.
The author feels most comfortable with straw men of “Needless to say, that way of achieving equality of income – by making everyone equally poor – has very little to be said for it. Accordingly, to eliminate income inequality cannot be, as such, our most fundamental goal.”
The author’s argument style is appallingly weak. Their claims, such as “Economic equality is not a morally compelling ideal” are presented to the reader as self-evident – no argument in favor of the author’s position is provided until much later.
“If everyone had enough money, it would be of no special or deliberate concern whether some people had more money than others.” Again, in ignorance of the aforementioned research by Wilkinson and Pickett.
The author maintains that economic equality has no moral value in itself, but only by its effect on other systems, such as on political power. This line of reasoning is astoundingly shallow, for in this light, political power itself has no intrinsic value because it is only a proxy for human well-being. And so, by the author’s reasoning, nothing other than human well-being itself has intrinsic moral value, which is tantamount to the claim that there are no important proxies to this true moral value which themselves can be said to have intrinsic moral value.
The author confuses redistribution of wealth with the manufacture of new money in asserting that such redistribution will be inflationary.
The examples the author provides of why pursuit of economic equality are bizarre, such as the enjoyability of buttered popcorn or the satisfaction in acquiring collectibles. These examples make clear the author’s lack of familiarity with the legitimate body of research on the deleterious effects of economic inequality.
Further, the author’s argument with regards to the distribution of medicine is out of place in the real-world context wherein the scarcity of medicine is a manufactured scarcity.
The author feels most comfortable with straw men of “Needless to say, that way of achieving equality of income – by making everyone equally poor – has very little to be said for it. Accordingly, to eliminate income inequality cannot be, as such, our most fundamental goal.”
The author’s argument style is appallingly weak. Their claims, such as “Economic equality is not a morally compelling ideal” are presented to the reader as self-evident – no argument in favor of the author’s position is provided until much later.
“If everyone had enough money, it would be of no special or deliberate concern whether some people had more money than others.” Again, in ignorance of the aforementioned research by Wilkinson and Pickett.
The author maintains that economic equality has no moral value in itself, but only by its effect on other systems, such as on political power. This line of reasoning is astoundingly shallow, for in this light, political power itself has no intrinsic value because it is only a proxy for human well-being. And so, by the author’s reasoning, nothing other than human well-being itself has intrinsic moral value, which is tantamount to the claim that there are no important proxies to this true moral value which themselves can be said to have intrinsic moral value.
The author confuses redistribution of wealth with the manufacture of new money in asserting that such redistribution will be inflationary.
The examples the author provides of why pursuit of economic equality are bizarre, such as the enjoyability of buttered popcorn or the satisfaction in acquiring collectibles. These examples make clear the author’s lack of familiarity with the legitimate body of research on the deleterious effects of economic inequality.
Further, the author’s argument with regards to the distribution of medicine is out of place in the real-world context wherein the scarcity of medicine is a manufactured scarcity.
October 3, 2015
It takes no time at all to read this book, which was lying about on the coffee table because The Spouse is reading it for a philosophy essay he has to write. It's written in plain English and is only about 100 pages long.
But I had a bad feeling about the ideas it presents, not least because there is no hope of my being able to challenge the ideas of a Princeton professor with any great aplomb.
The basic idea is that we should not be getting tense about inequality because inequality doesn't make much difference to the poor. If some people are obscenely rich, it isn't going to make much difference to redistribute their wealth because that isn't going to make most people better off. What matters to the poor, he says, is that they should have enough.
Well, yes. But who decides what is enough? It's the people in power who do that. And the evidence of their behaviour is that 'enough' is relative... 'enough' in western society is quite different to 'enough' in developing countries. For people in the West to have 'enough' $5 T-shirts means that people in Bangladesh must manufacture those T-shirts in deplorable conditions for a wage that's not 'enough' for them to live on. We in the West have the living standards that we have because other people don't, and the awful, shameful truth is that there is no way our planet could sustain a situation where everyone all over the world had the same standard of living as we do. The only way we could make this fair is to reduce our standard of living, and I can't see that happening any time soon.
It seems to me that perhaps it could even be better for some poor people if Bill Gates were twice as rich as he is, so that he had 'enough' to give away even more of his obscene wealth. He's done more for poor people with his eradication of polio program than many governments have done with their foreign aid programs.
Beautifully argued in impeccable logic, this book sounded to me like a manifesto to prevent any redistribution of global wealth so that our world could be a fairer place.
But I had a bad feeling about the ideas it presents, not least because there is no hope of my being able to challenge the ideas of a Princeton professor with any great aplomb.
The basic idea is that we should not be getting tense about inequality because inequality doesn't make much difference to the poor. If some people are obscenely rich, it isn't going to make much difference to redistribute their wealth because that isn't going to make most people better off. What matters to the poor, he says, is that they should have enough.
Well, yes. But who decides what is enough? It's the people in power who do that. And the evidence of their behaviour is that 'enough' is relative... 'enough' in western society is quite different to 'enough' in developing countries. For people in the West to have 'enough' $5 T-shirts means that people in Bangladesh must manufacture those T-shirts in deplorable conditions for a wage that's not 'enough' for them to live on. We in the West have the living standards that we have because other people don't, and the awful, shameful truth is that there is no way our planet could sustain a situation where everyone all over the world had the same standard of living as we do. The only way we could make this fair is to reduce our standard of living, and I can't see that happening any time soon.
It seems to me that perhaps it could even be better for some poor people if Bill Gates were twice as rich as he is, so that he had 'enough' to give away even more of his obscene wealth. He's done more for poor people with his eradication of polio program than many governments have done with their foreign aid programs.
Beautifully argued in impeccable logic, this book sounded to me like a manifesto to prevent any redistribution of global wealth so that our world could be a fairer place.
January 11, 2016
This book is 90 pages long and averages about 2 paragraphs per page. Good thoughts on inequality but should be a magazine article rather than a hardcover.
August 20, 2021
Un ensayo bastante breve. El autor busca realizar una crítica a la búsqueda de la igualdad por si misma. Creo que el problema del libro radica en atacar una idea que en verdad tiene muchos matices y que es defendida desde diferentes posiciones ideológicas a partir de diversos fundamentos. En este sentido, el autor hace un "hombre de paja", el cual sería cierto grupo de pensadores que defienden a la igualdad económica sin más. Personalmente nunca he leído o escuchado un discurso que abogue simplemente por la igualdad económica, sin otras consideraciones. Por tanto, resulta un libro con un ejercicio interpretativo y argumentativo pobre, puesto que la idea que busca refutar es pobre.
December 1, 2015
In a world plagued by ISIS and facing the supposedly existential threat of climate change, President Obama has still called income inequality "the defining challenge of our time". In this short, tightly argued book, Frankfurt argues that it isn't.
Why is income inequality so dreadful? There are roughly two schools of thought on this. The first can be called 'consequentialist'. Examples include The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett, or Joseph Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality. These books argue that income inequality leads to all sorts of bad outcomes in society; more violence, poverty, or general unhappiness, for example. But the causality, the mechanism by which inequality is supposed to generate these bad outcomes, is always a little vague, and much of it is based on spurious correlations; Wilkinson and Pickett's book was mercilessly eviscerated by Christopher Snowdon in The Spirit Level Delusion.
The other school argues more philosophically. According to these thinkers, income inequality is bad in itself, not because of its supposed consequences. It is this school that Frankfurt has in his sights, making Abba Lerner Ground Zero.
Lerner was an economist and his theory was grounded in economics. It was based on two premises; first, that all people had the same marginal utility of wealth, i.e., each person enjoyed their 509th unit of wealth as much as another person. The second, was that the marginal utility of wealth for each person declined (and at the same rate, as per premise one). It followed from this that the overall utility of all people in society could be maximised by an equal distribution of wealth.
But, as Frankfurt argues convincingly, neither premise is true. At the heart of Frankfurt's argument is the fact that wealth, pounds and dollars themselves, do not yield utility except to numismatists. What yields utility is the goods and services that wealth can be used to buy. Regarding the first premise, utilities are only ordinal, not cardinal. While preferences may be ranked for each person, they cannot be quantified and compared. For the second premise, if the addition of another unit of income allows you to buy something for £500 which yields you more utility than what you would have spent the £499 on, then marginal utilities of wealth do not necessarily decline.
Frankfurt's conclusion is that what matters is not inequality, whether one person has more than another, but sufficiency, whether those people have enough. This would seem to be true. If I have £X, and £X is sufficient for me to live my life, why should my situation be adversely affected if someone else has £X+1? There is only a problem if £X is not sufficient for me to live my life.
Inequality is a popular topic at present. As Frankfurt argues, it shouldn't be. This short book is both timely and effective.
Why is income inequality so dreadful? There are roughly two schools of thought on this. The first can be called 'consequentialist'. Examples include The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett, or Joseph Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality. These books argue that income inequality leads to all sorts of bad outcomes in society; more violence, poverty, or general unhappiness, for example. But the causality, the mechanism by which inequality is supposed to generate these bad outcomes, is always a little vague, and much of it is based on spurious correlations; Wilkinson and Pickett's book was mercilessly eviscerated by Christopher Snowdon in The Spirit Level Delusion.
The other school argues more philosophically. According to these thinkers, income inequality is bad in itself, not because of its supposed consequences. It is this school that Frankfurt has in his sights, making Abba Lerner Ground Zero.
Lerner was an economist and his theory was grounded in economics. It was based on two premises; first, that all people had the same marginal utility of wealth, i.e., each person enjoyed their 509th unit of wealth as much as another person. The second, was that the marginal utility of wealth for each person declined (and at the same rate, as per premise one). It followed from this that the overall utility of all people in society could be maximised by an equal distribution of wealth.
But, as Frankfurt argues convincingly, neither premise is true. At the heart of Frankfurt's argument is the fact that wealth, pounds and dollars themselves, do not yield utility except to numismatists. What yields utility is the goods and services that wealth can be used to buy. Regarding the first premise, utilities are only ordinal, not cardinal. While preferences may be ranked for each person, they cannot be quantified and compared. For the second premise, if the addition of another unit of income allows you to buy something for £500 which yields you more utility than what you would have spent the £499 on, then marginal utilities of wealth do not necessarily decline.
Frankfurt's conclusion is that what matters is not inequality, whether one person has more than another, but sufficiency, whether those people have enough. This would seem to be true. If I have £X, and £X is sufficient for me to live my life, why should my situation be adversely affected if someone else has £X+1? There is only a problem if £X is not sufficient for me to live my life.
Inequality is a popular topic at present. As Frankfurt argues, it shouldn't be. This short book is both timely and effective.
January 1, 2016
Frankfurt puts a solid defense of the logical problems in seeking to eliminate economic inequality in roughly 100 pages, lays out a meticulous defense of, instead, focusing on abject poverty when it is contrary to the wants or needs of the people who are in that state of poverty. His logical flow is well-argued, and the book, while dense, was engaging enough to allow me to go through it in the course of about 2 hours.
While his logical/philosophical thesis makes internal sense, the book ignores those aspects on our perceptions of economic inequality that defy economic logic. Take, for instance, economic studies that find that people would prefer to make (say) $100,000 a year and live in a city where everyone else makes $50,000 rather than a scenario where they make $200,000 but live in a city where everyone else makes $400,000. Once you make all the pro forma economic assumptions (equal price levels, etc), the second scenario is clearly in our interest, and would be a no-brainer in the context of On Inequality, yet there is something illogical in our perceptions of the world that drive a significant number towards the first scenario. Frankfurt gives us a well-written logical treatment of an issue that we treat emotionally.
Going through this book will force the reader, as it did me, to look at the concept of economic inequality and ponder on the differences in relative inequality and absolute levels of resources. For those who want to balance the logical with the human tendency to make illogical choices, Misbehaving by Thaler would provide a good contrast to Frankfurt.
While his logical/philosophical thesis makes internal sense, the book ignores those aspects on our perceptions of economic inequality that defy economic logic. Take, for instance, economic studies that find that people would prefer to make (say) $100,000 a year and live in a city where everyone else makes $50,000 rather than a scenario where they make $200,000 but live in a city where everyone else makes $400,000. Once you make all the pro forma economic assumptions (equal price levels, etc), the second scenario is clearly in our interest, and would be a no-brainer in the context of On Inequality, yet there is something illogical in our perceptions of the world that drive a significant number towards the first scenario. Frankfurt gives us a well-written logical treatment of an issue that we treat emotionally.
Going through this book will force the reader, as it did me, to look at the concept of economic inequality and ponder on the differences in relative inequality and absolute levels of resources. For those who want to balance the logical with the human tendency to make illogical choices, Misbehaving by Thaler would provide a good contrast to Frankfurt.
January 17, 2016
One of the most thought provoking books I have read in quite some time. I found myself having to re-read many of the sections to get the true impact of the author's arguments. It is not a simple read, but is more academic in nature.
What drew me to the arguments the author was looking at poverty in a different light. How resentment meant is built, income inequality not being inherently bad and finally the difference between equality and respect.
When read with an open mind, this book adds logic and reasoning to many of the political debates we experience in the US.
What drew me to the arguments the author was looking at poverty in a different light. How resentment meant is built, income inequality not being inherently bad and finally the difference between equality and respect.
When read with an open mind, this book adds logic and reasoning to many of the political debates we experience in the US.
July 14, 2019
I got like 30 pages in and was like huh? He was basically making these arguments about how if everything is finite it makes sense to only be able to save some people but I think that’s a pretty limited way of looking at our current situation in the US. There is no lack of resources , only an unfair distribution of them. This guy probably thinks that we somehow “need” homeless people because somehow, in his mind, not everyone can have basic necessities ? I’m a big supporter of UBI, and this line of thinking just doesn’t line up with reality to me.
February 17, 2020
Harry got into philosophy not because he cared much about reason, but because he was ambitious enough to get a University diploma and with the math skills of a 10 year old there weren't many accessible diplomas. It turns out his understanding of Economics is comparable with his Math. Luckily, one does not have any understanding of a theme to speak his imaginary friend's plans of a perfect society. Frankfurt reminds me of other witch doctors that rule bioethics from the heights of the Early Middle Ages understanding of Biology.
November 9, 2015
Like most good essays, this one starts out with a bunch of unobjectionable ideas and then, half way through, veers off into crazy territory. I think at the end he has, more or less, rediscovered a theory of political liberalism rooted in equal moral concern, except he has reconstructed it in a weird backwards vocabulary, and strongly insists that it is *not* rooted in equal moral concern. I mean, I guess. You do you, HF.
December 25, 2017
"On Inequality" discusses the recently widening gap in income between people in developed countries. Sadly the discussion is immediately derailed by limiting the it to if income equality is a moral concept. GIven that starting point the outcome is given. Although Frankfurt makes an interesting point here and there it just isn't enough with the conclusion so obvious. Still its a quick fast read so it qualifies as a decent read altogether.
December 27, 2015
Very thoughtful philosophy book about why trying to achieve complete equality of wealth is the wrong goal. He refutes every argument typically made and instead makes the point we should be striving for sufficiency.
November 2, 2015
I made a mistake in buying this book. Don't make the same mistake that I did.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 20, 2016
"I don't believe you, you need more people." I kept waiting for a more profound or just substantial point to be made, but no such depth or wisdom was forthcoming.
January 15, 2020
An argument against equality that tells us nothing about inequality...
January 27, 2016
Frankfurt's 'book' is really an essay disguised as a book. It took about an hour in total to read it cover to cover. It seems as if books on inequality last year were selling like hot cakes. This was probably something the publisher could get out quickly without much effort. I'm glad I checked it out at the library and didn't buy it.
I actually came to it from a New York Times review. It was one of several books being reviewed and the only one of them that seemed to have a slightly contrary take on the matter of inequality. I was living in the Philippines when the discussion over inequality in the United States really heated up, back in 2012. I remember thinking how much the poorest Filipinos, living in the squalid shanties of Manila, would give to be the poorest Americans.
I read recently that an American that earns $13,000 a year, below the poverty line in other words, is still in the top 15 percent of the global income distribution when you control for purchasing power. Frankfurt doesn't account for differences between people in different countries, but he does refer to the doctrine of sufficiency, which holds that it's not the inequality between top and bottom that matters in and of itself, but instead is the matter of whether those on the bottom have enough. Having lived in a place where those on the bottom really and clearly do not have enough, I feel a strong sympathy for the doctrine of sufficiency. It also explains why I found conspicuous rich people in the Philippines (and arguably by dint of being an American with an income I was in that same class, though not a permanent member of the society) to be far less palatable than conspicuous rich people in the United States, not because they themselves are any different than the conspicuous rich people anywhere, but because so many of their fellow citizens are direly poor.
For the most part Frankfurt's essay is dry analytical philosophy focused on abstract hypotheticals. When he writes about the price of popcorn and butter in relation to marginal utility and economic thresholds, one is thankful it only takes a few minutes of endurance to get through. At his best, though, is when Frankfurt asserts, surprisingly, that inequality of opportunity is not morally wrong in and of itself. He points out that historically always and everywhere the poorest people have not had enough but that it doesn't have to be that way. If those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder had enough to be happy based on what they think it takes to be happy, not on what they have in relation to others, then inequality in opportunity matters less. All my political instincts tell me this is not something I can get on board with, but I appreciate the opening of my mind to a contrary idea nonetheless.
He closes out the essay with a discussion of how respect is much more important than equality. He uses an anecdote conjured up by Isaiah Berlin which holds that when a cake it served to ten people, the default expectation, absent any other information about those peoples' preferences, is that the ten pieces will be divided evenly. Berlin says that the only way it's fair to do otherwise is if there's some reason not to do so. But Frankfurt says that it's not the equality that matters from a moral perspective, but the respect issue. There's no moral reason why one person shouldn't get a bigger piece and another person get a smaller piece. But to do that would be to treat people impartially and that shows a lack of respect. I found the argument convincing, even though, as with much of this short text, it could have benefited from elaboration.
This brought to mind two things. About ten years ago I attended a meeting of my community board in New York City and spoke in favor of developing a certain empty parcel of real estate with both housing and retail space. My case was hardly polemic, simply what I thought, as a trained urban planner, would make the most sense for the neighborhood. Right after I sat down, a fellow community resident who lived in my same building got up to speak. He had lived in the neighborhood for many years and, as it turned out, felt threatened that someone like me, from a very different social class than he, could have an outsized effect on the direction of the community. His intoxicated tirade against me was so outlandish that the microphone had to be wrested from his hands. You'd have thought, from listening to him, that the city would sink into the harbor were housing to be built with retail instead of retail alone.
After enduring that I was forced to consider my identity in relation to the community I was representing. How do very different people come together to decide what they think best for the future when they have very different perspectives to begin with? Thinking about it today, especially in light of reading Frankfurt on respect, as well as several years ago Richard Sennett's book Respect, I realize that my adversarial neighbor was expressing anger at the perceived lack of respect that he felt as a marginalized member of the community. I can't say that I blame him, either. Unfortunately, though, there are many local politicians who are all too willing to harness that feeling of disrespect, and truthfully fear, into political power. There would be nothing wrong with this, that's how our system of representation works, if those same politicians didn't also have an interest in withholding the very respect that my neighbor craved to begin with. As such, it becomes a perpetual problem and one that politicians can exploit over and over.
Finally, the last part of that quote above, "let justice be done, though the heavens may fall" is strikingly reminiscent of the scenario envisioned by Walter M. Miller, Jr. in The Canticle for Leibowitz. You can read my recent review for more, but essentially that book opens with a scene of exactly that limitlessly reckless cry: civilization has been destroyed by nuclear weapons and ordinary people rebel against all learning and knowledge and the people who would carry forth the kind of knowledge that could lead to another holocaust. It's tragic how rational that behavior seems in such circumstances, but even more tragic the consequences when the heavens actually fall. (c) Jeffrey L. Otto, January 26, 2016
I actually came to it from a New York Times review. It was one of several books being reviewed and the only one of them that seemed to have a slightly contrary take on the matter of inequality. I was living in the Philippines when the discussion over inequality in the United States really heated up, back in 2012. I remember thinking how much the poorest Filipinos, living in the squalid shanties of Manila, would give to be the poorest Americans.
I read recently that an American that earns $13,000 a year, below the poverty line in other words, is still in the top 15 percent of the global income distribution when you control for purchasing power. Frankfurt doesn't account for differences between people in different countries, but he does refer to the doctrine of sufficiency, which holds that it's not the inequality between top and bottom that matters in and of itself, but instead is the matter of whether those on the bottom have enough. Having lived in a place where those on the bottom really and clearly do not have enough, I feel a strong sympathy for the doctrine of sufficiency. It also explains why I found conspicuous rich people in the Philippines (and arguably by dint of being an American with an income I was in that same class, though not a permanent member of the society) to be far less palatable than conspicuous rich people in the United States, not because they themselves are any different than the conspicuous rich people anywhere, but because so many of their fellow citizens are direly poor.
For the most part Frankfurt's essay is dry analytical philosophy focused on abstract hypotheticals. When he writes about the price of popcorn and butter in relation to marginal utility and economic thresholds, one is thankful it only takes a few minutes of endurance to get through. At his best, though, is when Frankfurt asserts, surprisingly, that inequality of opportunity is not morally wrong in and of itself. He points out that historically always and everywhere the poorest people have not had enough but that it doesn't have to be that way. If those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder had enough to be happy based on what they think it takes to be happy, not on what they have in relation to others, then inequality in opportunity matters less. All my political instincts tell me this is not something I can get on board with, but I appreciate the opening of my mind to a contrary idea nonetheless.
He closes out the essay with a discussion of how respect is much more important than equality. He uses an anecdote conjured up by Isaiah Berlin which holds that when a cake it served to ten people, the default expectation, absent any other information about those peoples' preferences, is that the ten pieces will be divided evenly. Berlin says that the only way it's fair to do otherwise is if there's some reason not to do so. But Frankfurt says that it's not the equality that matters from a moral perspective, but the respect issue. There's no moral reason why one person shouldn't get a bigger piece and another person get a smaller piece. But to do that would be to treat people impartially and that shows a lack of respect. I found the argument convincing, even though, as with much of this short text, it could have benefited from elaboration.
Frankfurt did note, though, that withholding respect can have dire consequences: Experiences of being ignored--of not being taken seriously, of not counting, of being unable to make one's presence felt or one's voice heard--may be profoundly disturbing. They often trigger in people an extraordinarily protective response, which may be quite incommensurate in its intensity with the magnitude of the damage to their objective interests that is actually threatened. The classic articulation of this response is in the limitlessly reckless cry to "let justice be done, though the heavens may fall." (my emphasis)
This brought to mind two things. About ten years ago I attended a meeting of my community board in New York City and spoke in favor of developing a certain empty parcel of real estate with both housing and retail space. My case was hardly polemic, simply what I thought, as a trained urban planner, would make the most sense for the neighborhood. Right after I sat down, a fellow community resident who lived in my same building got up to speak. He had lived in the neighborhood for many years and, as it turned out, felt threatened that someone like me, from a very different social class than he, could have an outsized effect on the direction of the community. His intoxicated tirade against me was so outlandish that the microphone had to be wrested from his hands. You'd have thought, from listening to him, that the city would sink into the harbor were housing to be built with retail instead of retail alone.
After enduring that I was forced to consider my identity in relation to the community I was representing. How do very different people come together to decide what they think best for the future when they have very different perspectives to begin with? Thinking about it today, especially in light of reading Frankfurt on respect, as well as several years ago Richard Sennett's book Respect, I realize that my adversarial neighbor was expressing anger at the perceived lack of respect that he felt as a marginalized member of the community. I can't say that I blame him, either. Unfortunately, though, there are many local politicians who are all too willing to harness that feeling of disrespect, and truthfully fear, into political power. There would be nothing wrong with this, that's how our system of representation works, if those same politicians didn't also have an interest in withholding the very respect that my neighbor craved to begin with. As such, it becomes a perpetual problem and one that politicians can exploit over and over.
Finally, the last part of that quote above, "let justice be done, though the heavens may fall" is strikingly reminiscent of the scenario envisioned by Walter M. Miller, Jr. in The Canticle for Leibowitz. You can read my recent review for more, but essentially that book opens with a scene of exactly that limitlessly reckless cry: civilization has been destroyed by nuclear weapons and ordinary people rebel against all learning and knowledge and the people who would carry forth the kind of knowledge that could lead to another holocaust. It's tragic how rational that behavior seems in such circumstances, but even more tragic the consequences when the heavens actually fall. (c) Jeffrey L. Otto, January 26, 2016
June 26, 2022
This consists of two essays titled "Economic Equality as a Moral Ideal" & "Equality & Respect" which examine if equality - IN ITSELF - is morally desirable.
In the first essay. the author concludes that equality (a formal notion meaning everyone must have the same) inspite of its intuitive appeal does not have an intrinsic moral worth. But it is desirable for other socio-economic benefits it generally entails in contemporary circumstances. Instead, what really appeals morally to people is sufficiency - the idea that everyone must have enough to be satisfied. In summary, having "less than others" is compatible with having "enough" and is not necessarily a moral evil (even though it might be a socio-economic evil). In between, there is interesting discussion on mathematical basis of how equality maximises total utility under some ideal conditions.
The second essay is short and differentiates between "treating people equally" and "treating people with respect" (by which he means impartiality or avoiding arbitrariness - these, in turn, derive their value not from rationality, but from value of personhood). Equality is other-focussed and extrinsic, while respect is self-focussed or intrinsic. It emphasizes that in many situations (ex - no info is available at all about a group), these two concur and hence, are often confounded. But respect is personal & proportional or necessarily dependent on some quality of the person (for otherwise, it would be arbitrary).
In the first essay. the author concludes that equality (a formal notion meaning everyone must have the same) inspite of its intuitive appeal does not have an intrinsic moral worth. But it is desirable for other socio-economic benefits it generally entails in contemporary circumstances. Instead, what really appeals morally to people is sufficiency - the idea that everyone must have enough to be satisfied. In summary, having "less than others" is compatible with having "enough" and is not necessarily a moral evil (even though it might be a socio-economic evil). In between, there is interesting discussion on mathematical basis of how equality maximises total utility under some ideal conditions.
The second essay is short and differentiates between "treating people equally" and "treating people with respect" (by which he means impartiality or avoiding arbitrariness - these, in turn, derive their value not from rationality, but from value of personhood). Equality is other-focussed and extrinsic, while respect is self-focussed or intrinsic. It emphasizes that in many situations (ex - no info is available at all about a group), these two concur and hence, are often confounded. But respect is personal & proportional or necessarily dependent on some quality of the person (for otherwise, it would be arbitrary).
May 24, 2021
the following reviews say it all
amazon review
80 pages can still be a waste of your time
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Economic equality is one of today's most overrated ideas, and Harry G. Frankfurt's highly compelling book explains exactly why.
Tyler Cowen, author of Average Is Over
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is doing well, if not good, by reducing the debate about equality to resentment of large fortunes. He should read Harry G. Frankfurt's new book On Inequality. It is so short (89 pages) that even a peripatetic candidate can read it, and so lucid that he cannot miss its inconvenient point.
George Will
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A disappointment
I hate to disagree with George Will (a writer I usually agree with and almost always profit from) but for me this book is a failure. I was hoping, because of its length and because of the many favorable reviews, that it would give me some things to think about.
amazon review
80 pages can still be a waste of your time
---
Economic equality is one of today's most overrated ideas, and Harry G. Frankfurt's highly compelling book explains exactly why.
Tyler Cowen, author of Average Is Over
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is doing well, if not good, by reducing the debate about equality to resentment of large fortunes. He should read Harry G. Frankfurt's new book On Inequality. It is so short (89 pages) that even a peripatetic candidate can read it, and so lucid that he cannot miss its inconvenient point.
George Will
---
A disappointment
I hate to disagree with George Will (a writer I usually agree with and almost always profit from) but for me this book is a failure. I was hoping, because of its length and because of the many favorable reviews, that it would give me some things to think about.
January 10, 2022
For me a challenging and thoughtful analysis on economic inequality and, in the writer’s assessment, the view that there is no intrinsic moral basis for equality, versus the moral basis that people should have accress to economic sufficiency. That might be rub, however, in that sufficiency in an economic sense may not provide the resources to achieve fulfillment. Can we create a sociery that provides support in that way? His second chapter on respect is very fine. I will refer to this book in the future.
August 28, 2018
This is definitely a short read, but not necessarily a quick read. Quicker than perhaps Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but I found myself stopping every few paragraphs to think through what he was saying.
These two essays are essentially formal arguments as to why economic equality (and, in the second essay, other equalities such as equality of opportunity, welfare, respect, rights, consideration, concern, etc) is not fundamentally a moral matter, nor is egalitarianism fundamentally morally superior to inegalitarianism. This runs counter to my thinking, so I figured it would be an interesting read, and I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I find that I can agree with him to some extent, though that extent seems to be firmly in a formal setting, and not necessarily a practical one. But it's a good starting point and way to frame the issue of what is really wrong with inequality, and something I'm going to keep thinking about after putting the book down, which are signs of a good book.
These two essays are essentially formal arguments as to why economic equality (and, in the second essay, other equalities such as equality of opportunity, welfare, respect, rights, consideration, concern, etc) is not fundamentally a moral matter, nor is egalitarianism fundamentally morally superior to inegalitarianism. This runs counter to my thinking, so I figured it would be an interesting read, and I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I find that I can agree with him to some extent, though that extent seems to be firmly in a formal setting, and not necessarily a practical one. But it's a good starting point and way to frame the issue of what is really wrong with inequality, and something I'm going to keep thinking about after putting the book down, which are signs of a good book.
November 19, 2020
“(...) the pursuit of egalitarian goals often has very substancial utility in promoting a variety of compelling political and social ideals. But the widespread conviction that equality itself and as such has some basic value as an independent important moral ideal is not only mistaken. It is an impediment to the identification of what is truly of fundamental moral and social worth.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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