The concept of class struggle initially began during the emergence of early feudalistic regimes; thus, economists have been facing the issue of class struggle for centuries.
Over time, this problem has emerged into a more severe scenario in which its approach has become extremely one-sided towards favouring the rich.
Although the disparities among the bourgeoisie and proletariat groups have been occurring since the late 18th century, advancements in technology and industrialization have managed to expand the aspect of income and profit maximization even further, of course through the notion of self-interestedness of individuals.
Ever since the beginning of diversification in income distribution, the competition throughout the market became more aggressive and the pursuit of earning more wealth has ended up being most people's main desire in life.
Currently, the dilemma consists of the unfairness in income distribution.
The issue discussed in this debate addresses the problems we face nowadays as a cause of increase in the notion of profit making.
I will briefly try to explore the gap between the rich and the poor when I argue that cash has been scattered imperfectly.
To obtain a succinct argument about this topic, this article focuses on United States' economy; however, it also addresses economies of other nations to parallel the severity of disparities.
In summary, the rich are benefiting more and more from capital regeneration these days.
This imperfection seems to be making the wealthy appear to be the cause of the unfairness seen by the rest of citizens.
It is believed that the crisis of the rich getting richer and the poor suffering further is a visible perception in our economies.
In my opinion, this problematic issue has mostly been caused by our defective cash circulations within our societies.
Let me begin my elaborations by focusing on the matter of changes observed in the United States' mean wages.
They grew rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s, and the dispersion around this growing mean changed very little.
Starting in the 1970s and continuing into 1990s, where capitalism expanded exponentially, a turn of new events caused the growth pattern to reverse.
As a consequence, mean wages grew slower and inequality to increased rapidly.
At that time, it was proven that this distribution of family income directly affected rates of poverty.
Empirical data suggests that such inequalities have had negative impacts on economic growth of developed nations.
In order to cope with the crisis of income inequality, one must define the word "inequality" with respect to income dispersion.
Markus Knell.
an expert in this field, suggests that inequality forms when individuals have high concerns towards their present earnings rather than future earnings.
People have a tendency of comparing themselves with a wealthier reference group of citizens, he claims.
Ergo, they tend to gather profit by expanding their wealth to reach those who stand at higher grounds.
Such actions expand the space between social classes further which eventually does not seem to alleviate inequality.
Many argue that inequality in income distribution has caused negative outcomes globally.
In addition to poverty and increasing the gap between the rich and the unfortunate, we face factors such as unhappiness of the citizens, lack of work incentives and lack of fair opportunities of capital regeneration.
With regards to the unhappiness levels, data available from 1972 to 2008 indicates that Americans were on average happier in the years with less national income inequality than in the years with more inequalities; therefore, an inverse relationship between income inequality and happiness exists.
Psychologists connect both concepts of inequality and happiness together when examining the means of public trust and fairness.
Based on Dr.
Oishi's research, the evidence finds that Americans perceived others to be less fair and less trustworthy in times of income inequality.
Low and middle-income earners experience unfairness as their minds are set towards the ideology of "the rich get richer".
They believe that the world is treating them unfairly and unjustly.
This income disparity disjoints the community members and drives individuals to obtain less trust towards one another.
After examining unhappiness, I will focus on expanding the concepts of lack of motives and lack of capital regeneration opportunities.
Two best known means of achieving equality are fairness of results and fairness of rules.
John Rawls, a well known theorist, explains that "the question of fairness arises when free persons, who have no authority over one another, are engaged in a joint activity which determines their respective shares and benefits.
" Although they sound the same, fairness of results is an outcome of fairness of rules when accompanied with public trust.
Unfair rules eventually lead markets towards unfair prices, leading to unfair distribution of income.
High levels of public trust - when individuals do not plan on undertaking nor fear being subjected to deceitful distribution of benefits in a group - is crucial for fair sharing of the benefits.
Rawls also defines justice as liberty, equality, and rewarding people for their contribution to a common advantage.
Equality and proportionate self-rewards only co-exist if we evaluate equality as people's opportunities for capital regeneration grows, as opposed to their immediate income earnings.
A fairness of rules approach can be utilized to achieve equality of capital regeneration as well as proportionate self-rewards for members of society.
This approach justifies a balanced inequality in income, as such diversity leads to improvement of the society and economy as a whole.
For such cases, Rawls implies that justice could forgo and no one could object, since everyone benefits in the end.
Rawls says that it would be short-sighted of people if anyone resists such a scenario.
"Since there is no way for anyone to win special advantage for himself (at the end), each might consider it reasonable to acknowledge inequality as an initial principle.
An inequality is allowed only if there is reason to believe that the practice with the inequality will work to the advantage of every party".
In accordance to Rawls's ideas, logic explains that inequality of income should not be harmful for economic growth, because it provides equal incentives to reach productivity.
Upon clarification on this matter, I will examine the trade-off of efficiency against equality.
For instance, if inequality exists, incentives towards technological and economical advances increase for the wealthy since they benefit from such situations.
The results illustrate that the whole economy benefits and the poor's stance improves over time.
Alternative options include taxation and boosting bargaining power of the customers in the market equilibrium.
A society's economic environment determines whether fair individuals or the selfish types dominate the market's equilibrium behavior.
It should be noted that in a customer/labour market, it is acceptable for firms to raise prices or cut wages when profits are threatened.
Although unfair, this factor exploits the shifts of demand and reflects a monopoly.
Nevertheless, the rich never encounter such actions as unfair since they suspect customers to have the ability of searching for alternative choices when treated unfairly.
I suspect U.
S's economy to be operated by self-interested individuals; therefore, since it has major effects on the global market, it promotes unfairness and inequality world-wide.
Now if customers are to oppose price changes, they may engage in bargains.
Nowadays, bargaining seems to be the most effective way of achieving results, especially since the concept of self-interestedness clogs up the path of all other approaches.
Even present politics suggests that one must be engaged in bargains in order to succeed.
Upon looking at one research conducted by Dr.
Forsythe and his colleagues, individuals deal with bargains within two options of ultimatum way (take-it or leave-it) or the dictatorship approach (you have to take-it).
In my opinion, no matter which one of these methods is to be applied, the rich still advance into wealthier positions.
Since these approaches do not seem appropriate, from what was suggested by Rawls previously, I acknowledged that maybe the richest of humankind should get involved in the duty of fair play and share their wealth among the poor equally.
Rawls also reflects to his ideology of mutual acknowledgement for such a scenario: "Once persons knowingly engage in a practice which they acknowledge to be fair and accept the benefits of doing so, they are bound by the duty of fair play which implies a limitation on self-interest in particular cases".
As thought of mutual acknowledgement suggests, distribution of capital must be done by individuals themselves, without any third parties intervening.
If justice is to be put down on allocation of earnings within this method, wealthy must accept that they may no longer have special advantages.
However, although easily controllable in theory, this thought is applicable in reality.
No one wills to sacrifice themselves for the better being of others.
Latest data gathered by our North American Nobel winner Jeffrey Sachs indicates that one billion people live in extreme poverty along with another 1.
5 billion whom live above subsistence.
These people are subject to inadequate sanitation and unclean drinking water due to income inequalities.
Ending this poverty crisis requires cooperation of the wealthy along with the rest of world.
Sachs explains that only 0.
7 percent of the richest nation's income - United States - is needed to end poverty in the poorest.
Now my solution requires figuring out a way of extracting this money from plutocrats.
Although not having a definite solution that promotes equality, we should bear in mind that taxation cuts decline production motives; therefore, I suggest governments to offer bonuses as options to the rich whom are involved in activities with social externalities such as donations.