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Economic inequality

Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income (how the total sum of money paid to people is distributed among them), b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth (how the total sum of wealth owned by people is distributed among the owners), and c) consumption inequality (how the total sum of money spent by people is distributed among the spenders). Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations (such as within a low-income group, within a high-income group and between them, within an age group and between inter-generational groups, within a gender group and between them etc, either from one or from multiple nations).

Income inequality metrics are used for measuring income inequality, the Gini coefficient being a widely used one. Another type of measurement is the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, which is a statistic composite index that takes inequality into account. Important concepts of equality include equity, equality of outcome, and equality of opportunity.

Historically, there has been a long-run trend towards greater economic inequality over time. The exceptions to this during the modern era are the declines in economic inequality during the two World Wars and amid the creation of modern welfare states after World War II. Whereas globalization has reduced the inequality between nations, it has increased the inequality within the population in most nations. Income inequality between nations peaked in the 1970s, when world income was distributed bimodally into "rich" and "poor" countries. Since then, income levels across countries have been converging, with most people now living in middle-income countries. However, inequality within the population in most has risen significantly in the last 30 years, particularly among advanced countries.

Research has generally linked economic inequality to political and social instability, including revolution, democratic breakdown and civil conflict. Research suggests that greater inequality hinders economic growth and macroeconomic stability, and that land and human capital inequality reduce growth more than inequality of income. Inequality is at the center stage of economic policy debate across the globe, as government tax and spending policies have significant effects on income distribution. In advanced economies, taxes and transfers decrease income inequality by one-third, with most of this being achieved via public social spending (such as pensions and family benefits). While the "optimum" amount of economic inequality is widely debated, there is a near-universal belief that complete economic equality (Gini of zero) would be undesirable and unachieveable.

Measurements
In 1820, the ratio between the income of the top and bottom 20 percent of the world's population was three to one. By 1991, it was eighty-six to one. A 2011 study titled "Divided we Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising" by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) sought to explain the causes for this rising inequality by investigating economic inequality in OECD countries; it concluded that the following factors played a role: The study made the following conclusions about the level of economic inequality:
 * Changes in the structure of households can play an important role. Single-headed households in OECD countries have risen from an average of 15% in the late 1980s to 20% in the mid-2000s, resulting in higher inequality.
 * Assortative mating refers to the phenomenon of people marrying people with similar background, for example doctors marrying other doctors rather than nurses. OECD found out that 40% of couples where both partners work belonged to the same or neighbouring earnings deciles compared with 33% some 20 years before.
 * In the bottom percentiles, number of hours worked has decreased.
 * The main reason for increasing inequality seems to be the difference between the demand for and supply of skills.
 * Income inequality in OECD countries is at its highest level for the past half century. The ratio between the bottom 10% and the top 10% has increased from 1:7 to 1:9 in 25 years.
 * There are tentative signs of a possible convergence of inequality levels towards a common and higher average level across OECD countries.
 * With very few exceptions (France, Japan, and Spain), the wages of the 10% best-paid workers have risen relative to those of the 10% lowest paid.

A 2011 OECD study investigated economic inequality in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa. It concluded that key sources of inequality in these countries include "a large, persistent informal sector, widespread regional divides (e.g., urban-rural), gaps in access to education, and barriers to employment and career progression for women."

A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reported that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000. The three richest people in the world possess more financial assets than the lowest 48 nations combined. The combined wealth of the "10 million dollar millionaires" grew to nearly $41 trillion in 2008.

Oxfam's 2021 report on global inequality said that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased economic inequality substantially; the wealthiest people across the globe were impacted the least by the pandemic and their fortunes recovered quickest, with billionaires seeing their wealth increase by $3.9 trillion, while at the same time the number of people living on less than $5.50 a day likely increased by 500 million. According to economist Joseph Stiglitz, the pandemic's "most significant outcome" will be rising economic inequality in the United States and between the developed and developing world. The 2024 Oxfam report found a significant increase in inequality as roughly five billion people have become poorer while at the same time the fortunes of the five richest individuals have doubled. The report warns that current trends are paving the way for the world's first trillionaire within a decade and global poverty eradication being postponed for 229 years.

According to PolitiFact, the top 400 richest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined." According to The New York Times on July 22, 2014, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent". Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a "substantial head start". A 2017 report by the IPS said that three individuals, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, own as much wealth as the bottom half of the population, or 160 million people, and that the growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor has created a "moral crisis", noting that "we have not witnessed such extreme levels of concentrated wealth and power since the first gilded age a century ago." In 2016, the world's billionaires increased their combined global wealth to a record $6 trillion. In 2017, they increased their collective wealth to 8.9 trillion. In 2018, U.S. income inequality reached the highest level ever recorded by the Census Bureau.

The existing data and estimates suggest a large increase in international (and more generally inter-macroregional) components between 1820 and 1960. It might have slightly decreased since that time at the expense of increasing inequality within countries. The United Nations Development Programme in 2014 asserted that greater investments in social security, jobs, and laws that protect vulnerable populations are necessary to prevent widening income inequality.

There is a significant difference in the measured wealth distribution and the public's understanding of wealth distribution. Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of the Department of Psychology at Duke University found this to be true in their research conducted in 2011. The actual wealth going to the top quintile in 2011 was around 84%, whereas the average amount of wealth that the general public estimated to go to the top quintile was around 58%.

According to a 2020 study, global earnings inequality has decreased substantially since 1970. During the 2000s and 2010s, the share of earnings by the world's poorest half doubled. Two researchers claim that global income inequality is decreasing due to strong economic growth in developing countries. According to a January 2020 report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, economic inequality between states had declined, but intrastate inequality has increased for 70% of the world population over the period 1990–2015. In 2015, the OECD reported in 2015 that income inequality is higher than it has ever been within OECD member nations and is at increased levels in many emerging economies. According to a June 2015 report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF):

"Widening income inequality is the defining challenge of our time. In advanced economies, the gap between the rich and poor is at its highest level in decades. Inequality trends have been more mixed in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs), with some countries experiencing declining inequality, but pervasive inequities in access to education, health care, and finance remain."

In October 2017, the IMF warned that inequality within nations, in spite of global inequality falling in recent decades, has risen so sharply that it threatens economic growth and could result in further political polarization. The Fund's Fiscal Monitor report said that "progressive taxation and transfers are key components of efficient fiscal redistribution." In October 2018 Oxfam published a Reducing Inequality Index which measured social spending, tax and workers' rights to show which countries were best at closing the gap between the rich and the poor.

The 2022 World Inequality Report, a four-year research project organized by the economists Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, shows that "the world is marked by a very high level of income inequality and an extreme level of wealth inequality" and that these inequalities "seem to be about as great today as they were at the peak of western imperialism in the early 20th century." According to the report, the bottom half of the population owns 2% of global wealth, while the top 10% owns 76% of it. The top 1% owns 38%.

Wealth distribution within individual countries
The wealth is calculated by various factors, for instance: liabilities, debts, exchange rates and their expected development, real estate prices, human resources, natural resources and technical advancements, etc.

Income distribution within individual countries
Income inequality is measured by Gini coefficient (expressed in percent %) that is a number between 0 and 1. Here 0 expresses perfect equality, meaning that everyone has the same income, whereas 1 represents perfect inequality, meaning that one person has all the income and others have none. A Gini index value above 50% is considered high; countries including Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, Botswana, and Honduras can be found in this category. A Gini index value of 30% or above is considered medium; countries including Vietnam, Mexico, Poland, the United States, Argentina, Russia and Uruguay can be found in this category. A Gini index value lower than 30% is considered low; countries including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, and Ukraine can be found in this category. In the low-income inequality category (below 30%) is a wide representation of countries previously being part of Soviet Union or its satellites, like Slovakia, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Hungary.

In 2012 the Gini index for income inequality for whole European Union was only 30.6%.

Income distribution can differ from wealth distribution within each country. The wealth inequality is also measured in Gini index. There the higher Gini index signify greater inequality within the wealth distribution in country, 0 means total wealth equality and 1 represents situation, where everyone has no wealth, except an individual that has everything. For instance, countries like Denmark, Norway and Netherlands, all belonging to the last category (below 30%, low-income inequality) also have very high Gini index in wealth distribution, ranging from 70% up to 90%.

Consumption distribution within individual countries
In economics, the consumption distribution or consumption inequality is an alternative to the income distribution or wealth distribution for judging economic inequality, comparing levels of consumption rather than income or wealth. This is an important measure of inequality as the basic utility of the wealth or income is the expenditure. People experience the inequality directly in consumption, rather than income or wealth.

Factors proposed to affect economic inequality
There are various reasons for economic inequality within societies, including both global market functions (such as trade, development, and regulation) as well as social factors (including gender, race, and education). Recent growth in overall income inequality, at least within the OECD countries, has been driven mostly by increasing inequality in wages and salaries.

Economist Thomas Piketty argues that widening economic disparity is an inevitable phenomenon of free market capitalism when the rate of return of capital (r) is greater than the rate of growth of the economy (g). According to an IMF report in 2016, after reviewing four decades of neoliberalism, it had warned that certain neoliberal policies including privatization, public spending cuts, and deregulation, have resulted in "increased inequality" and are stunting economic growth globally.

Labour market
In modern market economies, if competition is imperfect; information unevenly distributed; opportunities to acquire education and skills unequal; market failure results. Many such imperfect conditions exist in virtually every market. According to Joseph Stiglitz this means that there is an enormous potential role for government to correct such market failures.

In the United States, real wages are flat over the past 40 years for occupations across income and education levels, e.g., auto mechanics, cashiers, doctors, and software engineers. However, stock ownership favors higher income and education levels, thereby resulting in disparate investment income.

Taxes

Another cause is the rate at which income is taxed coupled with the progressivity of the tax system. A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases. In a progressive tax system, the level of the top tax rate will often have a direct impact on the level of inequality within a society, either increasing it or decreasing it, provided that income does not change as a result of the change in tax regime. Additionally, steeper tax progressivity applied to social spending can result in a more equal distribution of income across the board. Tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US can also decrease income inequality. The difference between the Gini index for an income distribution before taxation and the Gini index after taxation is an indicator for the effects of such taxation.

Education
An important factor in the creation of inequality is variation in individuals' access to education. Education, especially in an area where there is a high demand for workers, creates high wages for those with this education. However, increases in education first increase and then decrease growth as well as income inequality. As a result, those who are unable to afford an education, or choose not to pursue optional education, generally receive much lower wages. The justification for this is that a lack of education leads directly to lower incomes, and thus lower aggregate saving and investment. Conversely, quality education raises incomes and promotes growth because it helps to unleash the productive potential of the poor.

Access to education was in turn influenced by land inequalities. In the less industrialized parts of 19th century Europe, for example, landowners still held more political power than industrialists. These landowners did not benefit from educating their workers as much as industrialists did, since "educated workers have more incentives to migrate to urban, industrial areas than their less educated counterparts." Consequently, lower incentives to promote education in regions where land inequality was high led to lower levels of numeracy in these regions.

Economic liberalism, deregulation and decline of unions
John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer (2006) of the CEPR point to economic liberalism and the reduction of business regulation along with the decline of union membership as one of the causes of economic inequality. In an analysis of the effects of intensive Anglo-American liberal policies in comparison to continental European liberalism, where unions have remained strong, they concluded "The U.S. economic and social model is associated with substantial levels of social exclusion, including high levels of income inequality, high relative and absolute poverty rates, poor and unequal educational outcomes, poor health outcomes, and high rates of crime and incarceration. At the same time, the available evidence provides little support for the view that U.S.-style labor market flexibility dramatically improves labor-market outcomes. Despite popular prejudices to the contrary, the U.S. economy consistently affords a lower level of economic mobility than all the continental European countries for which data is available."

More recently, the International Monetary Fund has published studies which found that the decline of unionization in many advanced economies and the establishment of neoliberal economics have fueled rising income inequality.

Contrary to the proponents of neoliberalism, trickle-down economics have been proven to not be effective in resolving economic inequalities but have instead worsened it.

Technology
The growth in importance of information technology has been credited with increasing income inequality. Technology has been called "the main driver of the recent increases in inequality" by Erik Brynjolfsson, of MIT. In arguing against this explanation, Jonathan Rothwell notes that if technological advancement is measured by high rates of invention, there is a negative correlation between it and inequality. Countries with high invention rates — "as measured by patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty" — exhibit lower inequality than those with less. In one country, the United States, "salaries of engineers and software developers rarely reach" above $390,000/year (the lower limit for the top 1% earners).

Some researchers, such as Juliet B. Schor, highlight the role of for-profit online sharing economy platforms as an accelerator of income inequality and calls into question their supposed contribution in empowering outsiders of the labour market.

Taking the example of TaskRabbit, a labour service platform, she shows that a large proportion of providers already have a stable full-time job and participate part-time in the platform as an opportunity to increase their income by diversifying their activities outside employment, which tends to restrict the volume of work remaining for the minority of platform workers.

In addition, there is an important phenomenon of labour substitution as manual tasks traditionally performed by workers without a degree (or just a college degree) integrated into the labour market in the traditional economy sectors are now performed by workers with a high level of education (in 2013, 70% of TaskRabbit's workforce held a bachelor's degree, 20% a master's degree and 5% a PhD). The development of platforms, which are increasingly capturing demand for these manual services at the expense of non-platform companies, may therefore benefit mainly skilled workers who are offered more earning opportunities that can be used as supplemental or transitional work during periods of unemployment.

It has also been proposed that information technologies contribute to "winner take most" market concentration, reducing the need for labor across competing suppliers. Market concentration drives down labor's share of the GDP, increasing the wealth of capital and thereby exacerbating inequality.

Automation
Economists have linked automation to increases in economic inequality, as automation raises the returns to wealth and contributes to stagnating wages at the lower end of the wage distribution. Several economists have suggested that automation has increased income inequality by causing low skill jobs to be replaced with machines operated by technologically skilled workers, thereby reducing the demand for unskilled labor while increasing the demand for skilled labor.

Globalization
Trade liberalization may shift economic inequality from a global to a domestic scale. When rich countries trade with poor countries, the low-skilled workers in the rich countries may see reduced wages as a result of the competition, while low-skilled workers in the poor countries may see increased wages. Trade economist Paul Krugman estimates that trade liberalisation has had a measurable effect on the rising inequality in the United States. He attributes this trend to increased trade with poor countries and the fragmentation of the means of production, resulting in low skilled jobs becoming more tradeable.

Anthropologist Jason Hickel contends that globalization and "structural adjustment" set off the "race to the bottom", a significant driver of surging global inequality. Another driver Hickel mentions is the debt system which advanced the need for structural adjustment in the first place.

Gender
In many countries, there is a gender pay gap in favor of males in the labor market. Several factors other than discrimination contribute to this gap. On average, women are more likely than men to consider factors other than pay when looking for work and may be less willing to travel or relocate. Thomas Sowell, in his book Knowledge and Decisions, claims that this difference is due to women not taking jobs due to marriage or pregnancy. A U.S. Census's report stated that in US once other factors are accounted for there is still a difference in earnings between women and men. A study done on three post-soviet countries Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan reveals that gender is one of the driving forces of income inequality, and being female has a significant negative effect on income when other factors are held equal. The results show more than 50% gender pay gap in all three countries. These findings are because usually employers tend to avoid hiring women because of possible maternity leave. Other reason for this can be occupational segregation, which implies that women are usually accumulated in lower-paid positions and sectors, such as social services and education.

Race
There is also a globally recognized disparity in the wealth, income, and economic welfare of people of different races. In many nations, data exists to suggest that members of certain racial demographics experience lower wages, fewer opportunities for career and educational advancement, and intergenerational wealth gaps. Studies have uncovered the emergence of what is called "ethnic capital", by which people belonging to a race that has experienced discrimination are born into a disadvantaged family from the beginning and therefore have less resources and opportunities at their disposal. The universal lack of education, technical and cognitive skills, and inheritable wealth within a particular race is often passed down between generations, compounding in effect to make escaping these racialized cycles of poverty increasingly difficult. Additionally, ethnic groups that experience significant disparities are often also minorities, at least in representation though often in number as well, in the nations where they experience the harshest disadvantage. As a result, they are often segregated either by government policy or social stratification, leading to ethnic communities that experience widespread gaps in wealth and aid.

Redlining intentionally excluded black Americans from accumulating intergenerational wealth. The effects of this exclusion on black Americans' health continue to play out daily, generations later, in the same communities. This is evident currently in the disproportionate effects that COVID-19 has had on the same communities which the HOLC redlined in the 1930s. Research published in September 2020 overlaid maps of the highly affected COVID-19 areas with the HOLC maps, showing that those areas marked "risky" to lenders because they contained minority residents were the same neighborhoods most affected by COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) looks at inequities in the social determinants of health like concentrated poverty and healthcare access that are interrelated and influence health outcomes with regard to COVID-19 as well as quality of life in general for minority groups. The CDC points to discrimination within health care, education, criminal justice, housing, and finance, direct results of systematically subversive tactics like redlining which led to chronic and toxic stress that shaped social and economic factors for minority groups, increasing their risk for COVID-19. Healthcare access is similarly limited by factors like a lack of public transportation, child care, and communication and language barriers which result from the spatial and economic isolation of minority communities from redlining. Educational, income, and wealth gaps that result from this isolation mean that minority groups' limited access to the job market may force them to remain in fields that have a higher risk of exposure to the virus, without options to take time off. Finally, a direct result of redlining is the overcrowding of minority groups into neighborhoods that do not boast adequate housing to sustain burgeoning populations, leading to crowded conditions that make prevention strategies for COVID-19 nearly impossible to implement.

As a general rule, races which have been historically and systematically colonized (typically indigenous ethnicities) continue to experience lower levels of financial stability in the present day. The global South is considered to be particularly victimized by this phenomenon, though the exact socioeconomic manifestations change across different regions.

Westernized Nations
While the progression of civil rights movements and justice reform has improved access to education and other economic opportunities in politically advanced nations, racial income and wealth disparity still exists. In the United States for example, African American populations are more likely to drop out of high school and college, are typically employed for fewer hours at lower wages, have lower than average intergenerational wealth, and are more likely to use welfare as young adults than their white counterparts. The racial wealth gap in the US has been maintained throughout history. In 1863, two years prior to emancipation from slavery, Black people owned 0.5 percent of the US national wealth, while in 2019 it is just over 1.5 percent.

Mexican-Americans, while suffering less debilitating socioeconomic factors than black Americans, experience deficiencies in the same areas when compared to whites and have not assimilated financially to the level of stability experienced by white Americans as a whole. These experiences are the effects of the measured disparity due to race in countries like the US, where studies show that in comparison to whites, blacks suffer from drastically lower levels of upward mobility, higher levels of downward mobility, and poverty that is more easily transmitted to offspring as a result of the disadvantage stemming from the era of slavery and post-slavery racism that has been passed through racial generations to the present. These are lasting financial inequalities that apply in varying magnitudes to most non-white populations in nations such as the US, the UK, France, Spain, Australia, etc.

Latin America
In the countries of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, many ethnicities continue to deal with the effects of European colonization, and in general nonwhites tend to be noticeably poorer than whites in this region. In many countries with significant populations of indigenous races and those of Afro-descent (such as Mexico, Colombia, Chile, etc.) income levels can be roughly half as high as those experiences by white demographics, and this inequity is accompanied by systematically unequal access to education, career opportunities, and poverty relief. This region of the world, apart from urbanizing areas like Brazil and Costa Rica, continues to be understudied and often the racial disparity is denied by Latin Americans who consider themselves to be living in post-racial and post-colonial societies far removed from intense social and economic stratification despite the evidence to the contrary.

Africa
African countries, too, continue to deal with the effects of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which set back economic development as a whole for blacks of African citizenship more than any other region. The degree to which colonizers stratified their holdings on the continent on the basis of race has had a direct correlation in the magnitude of disparity experienced by nonwhites in the nations that eventually rose from their colonial status. Former French colonies, for example, see much higher rates of income inequality between whites and nonwhites as a result of the rigid hierarchy imposed by the French who lived in Africa at the time. Another example is found in South Africa, which, still reeling from the socioeconomic impacts of Apartheid, experiences some of the highest racial income and wealth inequality in all of Africa. In these and other countries like Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone, movements of civil reform have initially led to improved access to financial advancement opportunities, but data shows that for nonwhites this progress is either stalling or erasing itself in the newest generation of blacks that seek education and improved transgenerational wealth. The economic status of one's parents continues to define and predict the financial futures of African and minority ethnic groups.

Asia
Asian regions and countries such as China, the Middle East, and Central Asia have been vastly understudied in terms of racial disparity, but even here the effects of Western colonization provide similar results to those found in other parts of the globe. Additionally, cultural and historical practices such as the caste system in India leave their marks as well. While the disparity is greatly improving in the case of India, there still exists social stratification between peoples of lighter and darker skin tones that cumulatively result in income and wealth inequality, manifesting in many of the same poverty traps seen elsewhere.

Economic development

Economist Simon Kuznets argued that levels of economic inequality are in large part the result of stages of development. According to Kuznets, countries with low levels of development have relatively equal distributions of wealth. In the early stages, individual sectors or industries are developed first, which leads to an unequal distribution of income and wealth, resulting in growing inequality within a country. As the economy progresses and development takes place in more economic sectors, eventually attracting more workers, economic inequality decreases. Although the Kuznets curve described the development of inequality well at the time of its publication, there is now a growing number of critical voices questioning the link between inequality and development.

Wealth concentration
Wealth concentration is the process by which, under certain conditions, newly created wealth concentrates in the possession of already-wealthy individuals or entities. Accordingly, those who already hold wealth have the means to invest in new sources of creating wealth or to otherwise leverage the accumulation of wealth, and thus they are the beneficiaries of the new wealth. Over time, wealth concentration can significantly contribute to the persistence of inequality within society. Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century argues that the fundamental force for divergence is the usually greater return of capital (r) than economic growth (g), and that larger fortunes generate higher returns.

Rent seeking
Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that rather than explaining concentrations of wealth and income, market forces should serve as a brake on such concentration, which may better be explained by the non-market force known as "rent-seeking". While the market will bid up compensation for rare and desired skills to reward wealth creation, greater productivity, etc., it will also prevent successful entrepreneurs from earning excess profits by fostering competition to cut prices, profits and large compensation. A better explainer of growing inequality, according to Stiglitz, is the use of political power generated by wealth by certain groups to shape government policies financially beneficial to them. This process, known to economists as rent-seeking, brings income not from creation of wealth but from "grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort".

Finance industry
Jamie Galbraith argues that countries with larger financial sectors have greater inequality, and the link is not an accident.

Global warming and climate change
A 2019 study published in PNAS found that global warming plays a role in increasing economic inequality between countries, boosting economic growth in developed countries while hampering such growth in developing nations of the Global South. The study says that 25% of gap between the developed world and the developing world can be attributed to global warming.

A 2020 report by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute says that the wealthiest 10% of the global population were responsible for more than half of global carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 to 2015, which increased by 60%. According to a 2020 report by the UNEP, overconsumption by the rich is a significant driver of the climate crisis, and the wealthiest 1% of the world's population are responsible for more than double the greenhouse gas emissions of the poorest 50% combined. Inger Andersen, in the foreword to the report, said "this elite will need to reduce their footprint by a factor of 30 to stay in line with the Paris Agreement targets." A 2022 report by Oxfam found that the business investments of the wealthiest 125 billionaires emit 393 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

In July 2023, a letter sent to the United Nations secretary general António Guterres and World Bank president Ajay Banga by a group of over 200 economists from 67 countries, including Jayati Ghosh, Joseph Stiglitz and Thomas Piketty, warned that if the sharp increase in economic inequality is not reversed, it will "entrench poverty and increase the risk of climate breakdown."

According to UNCTAD's World Investment Report, poorer countries would need $4 trillion per year to accomplish the SDGs by 2030, up from $1.5 trillion in 2015. $1.7 trillion in green energy investment is required each year, while the majority of green foreign direct investment continues to flow to established nations.

Politics
Joseph Stiglitz argues in The Price of Inequality (2012) that the economic inequality is inevitable and permanent, because it is caused by the great amount of political power the richest have. He wrote, "While there may be underlying economic forces at play, politics have shaped the market, and shaped it in ways that advantage the top at the expense of the rest."

Cognitive biases
Research has shown that biased decision-making does not alone explain a significant proportion of inequality, therefore inequality cannot be explained by cognitive biases of a specific sub-population, such as temporal discounting (i.e., not preferring immediate funds over larger future gains), overestimation (i.e. thinking you are better than you are at making decisions), over-placement (i.e. thinking you are better than the average person at making decisions), and extremeness aversion (i.e. taking the 'middle option' simply because it seems safer than the highest or lowest).

Mitigating factors
Countries with a left-leaning legislature generally have lower levels of inequality. Many factors constrain economic inequality – they may be divided into two classes: market driven, and government sponsored. The relative merits and effectiveness of each approach is a subject of debate:

Market forces outside of government intervention that can reduce economic inequality include: Typical government initiatives intended to reduce economic inequality include: Research shows that since 1300, the only periods with significant declines in wealth inequality in Europe were the Black Death and the two World Wars. Historian Walter Scheidel posits that, since the Stone Age, only extreme violence, catastrophes and upheaval in the form of total war, Communist revolutions, the French Revolution, pestilence and state collapse have significantly reduced inequality. He has stated that "only all-out thermonuclear war might fundamentally reset the existing distribution of resources" and that "peaceful policy reform may well prove unequal to the growing challenges ahead." However, Scheidel also stated that "There is certainly room for incremental change, that's what the example of Latin America shows in the past 15 years or so."
 * propensity to spend: with rising wealth & income, a person may spend more. In an extreme example, if one person owned everything, they would immediately need to hire people to maintain their properties, thus reducing the wealth concentration. On the other hand, high-income persons have higher propensity to save. Robin Maialeh then shows that increasing economic wealth decreases propensity to spend and increases propensity to invest which consequently leads to even greater growth rate of already rich agents.
 * Public education: increasing the supply of skilled labor and reducing income inequality due to education differentials.
 * Progressive taxation: the rich are taxed proportionally more than the poor, reducing the amount of income inequality in society if the change in taxation does not cause changes in income.

Policy responses intended to mitigate
A 2011 OECD study makes a number of suggestions to its member countries, including:
 * Well-targeted income-support policies.
 * Facilitation and encouragement of access to employment.
 * Better job-related training and education for the low-skilled (on-the-job training) would help to boost their productivity potential and future earnings.
 * Better access to formal education.

Progressive taxation reduces absolute income inequality when the higher rates on higher-income individuals are paid and not evaded, and transfer payments and social safety nets result in progressive government spending. Wage ratio legislation has also been proposed as a means of reducing income inequality. The OECD asserts that public spending is vital in reducing the ever-expanding wealth gap.

Deferred investment programs that increase stock ownership amongst lower income levels can supplement income to compensate wage stagnation.

The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty recommend much higher top marginal tax rates on the wealthy, up to 50 percent, 70 percent or even 90 percent. Ralph Nader, Jeffrey Sachs, the United Front Against Austerity, among others, call for a financial transaction tax (also known as the Robin Hood tax) to bolster the social safety net and the public sector.

The Economist wrote in December 2013: "A minimum wage, providing it is not set too high, could thus boost pay with no ill effects on jobs....America's federal minimum wage, at 38% of median income, is one of the rich world's lowest. Some studies find no harm to employment from federal or state minimum wages, others see a small one, but none finds any serious damage."

General limitations on and taxation of rent-seeking are popular across the political spectrum.

Public policy responses addressing causes and effects of income inequality in the US include: progressive tax incidence adjustments, strengthening social safety net provisions such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, welfare, the food stamp program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, organizing community interest groups, increasing and reforming higher education subsidies, increasing infrastructure spending, and placing limits on and taxing rent-seeking.

A 2017 study in the Journal of Political Economy by Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Thierry Verdier argues that American "cutthroat" capitalism and inequality gives rise to technology and innovation that more "cuddly" forms of capitalism cannot. As a result, "the diversity of institutions we observe among relatively advanced countries, ranging from greater inequality and risk-taking in the United States to the more egalitarian societies supported by a strong safety net in Scandinavia, rather than reflecting differences in fundamentals between the citizens of these societies, may emerge as a mutually self-reinforcing world equilibrium. If so, in this equilibrium, 'we cannot all be like the Scandinavians,' because Scandinavian capitalism depends in part on the knowledge spillovers created by the more cutthroat American capitalism." A 2012 working paper by the same authors, making similar arguments, was challenged by Lane Kenworthy, who posited that, among other things, the Nordic countries are consistently ranked as some of the world's most innovative countries by the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index, with Sweden ranking as the most innovative nation, followed by Finland, for 2012–2013; the U.S. ranked sixth.

There are however global initiative like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 which aims to garner international efforts in reducing economic inequality considerably by 2030.

Effects
A lot of research has been done about the effects of economic inequality on different aspects in society:
 * Health: For long time the higher material living standards lead to longer life, as those people were able to get enough food, water and access to warmth. British researchers Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have found higher rates of health and social problems (obesity, mental illness, homicides, teenage births, incarceration, child conflict, drug use) in countries and states with higher inequality. Their research included 24 developed countries, including most U.S. states, and found that in the more developed countries, such as Finland and Japan, the heath issues are much lower than in states with rather higher inequality rates, such as Utah and New Hampshire. Some studies link a surge in "deaths of despair", suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol related deaths, to widening income inequality.  Conversely, other research did not find these effects or concluded that research suffered from issues of confounding variables.
 * Social goods: British researchers Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have found lower rates of social goods (life expectancy by country, educational performance, trust among strangers, women's status, social mobility, even numbers of patents issued) in countries and states with higher inequality.
 * Social cohesion: Research has shown an inverse link between income inequality and social cohesion. In more equal societies, people are much more likely to trust each other, measures of social capital (the benefits of goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy and social connectedness among groups who make up a social units) suggest greater community involvement.
 *  Happiness: According to the 2019 World Happiness Report, increasing socioeconomic inequality, along with rising healthcare costs, surging addiction rates, and an unhealthy work–life balance, are causes of unhappiness around the world.
 * Crime: The cross national research shows that in societies with less economic inequality the homicide rates are consistently lower. A 2016 study finds that interregional inequality increases terrorism. Other research has argued inequality has little effect on crime rates.
 * Welfare: Studies have found evidence that in societies where inequality is lower, population-wide satisfaction and happiness tend to be higher.
 * Poverty: Study made by Jared Bernstein and Elise Gould suggest, that the poverty in the United States could have been reduced by the lowering of economic inequality for the past few decades.
 * Debt: Income inequality has been the driving factor in the growing household debt, as high earners bid up the price of real estate and middle income earners go deeper into debt trying to maintain what once was a middle class lifestyle.
 * Economic growth: A 2016 meta-analysis found that "the effect of inequality on growth is negative and more pronounced in less developed countries than in rich countries", though the average impact on growth was not significant. The study also found that wealth inequality is more pernicious to growth than income inequality.
 * Civic participation: Higher income inequality led to less of all forms of social, cultural, and civic participation among the less wealthy.
 * Political instability: Studies indicate that economic inequality leads to greater political instability, including an increased risk of democratic breakdown  and civil conflict. A significant impact of inequality on civil war probability has been found through anthropometric methods.
 * Political party responses: One study finds that economic inequality prompts attempts by left-leaning politicians to pursue redistributive policies while right-leaning politicians seek to repress the redistributive policies.

Fairness vs. equality
According to Christina Starmans et al. (Nature Hum. Beh., 2017), the research literature contains no evidence on people having an aversion to inequality. In all studies analyzed, the subjects preferred fair distributions (inequity aversion) to equal distributions, in both laboratory and real-world situations. In public, researchers may loosely speak of equality instead of fairness, when referring to studies where fairness happens to coincide with equality, but in many studies fairness is carefully separated from equality and the results are univocal. Very young children seem to prefer fairness over equality.

When people were asked, what would be the wealth of each quintile in their ideal society, they gave a 50-fold sum to the richest quintile than to the poorest quintile. The preference for inequality increases in adolescence, and so do the capabilities to favor fortune, effort and ability in the distribution.

Preference for unequal distribution has been developed to the human race possibly because it allows for better co-operation and allows a person to work with a more productive person so that both parties benefit from the co-operation. Inequality is also said to be able to solve the problems of free-riders, cheaters and ill-behaving people, although this is heavily debated. Researches demonstrate that people usually underestimate the level of actual inequality, which is also much higher than their desired level of inequality.

In many societies, such as the USSR, the distribution led to protests from wealthier landowners. In the current U.S., many feel that the distribution is unfair in being too unequal. In both cases, the cause is unfairness, not inequality, the researchers conclude.

Socialist perspectives
Socialists attribute the vast disparities in wealth to the private ownership of the means of production by a class of owners, creating a situation where a small portion of the population lives off unearned property income by virtue of ownership titles in capital equipment, financial assets and corporate stock. By contrast, the vast majority of the population is dependent on income in the form of a wage or salary. In order to rectify this situation, socialists argue that the means of production should be socially owned so that income differentials would be reflective of individual contributions to the social product.

Marxian economics attributes rising inequality to job automation and capital deepening within capitalism. The process of job automation conflicts with the capitalist property form and its attendant system of wage labor. In this analysis, capitalist firms increasingly substitute capital equipment for labor inputs (workers) under competitive pressure to reduce costs and maximize profits. Over the long term, this trend increases the organic composition of capital, meaning that less workers are required in proportion to capital inputs, increasing unemployment (the "reserve army of labour"). This process exerts a downward pressure on wages. The substitution of capital equipment for labor (mechanization and automation) raises the productivity of each worker, resulting in a situation of relatively stagnant wages for the working class amidst rising levels of property income for the capitalist class.

Marxist socialists ultimately predict the emergence of a communist society based on the common ownership of the means of production, where each individual citizen would have free access to the articles of consumption (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need). According to Marxist philosophy, equality in the sense of free access is essential for freeing individuals from dependent relationships, thereby allowing them to transcend alienation.

Meritocracy
Meritocracy favors an eventual society where an individual's success is a direct function of his merit, or contribution. Economic inequality would be a natural consequence of the wide range in individual skill, talent and effort in human population. David Landes stated that the progression of Western economic development that led to the Industrial Revolution was facilitated by men advancing through their own merit rather than because of family or political connections.

Liberal perspectives
Most modern social liberals, including centrist or left-of-center political groups, believe that the capitalist economic system should be fundamentally preserved, but the status quo regarding the income gap must be reformed. Social liberals favor a capitalist system with active Keynesian macroeconomic policies and progressive taxation (to even out differences in income inequality). Research indicates that people who hold liberal beliefs tend to see greater income inequality as morally wrong.

However, contemporary classical liberals and libertarians generally do not take a stance on wealth inequality, but believe in equality under the law regardless of whether it leads to unequal wealth distribution. In 1966 Ludwig von Mises, a prominent figure in the Austrian School of economic thought, explains:

"The liberal champions of equality under the law were fully aware of the fact that men are born unequal and that it is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation and civilization. Equality under the law was in their opinion not designed to correct the inexorable facts of the universe and to make natural inequality disappear. It was, on the contrary, the device to secure for the whole of mankind the maximum of benefits it can derive from it. Henceforth no man-made institutions should prevent a man from attaining that station in which he can best serve his fellow citizens."

Robert Nozick argued that government redistributes wealth by force (usually in the form of taxation), and that the ideal moral society would be one where all individuals are free from force. However, Nozick recognized that some modern economic inequalities were the result of forceful taking of property, and a certain amount of redistribution would be justified to compensate for this force but not because of the inequalities themselves. John Rawls argued in A Theory of Justice that inequalities in the distribution of wealth are only justified when they improve society as a whole, including the poorest members. Rawls does not discuss the full implications of his theory of justice. Some see Rawls's argument as a justification for capitalism since even the poorest members of society theoretically benefit from increased innovations under capitalism; others believe only a strong welfare state can satisfy Rawls's theory of justice.

Classical liberal Milton Friedman believed that if government action is taken in pursuit of economic equality then political freedom would suffer. In a famous quote, he said:

"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."

Economist Tyler Cowen has argued that though income inequality has increased within nations, globally it has fallen over the 20 years leading up to 2014. He argues that though income inequality may make individual nations worse off, overall, the world has improved as global inequality has been reduced.

Social justice arguments
Patrick Diamond and Anthony Giddens (professors of Economics and Sociology, respectively) hold that 'pure meritocracy is incoherent because, without redistribution, one generation's successful individuals would become the next generation's embedded caste, hoarding the wealth they had accumulated'.

They also state that social justice requires redistribution of high incomes and large concentrations of wealth in a way that spreads it more widely, in order to "recognize the contribution made by all sections of the community to building the nation's wealth." (Patrick Diamond and Anthony Giddens, June 27, 2005, New Statesman)

Pope Francis stated in his Evangelii gaudium, that "as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems." He later declared that "inequality is the root of social evil."

When income inequality is low, aggregate demand will be relatively high, because more people who want ordinary consumer goods and services will be able to afford them, while the labor force will not be as relatively monopolized by the wealthy.

Effects on social welfare
In most western democracies, the desire to eliminate or reduce economic inequality is generally associated with the political left. One practical argument in favor of reduction is the idea that economic inequality reduces social cohesion and increases social unrest, thereby weakening the society. There is evidence that this is true (see inequity aversion) and it is intuitive, at least for small face-to-face groups of people. Alberto Alesina, Rafael Di Tella, and Robert MacCulloch find that inequality negatively affects happiness in Europe but not in the United States.

It has also been argued that economic inequality invariably translates to political inequality, which further aggravates the problem. Even in cases where an increase in economic inequality makes nobody economically poorer, an increased inequality of resources is disadvantageous, as increased economic inequality can lead to a power shift due to an increased inequality in the ability to participate in democratic processes. According to Paul and Moser, countries with high income inequality and poor unemployment protections experience worse mental health outcomes among the unemployed.

Capabilities approach
The capabilities approach – sometimes called the human development approach – looks at income inequality and poverty as form of "capability deprivation". Unlike neoliberalism, which "defines well-being as utility maximization", economic growth and income are considered a means to an end rather than the end itself. Its goal is to "wid[en] people's choices and the level of their achieved well-being" through increasing functioning (the things a person values doing), capabilities (the freedom to enjoy functionings) and agency (the ability to pursue valued goals).

When a person's capabilities are lowered, they are in some way deprived of earning as much income as they would otherwise. An old, ill man cannot earn as much as a healthy young man; gender roles and customs may prevent a woman from receiving an education or working outside the home. There may be an epidemic that causes widespread panic, or there could be rampant violence in the area that prevents people from going to work for fear of their lives. As a result, income inequality increases, and it becomes more difficult to reduce the gap without additional aid.

Societal acceptance
A 2022 study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science found that in countries where neoliberal institutions have significant influence over policies, the psychology of those population are shaped to have both a higher tolerance of large levels of income inequality, and prefer it over more egalitarian outcomes.

Arguments that economic inequality is not a problem
The majority of researchers who analyze economic inequality argue that today's levels are problematic and deserve some mitigation. There are however, some who disagree, and feel that current levels of inequality are necessary because it encourages individuals to gain useful skills and take risks, thereby encouraging growth and innovation, which are necessary for progress. Some have also argued that economic inequality is a natural and fair outcome in market economies, in which the rewards are distributed based on different economic contributions because individuals have different attitudes and talents. Many who feel that economic inequality is not a significant issue are associated with conservative or libertarian think tanks funded by corporations and the wealthy like The Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute or the American Enterprise Institute, who may also feel that policies which would reduce inequality are direct attacks on their favored version of capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism. In addition, some feel that economic inequality has not actually increased significantly.

Historical

 * Milanovic, Branko (2024). "How rich were the rich? An empirically-based taxonomy of pre-industrial bases of wealth". Explorations in Economic History. 93: 101592.
 * Milanovic, Branko (2024). "How rich were the rich? An empirically-based taxonomy of pre-industrial bases of wealth". Explorations in Economic History. 93: 101592.
 * Milanovic, Branko (2024). "How rich were the rich? An empirically-based taxonomy of pre-industrial bases of wealth". Explorations in Economic History. 93: 101592.
 * Milanovic, Branko (2024). "How rich were the rich? An empirically-based taxonomy of pre-industrial bases of wealth". Explorations in Economic History. 93: 101592.

title: Economic inequality


text:
Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner (5 March 1904 – 30 March 1984) was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Yves Congar, is considered to be one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century. He was the brother of Hugo Rahner, also a Jesuit scholar.

Before the Second Vatican Council, Rahner worked alongside Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, and Marie-Dominique Chenu, theologians associated with the emerging school of theological thought known as Nouvelle théologie. The Council was influenced by Rahner's theology and his understanding of Catholic faith.

Biography
Karl Rahner's parents, Karl and Luise (née Trescher) Rahner, had seven children, of whom Karl was the fourth. His father was a professor in a local college and his mother had a profound religious personality, which influenced the home atmosphere. Karl attended primary and secondary school in Freiburg, entering the Society of Jesus upon graduation; he began his Jesuit formation in the North German Province of the Jesuits in 1922, four years after his older brother Hugo entered the same order. Deeply affected by the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola during the initial phase of his formation (1922–24), he concentrated the next phase of his formation (1924–7) on Catholic scholastic philosophy and the modern German philosophers: he seems to have been particularly interested in Immanuel Kant and two contemporary Thomists, the Belgian Jesuit Joseph Maréchal and the French Jesuit Pierre Rousselot, who were to influence Rahner's understanding of Thomas Aquinas in his later writings.

As a part of his Jesuit training, Rahner taught Latin to novices at Feldkirch (1927–29), then began his theological studies at the Jesuit theologate in Valkenburg aan de Geul in 1929. This allowed him to develop a thorough understanding of patristic theology, also developing interests in spiritual theology, mysticism, and the history of piety. Rahner was ordained a priest on 26 July 1932, and then made his final year of tertianship, the study and taking of Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises, at St. Andrä in Austria's Lavanttal Valley.

Because Rahner's superiors wished him to teach philosophy at Pullach, he returned home to Freiburg in 1934 to study for a doctorate in philosophy, delving more deeply into the philosophy of Kant and Maréchal, and attended seminars by Martin Heidegger. His philosophy dissertation Geist in Welt, an interpretation of Aquinas's epistemology influenced by the transcendental Thomism of Maréchal and the existentialism of Heidegger, was ultimately rejected by his mentor Martin Honecker, allegedly for its bias toward Heidegger's philosophy and not sufficiently expressing the Catholic neo-scholastic tradition. In 1936 Rahner was sent to Innsbruck to continue his theological studies and there he completed his habilitation. Soon after he was appointed a Privatdozent (lecturer) in the faculty of theology of the University of Innsbruck, in July 1937. In 1939 the Nazis took over the university and Rahner, while staying in Austria, was invited to Vienna to work in the Pastoral Institute, where he both taught and became active in pastoral work until 1949. He then returned to the theology faculty at Innsbruck and taught on a variety of topics which later became the essays published in Schriften zur Theologie : the collection is not a systematic presentation of Rahner's views, but, rather a diverse series of essays on theological matters characterised by his probing, questioning search for truth.

In early 1962, with no prior warning, Rahner's superiors in the Society of Jesus told him that he was under Rome's pre-censorship, which meant that he could not publish or lecture without advance permission. The objections of the Roman authorities focused mainly on Rahner's views on the Eucharist and Mariology; however, the practical import of the pre-censorship decision was voided in November 1962 when, without any objection, John XXIII appointed Rahner a peritus (expert advisor) to the Second Vatican Council: Rahner had complete access to the council and numerous opportunities to share his thoughts with the participants. Rahner's influence at Vatican II was thus widespread, and he was subsequently chosen as one of seven theologians who would develop Lumen gentium, the dogmatic explication of the doctrine of the Church. The council's receptiveness towards other religious traditions may be linked to Rahner's notions of the renovation of the church, God's universal salvific revelation, and his desire to support and encourage the ecumenical movement.

During the council, Rahner accepted the chair for Christianity and the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Munich and taught there from 1964 to 1967. Subsequently, he was appointed to a chair in dogmatic theology at the Catholic theological faculty of the University of Münster, where he stayed until his retirement in 1971. Rahner then moved to Munich and in 1981 to Innsbruck, where he remained for the next 3 years as an active writer and lecturer, also continuing his active pastoral ministry. He published several volumes (23 total in English) of collected essays for the Schriften zur Theologie (Theological Investigations), expanded the Kleines theologisches Wörterbuch (Theological Dictionary), co-authored other texts such as Unity of the Churches: An Actual Possibility with Heinrich Fries, and in 1976 he completed the long-promised systematic work, Foundations of Christian Faith.

Rahner fell ill from exhaustion and died on 30 March 1984 at the age of 80, after a birthday celebration that also honoured his scholarship. He was buried at the Jesuit Church (Innsbruck) in Innsbruck. During his years of philosophical and theological study and teaching, Rahner produced some 4,000 written works.

Work
Rahner's output is extraordinarily voluminous. In addition to the above-mentioned writings, his other major works include: the ten-volume encyclopaedia, Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche; a six-volume theological encyclopaedia, Sacramentum Mundi, and many other books, essays, and articles. In addition to his own work, the reference texts that Rahner edited also added significantly to the general impact of his own theological views.

The basis for Rahner's theology is that all human beings have a latent ("unthematic") experience of God in any perception of meaning or "transcendental experience". It is only because of this proto-revelation that recognising a distinctively special revelation (such as the Christian Gospel) is possible. His theology influenced the Second Vatican Council and was ground-breaking for the development of what is generally seen as the modern understanding of Catholicism. Until the early 2000s his thought also shaped Catholic theology in the United States. A popular anecdote, that resonates with those who find some of Karl Rahner's works difficult reading, comes from his brother Hugo who quipped that in his retirement he'd try to "translate his brother's works ... into German!"

Foundations of Christian Faith
Written near the end of his life, Rahner's Foundations of Christian Faith (Grundkurs des Glaubens) is the most developed and systematic of his works, most of which were published in the form of essays.

Economic and immanent Trinity
Among the most important of his essays was The Trinity, in which he argues that "the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity" (sometimes called 'Rahner's rule'). That is to say, God communicates Himself to humanity ("economic" Trinity) as He really is in the divine Life ("immanent" Trinity).

Rahner was emphatic that the identity between "economic" Trinity and "immanent" Trinity does not lead to Modalism, because God could not communicate Himself to humanity as threefold (dreifaltig) unless He were threefold in reality. Nonetheless, some theologians and Christian philosophers (e.g., Jürgen Moltmann) have found his teaching to tend strongly in a Modalist direction.

God's self-communication
Rahner maintained that the fulfillment of human existence consists in receiving God's self-communication, and that the human being is actually constituted by this divine self-communication. He identifies grace with the self-communication of God. In this vein, he writes: "God wishes to communicate himself, to pour forth the love which he himself is. That is the first and the last of his real plans and hence of his real world too. Everything else exists so that this one thing might be: the eternal miracle of infinite Love. And so God makes a creature whom he can love: he creates man. He creates him in such a way that he can receive this Love which is God himself, and that he can and must at the same time accept it for what it is: the ever astounding wonder, the unexpected, unexacted gift [...] Thus in this second respect God must so create man that love does not only pour forth free and unexacted, but also so that man as real partner, as one who can accept or reject it, can experience and accept it as the unexacted event and wonder not owed to him, the real man."

Transfinalization
Rahner was a critic of substance theory and was concerned about the finality of liturgy. He proposed instead to rename transubstantiation into transfinalization. John Haldon defined "transfinalization" as:

"The view of Christ's presence in the Eucharist that the purpose or finality of the bread and wine is changed by the words of consecration. They are said to serve a new function, as sacred elements that arouse the faith of the people in the mystery of Christ's redemptive love."

Pope Paul VI in the encyclical Mysterium fidei, mentioning the term 'transfinalization' one time, without citing Rahner's name, stated: "[...]it is not permissible to[...] discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance [...] as if they involve nothing more than 'transignification,' or 'transfinalization' as they call it..."

Haldon states that in Mysterium fidei Pope Paul VI "condemned" the notion of "transfinalization", which was one of the "principal errors about the Real Presence that were already current in his day".

Awareness of God
The basis for Rahner's theology is that all human beings have a latent ("unthematic") awareness of God in any experiences of limitation in knowledge or freedom as finite subjects. Because such experience is the "condition of possibility" for knowledge and freedom as such, Rahner borrows the language of Kant to describe this experience as "transcendental". This transcendental experiential factor reveals his closeness to Maréchal's transcendental Thomism.

Such is the extent of Rahner's idea of the "natural knowledge of God"—what can be known by reason prior to the advent of "special" revelation—that God is only approached asymptotically, in the mode of what Rahner calls "absolute mystery". While one may try to furnish proofs for God's existence, these explicit proofs ultimately refer to the inescapable orientation towards mystery which constitute—by transcendental necessity—the very nature of the human being.

God as Absolute Mystery
Rahner often prefers the term "mystery" to that of "God". He identifies the God of Absolute Being as Absolute Mystery. At best, philosophy approaches God only asymptotically, evoking the question whether attempts to know God are in vain. Can the line between the human asymptote and the Mystery asymptote connect?

In Rahner's theology, the Absolute Mystery reveals himself in self-communication. Revelation, however, does not resolve the Mystery; it increases cognizance of God's incomprehensibility. Experiences of the mystery of themselves point people to the Absolute Mystery, "an always-ever-greater Mystery." Even in heaven, God will still be an incomprehensible mystery.

Homanisation and Incarnation
Rahner examines evolution in his work Homanisation (1958, rev. 1965). The title represents a term he coined, deriving it from "hominization", the theory of man's evolutionary origins. The book's preface describes the limits of Catholic theology with respect to evolution, further on giving a summary of official church teaching on the theory. He then continues in the next sections to propound "fundamental theology" in order to elucidate the background or foundation of church teaching. In the third section he raises some philosophical and theological questions relating to the concept of becoming, the concept of cause, the distinction between spirit and matter, the unity of spirit and matter, the concept of operation, and the creation of the spiritual soul. In his writing, Rahner does not simply deal with the origin of man but with his existence and his future, issues that can be of some concern to evolutionary theory. Central for Rahner is the theological doctrine of grace, which for Rahner is a constituent element of man's existence, so that grace is a permanent modification of human nature in a supernatural "existential", to use a Heidegger term. Accordingly, Rahner doubts the real possibility of a state of pure nature (natura pura), which is human existence without being involved with grace. In treating the present existence of man and his future as human, Rahner affirms that "the fulfillment of human existence occurs in receiving God's gift of Himself, not only in the beatific vision at the end of time, but present now as seed in grace."

Multiple Incarnations
Rahner has been open to the prospect of extraterrestrial intelligence, the idea that cosmic evolution has yielded sentient life forms in other galaxies. Logically, this raises for Rahner some important questions of philosophical, ethical, and theological significance: he argues against any theological prohibition of the notion of extraterrestrial life, while separating the existential significance of such life forms from that of angels. Moreover, Rahner advances the possibility of multiple Incarnations, but does not delve into it: given the strong Christological orientation of his theology, it does not appear likely he would have propended for repetitions of the Incarnation of Christ.

Incarnation-grace
For Rahner, at the heart of Christian doctrine is the co-reality of incarnation-grace. Incarnation and grace appear as technical terms to describe the central message of the Gospel: God has communicated Himself. The self-communication of God is crucial in view: grace is not something other than God, not some celestial 'substance,' but God Himself. The event of Jesus Christ is, according to Rahner, the centre-point of the self-communication of God. God, insists Rahner, does not only communicate Himself from without; rather, grace is the constitutive element both of the objective reality of revelation (the incarnate Word) and the subjective principle of our hearing (the internal Word and the Holy Spirit). To capture the relation between these aspects of grace, Rahner appropriates the Heideggerian terminology of "thematization:" the objective mediation is the explicit "thematization" of what is always already subjectively proffered – the history of grace's categorical expression without, culminating in the event of Jesus Christ, is the manifestation of what is always already on offer through the supernatural existential, which enters amid a transcendental horizon within.

Mode of grace
Rahner's particular interpretation of the mode in which grace makes itself present is that grace is a permanent modification of human nature in a supernatural existential (a phrase borrowed from Heidegger). Grace is perceived in light of Christianity as a constitutive element of human existence. For this reason, Rahner denies the possibility of a state of pure nature (natura pura, human existence without being-involved with grace), which according to him is a counterfactual.

Language about God: univocity and equivocation
Like others of his generation, Rahner was much concerned with refuting the propositional approach to theology typical of the Counter-Reformation. The alternative he proposes is one where statements about God are always referring back to the original experience of God in mystery. In this sense, language regarding being is analogically predicated of the mystery, inasmuch as the mystery is always present but not in the same way as any determinate possible object of consciousness. Rahner would claim Thomas Aquinas as the most important influence on his thought, but also spoke highly of Heidegger as "my teacher", and in his elder years Heidegger used to visit Rahner regularly in Freiburg.

Some have noted that the analogy of being is greatly diminished in Rahner's thought. Instead, they claim, equivocal predication dominates much of Rahner's language about God. In this respect, similarity between him and other Thomist-inspired theologians is seen as problematic. Others, however, identify Rahner's primary influence not in Heidegger but in the Neo-Thomists of the early 20th century, especially the writings of Joseph Maréchal.

Criticism of Jesusism
Rahner criticised Jesusism, despite his stated respect for the position. Jesusism tends to focus narrowly on Jesus' life for imitation, apart from the Christian God or Church.

Christology
If the task of Christology is to make intelligible the Christian faith that Jesus of Nazareth, a historical person, is Christ as the centre of all human history and the final and full revelation of God to humanity—then Rahner feels that within "the contemporary mentality which sees the world from an evolutionary point of view" the person of Christ should not be emphasised in his unique individuality whilst ignoring any possibility of combining the event of Christ with the process of human history as a whole. In fact, it appears there are some limitations of classic Christological formula suggested by the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) which affirms "one identical Son, our Lord Jesus Christ ... perfect both in his divinity and in his humanity ... [with] two natures without any commingling or change or division or separation ... united in one person." Moreover, the Chalcedon formula adopts philosophical concepts such as nature and hypostatic union which are no longer used to explain and interpret religious experiences.

Thus, Rahner introduces transcendental Christology, which interprets the event and person of Christ in relation to the essential structure of the human person, reflecting on the essential conditions of all human experiences, conditions which transcend any one particular kind of experience. One should however first look into Rahner's basic insights on Christology within an evolutionary view of the world, which claims that Christian faith sees all things in the world come from the one same origin, God. This means that in spite of their differences, there is "an inner similarity and commonality" among things, which forms a single world. This commonality is most clearly disclosed in a human being as a form of the unity of spirit and matter: it is only in a human person that spirit and matter can be experienced in their real essence and in their unity. Rahner states that spirit represents the unique mode of existence of a single person when that person becomes self-conscious and is always oriented towards the incomprehensible Mystery called God. However, it is only in the free acceptance by the subject of this mystery and in its unpredictable disposal of the subject that the person can genuinely undertake this process of returning to the self. Conversely, matter is the condition which makes human beings estranged from themselves towards other objects in the world and makes possible an immediate intercommunication with other spiritual creatures in time and space. Even if there is an essential difference between spirit and matter, that is not understood as an essential opposition: the relationship between the two can be said as "the intrinsic nature of matter to develop towards spirit". This kind of becoming from matter to spirit can be called self-transcendence which "can be only understood as taking place by the power of the absolute fullness of being": the evolutionary view of the world allows us to consider that humanity is nothing but the latest stage of the self-transcendence of matter.

Christian faith and God's self-communication
According to Rahner, Christian faith affirms that the cosmos reaches its final fulfillment when it receives the immediate self-communication of its own ground in the spiritual creatures which are its goal and its high point. Rahner further states that God's self-communication to the world is the final goal of the world and that the process of self-transcendence makes the world already directed towards this self-communication and its acceptance by the world. As a consequence, and explaining the place of Christ in this whole process of self-transcendence of the world, Rahner says that it has to do with the process of the intercommunication of spiritual subjects, because otherwise there is no way to retain the unity of the very process. God's self-communication is given to cosmic subjects who have freedom to accept or reject it and who have intercommunication with other existents. It takes place only if the subjects freely accept it, and only then forms a common history in a sense that "it is addressed to all men in their intercommunication" then "addressed to others as a call to their freedom". In this sense, Rahner claims that "God's self-communication must have a permanent beginning and in this beginning a guarantee that it has taken place, a guarantee by which it can rightly demand a free decision to accept this divine self-communication." Within this scheme, the saviour refers to a historical person "who signifies the beginning of the absolute self-communication of God which is moving towards its goal, that beginning which indicates that this self-communication for everyone has taken place irrevocably and has been victoriously inaugurated." Hypostatic union, therefore, happens in an intrinsic moment when God's self-communication and its acceptance by that person are met, and this union is open to all spiritual creatures with the bestowal of grace. In order to be fulfilled, this event should have "a concrete tangibility in history".

Transcendental Christology and mediation
If one then examines Rahner's transcendental Christology, it may be seen that it "presupposes an understanding of the relationship of mutual conditioning and mediation in human existence between what is transcendentally necessary and what is concretely and contingently historical." It is a sort of relationship between the two elements in such a way that "the transcendental element is always an intrinsic condition of the historical element in the historical self" while "in spite of its being freely posited, the historical element co-determines existence in an absolute sense." Transcendental Christology is "the experiences which man always and inescapably has." Human beings were created to freely transcend themselves and the objects in the world, towards the incomprehensible Mystery called God; the limitations of human situation make a human being hope that the full meaning of humanity and the unity of everything in the world will be fulfilled by God's self-giving. Furthermore, God's self-communication and human hope for it should be "mediated historically" because of "the unity of transcendentality and historicity in human existence": human hope looks in history for its salvation from God that "becomes final and irreversible, and is the end in an 'eschatological' sense." At this point Rahner proposes two possibilities of human salvation, i.e. either as "fulfillment in an absolute sense" which means the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, or as "a historical event within history". The event of human salvation by God's self-giving love should be the event of a human person, because God's salvific love can only be effective in history when a person freely accepts his love, surrenders everything to God in death, and in death is accepted by God. Rahner significantly affirms that the character of the saviour is exemplary and absolute: given the unity of the world and of history from the view point of both God and the world, such an "individual" destiny has "exemplary" significance for the world as a whole. Such a man with this destiny is what is meant by an "absolute saviour".

Saviour and hypostatic union
Rahner believes that the saviour described by his transcendental Christology is not diverse from the one presented by the classic Christological formulations of Chalcedon, which used a concept of hypostatic union to claim Jesus as the Christ. Accordingly, he then proceeds to articulate the meaning of the hypostatic union. The issue is how to understand the meaning of "human being": Rahner understands the phrase "became man" as assuming an individual human nature as God's own, and emphasises "the self-emptying of God, his becoming, the kenosis and genesis of God himself." God "assumes by creating" and also "creates by assuming", that is, he creates by emptying himself, and therefore, of course, he himself is in the emptying. He creates the human reality by the very fact that he assumes it as his own. God's creating-by-emptying act belongs to God's power and freedom as the absolute one and to God's self-giving love expressed in Scripture. Therefore, it is legitimate for Rahner to assert that God "who is not subject to change in himself can himself be subject to change in something else." This is what the doctrine of the Incarnation teaches us: "in and in spite of his immutability he can truly become something: he himself, he in time."

According to Rahner, human beings are created to be oriented towards the incomprehensible Mystery called God. However, this human orientation towards the Mystery can be fully grasped only if we as humans freely choose to be grasped by the incomprehensible one: if God assumes human nature as God's own reality with God's irrevocable offer of God's self-communication, and a person freely accepts it, the person is united with God, reaching the very point towards which humanity is always moving by virtue of its essence, a God-Man which is fully fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth claimed by Christian faith. In this sense, Rahner sees the incarnation of God as "the unique and highest instance of the actualization of the essence of human reality".

God-Man in history
To answer the question of how we find a God-Man in history, Rahner employs a historical approach to Christology by examining the history of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth and proposes two theses beforehand: 1) Christian faith requires a historical basis; and 2) considering a possibility of significant difference between who the person is and the extent to which that person verbalises or expresses identity, it is possible both to say that "the self-understanding of the pre-resurrection Jesus may not contradict in an historical sense the Christian understanding of his person and his salvific significance", and to state that his self-understanding may not coincide with the content of Christological faith.

To establish the grounds of Christian faith, Rahner asserts that two points should be proven as historically credible—first, that Jesus saw himself "as the eschatological prophet, as the absolute and definitive saviour", and second, that the resurrection of Jesus is the absolute self-communication of God. There are several historical elements concerning Jesus' identity as a Jew and "radical reformer": his drastic behaviour in solidarity with social and religious outcasts based on his belief in God, his essential preaching "as a call to conversion", his gathering disciples, his hope for conversions of others, his acceptance of death on the cross "as the inevitable consequence of fidelity to his mission".

Death and resurrection
Rahner states that the death and the resurrection of Jesus are two aspects of a single event not to be separated, even though the resurrection is not a historical event in time and place like the death of Jesus. What the Scripture offers are powerful encounters in which the disciples come to experience the spirit of the risen Lord Jesus among them, provoking a resurrection faith of the disciples as "a unique fact". The resurrection is not a return to life in the temporal sphere, but the seal of God the Father upon all that Jesus stood for and preached in his pre-Easter life. "By the resurrection... Jesus is vindicated as the absolute saviour" by God: it means "this death as entered into in free obedience and as surrendering life completely to God, reaches fulfillment and becomes historically tangible for us only in the resurrection." Thus, in the resurrection, the life and death of Jesus are understood as "the cause of God's salvific will" and open the door to our salvation: "we are saved because this man who is one of us has been saved by God, and God has thereby made his salvific will present in the world historically, really and irrevocably." In this sense, Jesus of Nazareth becomes a God-Man, the absolute saviour.

Anonymous Christianity
Anonymous Christianity is the theological concept that declares that people who have never heard the Christian Gospel might be saved through Christ.

Inspiration for this idea sometimes comes from the Second Vatican Council's Lumen gentium, which teaches that those "who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Rahner's development of the idea preceded the council, and became more insistent after it received its conciliar formulation. Non-Christians could have "in [their] basic orientation and fundamental decision", Rahner wrote, "accepted the salvific grace of God, through Christ, although [they] may never have heard of the Christian revelation." His writings on the subject were somewhat related to his views about the mode of grace.

Non-Christian religions
Rahner's transcendental Christology opens another horizon which comprises non-Christian religions, as God's universal saving will in Christ extends to non-Christians: since Christ is the saviour of all people, salvation for non-Christians comes only through Christ (anonymous Christians). Just as importantly, it is possible to say that Christians can learn from other religions or atheistic humanism because God's grace is and can be operative in them. The presence of Christ in other religions operates in and through his Spirit and non-Christians respond to the grace of God through "the unreflexive and 'searching Christology (searching "memory" of the absolute saviour) present in the hearts of all persons. Three specific attitudes become involved: 1) an absolute love towards one's neighbours; 2) an attitude of readiness for death; and 3) an attitude of hope for the future. In practising these, the person is acting from and responding to the grace of God that was fully manifest in the life of Jesus.

Selected bibliography
A complete bibliography is available at.

 * 1954–1984. Schriften zur Theologie. 16 volumes. Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag.
 * 1965. Homanisation. Translated by W. J. O’Hara. West Germany: Herder K.G.
 * 1968. Spirit in the World. Revised edition by J. B. Metz. Translated by William V. Dych. (Translation of Geist in Welt: Zur Metaphysik der endlichen Erkenntnis bei Thomas von Aquin. Innsbruck: Verlag Felizian Rauch, 1939; 2nd ed. Revised by J. B. Metz. München: Kösel-Verlag, 1957) New York: Herder and Herder.
 * 1969. Hearers of the Word. Revised edition by J. B. Metz. Translated by Michael Richards. (Translation of Hörer des Wortes: Zur Grundlegung einer Religionsphilosophie. München: Verlag Kösel-Pustet, 1941) New York: Herder and Herder.
 * 1970. The Trinity. Translated by Joseph Donceel. New York: Herder and Herder.
 * 1978, 1987. Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity. Translated by William V. Dych. (Translation of Grundkurs des Glaubens: Einführung in den Begriff des Christentums. Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1976) New York: The Seabury Press; New York: Crossroad.
 * 1985. I Remember. New York: Crossroad.
 * 1990. Faith in a Wintry Season: Conversations and Interviews With Karl Rahner in the Last Years of His Life, with Paul Imhof & Hubert Biallowons, eds. New York: Crossroad.
 * 1993. Content of Faith: The Best of Karl Rahner's Theological Writings. New York: Crossroad.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Karl Rahner


text:
PLS

PLS or Pls may refer to:

Organizations

 * Pioneer Library System, Oklahoma, US
 * Poculi Ludique Societas, Medieval & Renaissance Players of Toronto, Canada
 * Profesjonalna Liga Siatkówki, Polish Volleyball League
 * Premier League Soccer, an Indian football league
 * Prometheus Light and Sound, US home PBX company, 1990s
 * Pilbara Minerals Ltd, an Australian ASX-listed lithium mining company.

Science and technology

 * Palomar–Leiden survey of minor planets
 * Partial least squares regression, a statistical method
 * Plasma spectrometer, an instrument aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes
 * Pregnant leach solution, a mining process

Computers

 * PLS (complexity), a complexity class
 * PLS (file format), multimedia playlist format
 * Pronunciation Lexicon Specification, for interoperable pronunciation information
 * Super PLS, a Samsung IPS panel technology
 * IBM PL/S, a systems programming language
 * Rand RL/S, Rand Corporation's version of IBM's PL/S

Medicine and biology

 * Papillon–Lefèvre syndrome, a disease affecting the teeth and skin
 * Primary lateral sclerosis, a disease characterized by weakness
 * Proteus-like syndrome, similar to Proteus syndrome
 * Polish Lowland Sheepdog

Transportation

 * Palletized load system, U.S. Army logistics system
 * Providenciales International Airport, Turks and Caicos Islands, IATA code
 * Pleasington railway station, England, station code

Other

 * Profit and loss sharing, a concept in Islamic finance similar to equity financing
 * Public Land Strip, former name for the Oklahoma Panhandle

title: PLS


text:
Siegfried Alkan

Siegfried Alkan (30 March 1858 – 24 December 1941) was a German composer.

Alkan was born in Dillingen, Saarland (then Prussia, now Germany), the son of Johannes Alkan and Johanna Bonn in a family of merchants and musicians. Through his mother he was a distant cousin of the composers Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny Hensel and Giacomo Meyerbeer. It is unknown whether he was related to the French composer and pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan, but like the latter, he was a scion of Jewish families from the Moselle region.

In 1938 the octogenarian Siegfried Alkan became a victim of the "Kristallnacht". His instruments were destroyed and he himself was beaten by Nazi hordes. In his last years he was forced to wear the yellow star.

Many works of Siegfried Alkan seem to be lost. Still known are for example the compositions "Gruß an die Saar" (Op. 32), "O wüsstest du's" (Op. 39), "Neues Saarlied" (Op. 91) and "Ur-Großmütterchen" (Op. 80), which was very popular in the time after World War I.

title: Siegfried Alkan


text:
Talk:The Three Friends and Jerry

Copyvio
The text of this article was a copyvio from http://www.toonarific.com/t/threefriends-jerry.html. I rewrote it to prevent the copyvio, but had to removed a significant portion of text. Feel free to expand. —Frecklefoot 20:42, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Trey Parker from South Park does the voice of Eric."

That couldn't be more wrong. I'm removing it.

Characters
Too much like website bios. I put a tone thing up.-- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  20:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Unknown Airdates?
Why have a column for air dates if they are all "unknown?" 74.110.164.141 (talk) 03:38, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:The Three Friends and Jerry


text:
Round dance

Modern social round dance, or round dancing, is a choreographed and cued ballroom dance that progresses in a circular counter-clockwise pattern around the dance floor. The two major categories of ballroom dances found in round dancing are the smooth and international ballroom styles (such as foxtrot and waltz) and the Latin dances (such as cha-cha-chá, salsa, and rhumba). It is not to be confused with circle dancing, which is a type of folk dance in which dancers are connected in a circular chain.

Description
Round dancing differs from free-style ballroom dancing in that each round dance has been fully choreographed ahead of time, and a "cuer" or leader at the front of the ballroom tells the dancers, as they dance, what steps to do. As the music plays, and just ahead of the beat, so the dancers have time to respond, the cuer names each dance figure in the choreography. As a consequence, all the dancers on the floor are dancing the same steps at the same time.

To create a round dance, a piece of music is selected by the choreographer, and the different steps or figures are chosen to fit the music. If the music swells and pauses briefly, then a dance step that rises and stretches is put into that place. If there is a little syncopation in another part of the music, then a quick step is inserted. The creation of a piece of choreography is like engineering a machine, with every gear and lever in just the right place to give smooth and flowing motion. The step-by-step instructions on how to dance this choreography are written out in what is called a cue sheet.

Types
Examples of social dances that may be danced in "round" fashion are bolero, cha-cha-cha, foxtrot, hustle, jive,  mambo, merengue, paso doble, quickstep, rhumba, salsa, samba, single swing, slow two step, tango, two step, waltz, Viennese waltz and West Coast swing.

Roundalab, the International Association of Round Dance Teachers, Inc., has established a "Phase Rating System" of round dancing, in order to rate round dance figures according to difficulty and complexity.

Salsa rueda, also referred to as casino de rueda, is a kind of round dance in which there is no complete pre-choreographed sequence, and the dance patterns are called out in a random order.

title: Round dance


text:
Estonia (disambiguation)

Estonia is a country in Northern Europe.

The same country, or larger part of it, has also been referred to as:
 * Danish Estonia, a dominion of Denmark (1219–1346)
 * Swedish Estonia, a dominion of Sweden (1561–1721)
 * Governorate of Estonia, a province of the Russian Empire (1796–1917)
 * Estonian SSR, an administrative subunit of the Soviet Union (1940–1941, 1944–1990)
 * Estonia electoral district (Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917)
 * Estonia (European Parliament constituency)

Estonia may also refer to:

 * Estonia (organization)
 * Estonia (piano), a piano brand
 * Estonia Piano Factory, manufacturers of the Estonia piano
 * Estonia (race car), a race car brand
 * "Estonia" (song), a song by Marillion
 * Estonia (TV series), a Finnish television series
 * 1541 Estonia, an asteroid
 * MS Estonia, a ship that sank in the Baltic Sea in 1994
 * SS Czar or SS Estonia

title: Estonia (disambiguation)