Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them

by Joshua D. Greene

Some people earn three million dollars in a year. More typical American workers have an annual income of thirty thousand dollars. Such is the way of the free market. I’m prepared to believe that, on average, people who earn millions work harder than typical workers and deserve to be rewarded. But I don’t believe that they work one hundred times harder. I don’t believe that the super-rich do more hard work in one week than typical workers do all year. Rich people may deserve to be rich, but they are also beneficiaries of good fortune. I see no reason why the world’s luckiest people should keep all of that good fortune for themselves, especially when public schools can’t afford to pay teachers competitive professional salaries and billions of children worldwide are born into poverty through no fault of their own. Taking a bit of money from the haves hurts them very little, whereas providing resources and opportunities to the have-nots, when done wisely, goes a long way. That’s not socialism. That’s deep pragmatism.

Tanelile