Inequality in America and Norway - The Atlantic. Norway, like many European states, has public offerings many Americans would consider political fantasy. There is lengthy paid maternity leave, free university education, and long-term unemployment benefits. What is it about the Norwegian state—or about Scandinavian countries in general—that leads their populations to support redistribution policies in a way that Americans don’t? A group of Scandinavian researchers recently did an experiment trying to tease that out. Their goal: to find out how social attitudes towards inequality in the U.S. and Norway differ, in an effort to explain why the two countries have such different redistribution policies.
The difference, they discovered, hinges on how people think about luck and fairness. “In Norway, people very much disapprove of inequalities that are due to bad luck,” Bertil Tungodden, a professor at the Norwegian School of Economics, and one of the paper’s authors, told me. Public Views of Inequality, Fairness and Wall Street. Roughly three-quarters of the public (77%) say that they think there is too much power in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations in the United States. Roughly three-quarters of the public (77%) say that they think there is too much power in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations in the United States.
About nine-in-ten (91%) Democrats and eight-in-ten (80%) of independents hold this view; a much narrower majority (53%) of Republicans do as well. For historical perspective, six-in-ten (60%) Americans expressed this view in a 1941 Gallup poll. Reflecting a parallel sentiment, 61% of Americans now say that the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy; just 36% say the system is generally fair to most Americans. About three-quarters (76%) of Democrats and 61% of independents share this view.
In contrast, a majority (58%) of Republicans say that the system is generally fair to most Americans. Tolerance for Income Gap May Be Ebbing - Economic Scene. Fong_(JPubE_01).pdf (application/pdf Object) Americans Vastly Underestimate Wealth Inequality, Support 'More Equal Distribution Of Wealth': Study. Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable than it actually is, according to a new study. Or, as the study's authors put it: "All demographic groups -- even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy -- desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.
" The report (pdf) "Building a Better America -- One Wealth Quintile At A Time" by Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School (hat tip to Paul Kedrosky), shows that across ideological, economic and gender groups, Americans thought the richest 20 percent of our society controlled about 59 percent of the wealth, while the real number is closer to 84 percent. As the new Forbes billionaires list, released Wednesday, testifies, the richest Americans are getting richer, even as the country as a whole gets poorer. READ the study: norton ariely in press.