Webinar on “Inequality” presented by Shahram Etefaq

Webinar on “Inequality” – Speaker: Shahram Etefaq

Host Expert Omid Ghaem Panah / Monday, January 3, 2021

Organized by the Sedanet Cultural Institute

Opponents of “inequality” believe that reducing its extent will lead to the resolution of problems such as unemployment, poverty, and other human afflictions, and from this perspective, they strive to achieve “equality” as a means to realize “social justice.” Following such an understanding of the state of affairs, phrases like “social justice” and “equality” have been so frequently repeated and reiterated together in this discourse that they have acquired an equivalent status among them and other seekers of “justice”; conversely, the terms “injustice” and “inequality” are considered nothing more than a tautology regarding synonymous concepts.

As an example, Joseph Stiglitz, among the economists seeking social justice and equality, and from the stance of a Keynesian opposed to the free-market economy, believes that: “When the wealthiest use their political power to benefit the corporations they control, the needed revenues will go into the pockets of a few rather than benefiting society as a whole.” The irony of the matter is that advocates of the free-market economy also agree with Stiglitz and his like-minded colleagues that political power can be abused for the interests of its holders, including for the acquisition of wealth.

The divergence between these two approaches lies here: thinkers like Stiglitz consider the remedy for this ailment to be an increase in political power and greater government intervention in the economy, while proponents of the free market believe that increasing government intervention in the economy is not only not the solution, but that the government and the increase in political power are themselves a major part of the problem.

This webinar provided an opportunity to raise such questions about “inequality”: What is inequality and what are its types? What are the origins and causes of inequality? Where does economic inequality originate? What is distributive justice or redistribution, and how is it supposed to transform inequality into equality? What do opponents of distributive justice say, and why are they opposed to this method? Does equality lead to welfare? What is the connection between theories of justice and the issue of redistribution? What are the claims regarding environmental inequality? And matters of this sort . . .

Then, in an extremely brief interval, answers to these questions were presented so that, through such an inquiry, “inequality” could be discussed from another perspective.

Along this path, reference was made to experts and thinkers such as Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Tommaso Campanella, Jean Meslier, Morelly, Abbé de Mably, Gracchus Babeuf, Étienne Cabet, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Carl Menger, Herbert Spencer, John Rawls, Kumar Amartya Sen, Maria Nussbaum, Mahbub ul Haq, Erik Allardt, Ronald Dworkin, Pierre Bourdieu, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, Hans, Ola, and Anna Rosling, Branko Milanović, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Alice Boz Larkin, Kevin Anderson, Murray Rothbard, Jon Elster, John Roemer, Michael Walzer, Joseph Stiglitz, Susan Moller Okin, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Gerald Allan Cohen.

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List of Sources and References

Bourdieu, Pierre; Distinction – A Social Critique, translated by Hassan Chavoshian, published 2018, Sales Publications

Rawls, John; A Theory of Justice, translated by Mohammad Kamal Sarvarian and Morteza Bahrani, published 2011, Institute for Cultural and Social Studies Publications

Rawls, John; Political Liberalism, translated by Musa Akrami, published 2018, Sales Publications

Sen, Kumar Amartya; The Idea of Justice, translated by Ahmad Azizi, published 2015, Ney Publications

Dworkin, Ronald; An Introduction to the Theory of Justice, translated by Seyed Mohammad Hossein Mirmohammadi, published 2015, Scientific and Cultural Publishing Company

Hurst, Charles; Social Inequality: Forms, Causes, and Consequences, translated by Ali Shakouri, published 2019, University of Tehran Press

Stiglitz, Joseph E.; The Price of Inequality, translated by Mohammad Reza Farzin and Yekta Ashrafi, published 2015, Allameh Tabataba'i University Press

Guerrero, Anna Leon; Social Problems – Volume 3 – Roots of Inequality, translated by Amir Khorrami, published 2019, Andisheh-ye Ehsan Publications

Group of Authors, Liberalism and the Problem of Justice, Group of Translators, selected and edited by Mohammad Molla-Abbasi, published 2016, Tarjoman Publishing

Group of Authors, Economics and Social Justice, published 2015, Ney Publishing

Mill, John Stuart; Utilitarianism, translated by Morteza Mardiha, published 2020, Ney Publishing

Nussbaum, Martha; Sen, Amartya Kumar; The Quality of Life, translated by Hassan Fesharaki, published 2018, Shirazeh Publishing

Nozick, Robert; Anarchy, State, and Utopia, translated by Mohsen Ranjbar, first edition 2016, Markaz Publishing

Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, translated by Hamid Azdanlou, published 2018, Ney Publishing

Menger, Carl; Principles of Economics, translated by Farhad No'parast and Hossein Fallahi, published 2017, Amareh Publishing

Rothbard, N. Rothbard, (2000), Egalitarianism as a revolt against nature, Second edition

https://mises.org/library/egalitarianism-revolt-against-nature-and-other-essays

California’s homelessness crisis — and possible solutions — explained, BY MATT LEVIN AND JACKIE BOTTS DECEMBER 31, 2019, https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/

California Population, http://www.populationu.com/us/california-population

Employment and Earnings Among NYC Homeless Adults, Aug 13, 2018:

https://nlihc.org/resource/employment-and-earnings-among-nyc-homeless-adults

Young and Homeless: Exploring the Education, Life Experiences and Aspirations of Homeless Youth, Tina Byrom and Sheine Peart, London, Trentham Books, 2017, pp. 188, ISBN 978185856804

https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcy003

Homeless Salary in California:

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Homeless-Salary--in-California

Map: Here's how much each country spends on food:

https://www.vox.com/2014/7/6/5874499/map-heres-how-much-every-country-spends-on-food

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Webinar on “Inequality” presented by Shahram Etefaq

Watch the webinar video on YouTube | Aparat

Listen to the webinar audio on Anchor | Spotify

Download the audio file

Download the slides

Download the list of references

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