Must-Read: Christina Starmans, Mark Sheskin, and Paul Bloom: Why People Prefer Unequal Societies

Must-Read: The estimable Mark Thoma sends us to a view of the Polanyian Perplex from Nature: Human Behavior:

Christina Starmans, Mark Sheskin, and Paul Bloom: Why People Prefer Unequal Societieshttp://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0082: “There is immense concern about economic inequality…

…Many insist that equality is an important social goal. However, when people are asked about the ideal distribution of wealth in their country, they actually prefer unequal societies. We suggest that these two phenomena can be reconciled by noticing that, despite appearances to the contrary, there is no evidence that people are bothered by economic inequality itself. Rather, they are bothered by something that is often confounded with inequality: economic unfairness. Drawing upon laboratory studies, cross-cultural research, and experiments with babies and young children, we argue that humans naturally favour fair distributions, not equal ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality. Both psychological research and decisions by policymakers would benefit from more clearly distinguishing inequality from unfairness…