Educating Ju-chang (Gini indeces etc)

[Michael Yates]

>From my experiences teaching so-called ordinary people, I would say that
people are upset about inequality and also do not know just how unequal
things are.  However, I also believe that folks do not think much can be
done about it.  You know, they say and understand that the rich get
richer and the poor get poorer but they don't know how to get beyond
this. So the buy lottery ickets and dream.  Perhaps this is a major
failing of our labor movement, to develop any kind of class politics and
to kick out the people who did.

michael yates

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Max Sawicky wrote:
> 
> >But how ordinary people think about inequality, or if they think about
> >it, is what I was getting at, and that's a separate matter.
> 
> Well, what do we know about what they think? Polls I've seen show
> that people think that welfare benefits are about twice as high was
> they are (were?), that white people think black incomes are equal to
> white, and that the poverty line is about twice as high as it really
> is. I haven't seen polls on average incomes, but I suspect that most
> people think average incomes (and wealth) are much higher than they
> already are - so, thinking about distribution would force them to
> confront the "fact" that they're below a fantasized average.
> 
> Maybe average perceptions aren't as out of whack as former North
> Carolina Congressman Fred Heineman, who famously said in 1995: "When
> I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 a
> year, that's middle class. When I see anyone above that, that's
> upper-middle class." The "lower middle class" was the
> $100,000-200,000 income bracket. His "middle class" was in the top 1%
> of the income distribution, and his lower-middle the next 3%. It
> wouldn't surprise me if lots of people in DC think like this, but
> have enough sense not to say it out loud.
> 
> Doug