‘I’ve already got a book,’ Hot Danish said when he unwrapped his birthday gift from a distant relative. ‘Oh good – it’s in English. I can read it,’ I said when I saw the cover: The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz. ‘I don’t want you becoming a communist,’ he replied.
The book has caused much debate between us. HD is against certain measures to increase equality (such as high progressive salary and inheritance taxation). ‘But you are not in the 1% whose interests are at the expense of the 99%,’ I argued. We checked online: entry level to the top 1% is about $1.5 million in liquid assets, according to Forbes.
‘You need to stop using such narrow definitions,’ I continued. ‘Saying I’m a communist because I agree with this book is like saying I’m a man-hater if I say I’m a feminist.’
‘Have you watched the Emma Watson speech?,’ he said.
‘Anyway, the book’s about America’s political system,’ I conceded.
However, the UK is now second only to the US in inequality (whereas we were average among comparable countries 30 years ago).
Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate and a professor of economics at Columbia. In The Price of Inequality, he argues that the exercise of political power by moneyed interests over legislative and regulatory processes has created a two-tier society. ‘While there may be underlying economic forces at play,’ he writes, ‘politics have shaped the market, and shaped it in ways that advantage the top at the expense of the rest.’ But politics, he insists, is subject to change.
What is perhaps equally difficult to change is our snap judgments. ‘You’ve taken me out of my comfort zone,’ a date recently said to Natasha after she suggested a low-key pizza-and-movie date. He was expecting her to be demanding because she is beautiful. It’s something I’ve blogged about before.
We’re more complex than the labels we’re given and often we’re a bit contradictory. As a foreign employee working in the Netherlands and having met a number of conditions, I pay less tax than HD. I’m also often demanding… And so is he.
