Aristotle Economic Inequality

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There is ever-growing economic inequality in the United States. The top 20% of Americans own 85% of the wealth, leaving our society to ask the question, is this imbalance just? Are the wealthiest citizens also the most deserving citizens, while the poorest citizens deserve nothing more than what they have? Of course, the answer to this question seems quite obvious in that no, we do not always deserve the circumstances in which we are held. Yet, the disparity between class lifestyles is so great, that many of the rich could not even fathom the standards of living of the poor, while the poor does not realize the amount of money the top 20% actually has. However, it is important to be able to view this situation through the philosophical lens …show more content…
Aristotle identifies justice as the “complete virtue in the fullest sense” because justice is, in itself, an “active exercise of complete virtue,” that one must “exercise it in relation to another person” (Aristotle 69). However, when examined from a broader perspective, justice takes the form of fair distribution of honors and wealth, and also provides the pattern of all transactions, whether voluntary or involuntary. Yet, Aristotle defines the situations of distribution of honors versus transactions by two terms: distributive justice and rectificatory justice. According to Aristotle, distributive justice (the form of justice we will mostly be looking at in this essay) is the idea that there is a fair allocation of goods throughout a society. The fairness of the distribution in who deserves what is decided through need and …show more content…
“Whenever equals receive unequal shares, or unequals [receive] equal shares, in a distribution, that is the source of quarrels and accusations,” which is the focus of the unjust economic inequality in the United States (Aristotle 71). In Aristotle’s eyes, and in a judgment that, in my opinion, seems inherent, the best flute players should receive the best flutes because “justice discriminates according to merit” (Sandel 187). Yet, as we have already established, citizens of our society do not always deserve the portions they are given. Certainly, it would be impossible to completely and justly distribute wealth according to the merit and virtue of the receiver, but the telos of American social society has skewed the wealth distribution to not always reflect merit and honor, but instead to reflect beauty, popularity, entertainment value, or even pity. No doubt, this distorted distribution of wealth is not something that Aristotle would condone. The above ideas would bring us to consider current issues such as minimum wage, labor-intensive jobs, welfare, unemployment, and the widening pay gap between the one percent and the rest of the working United States. Aristotle’s opinion is obvious: “A city is maintained by proportionate
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