May, 2011

The first installment of The Question has drawn to a close. Thank you to everyone who participated over the past few months. Our inaugural question, "How rich is too rich?" sparked an energetic discussion on this website, and it continued into a book club discussion of Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save (audio of that discussion is available  here). EthIC and the Philosophy Department sponsored a debate inspired by this discussion on the proposition "There is no so such thing as too rich." The debate was well-attended and very spirited -- look for clips from the video on this website in the near future!  If you would like a copy of the video of the full debate, please contact Daniel Groll.

As promised, one lucky participant in the on-line discussion was chosen at random to receive a $25 gift certificate to the Carleton Bookstore. The winner of the drawing for the gift certificate is Peter Berg!

We'll be back with a new question, and a new series of events related to it, next fall. In the meantime, we'll continue to update the EthIC Facebook Page with links to interesting ethical issues in the news, EthIC events and anything else that EthIC-related. So join us on Facebook!

January 2011

Last year, we replaced our TV. We didn’t get anything fancy – a smallish, flat screen TV. We didn’t need another TV. We already had one. But it was boxy and simply didn’t work in our living room. A reasonable purchase, right? Or does the fact that we had money to spend on a new TV mean that we have too much at our disposal? That we should have given that money to people that really needed it?

There are astonishing income disparities in the United States and between the United States and the world as a whole. According to Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, in 2007 the top decile of American earners made 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that's "higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the 'roaring' 1920s."* Most of us within the Carleton community probably do not think of ourselves as rich. When we think of rich people, we think of the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, LeBron James or Oprah Winfrey. And there’s no doubt that these people really are very rich. We are not like Gates, James or Winfrey. We are, however, people who upgrade their TVs to better suit their living rooms, or to be able to watch the NFL in HD.

Now take a moment to consider your income in relation to the rest of the world (or, if you don’t have an income yet, what you see yourself earning in 10 years). Suppose your gross annual income is $40 000 in your first job after college. According to this site, you will be amongst the richest 1% of people in the world and earn more than 36 times the median world income. Even if you gave 10% of your income to charity or other causes you deem worthy, you would still have earnings in the top 1.3% of the world, earning 33 times more than the median world income.

In light of these figures, doesn’t it make sense to say that we are indeed rich? And does it also suggest that we may have too much money if giving away 10% of our income barely affects our standing in the world? Do we have an obligation to give away some of our wealth? By some standards, we are not rich. But by others, we are very rich. And so we want to know:

How rich is too rich?

Leave a comment to join the conversation (Carleton login required).^ Engaging in ethical reflection is its own reward. But we're sweetening the pot: we'll give a $20 gift certificate to the Carleton bookstore to one lucky commenter (based on a random drawing). So join in!

*As reported in the Huffington Post (where you can also find Saez's original paper).

Other Links of Interest

"What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?" New York Times, 2006

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four

Listen to the EthIC reading group discussion on Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save

post by Daniel Groll