The inaudible majority
Maybe one reason the poor aren’t protesting louder is that lawmakers aren’t listening
INEQUALITY is on the rise, but the poor have not been rising up against it… Recent posts here disagree about why they are so quiet. W.W. argues that the poor aren’t bothered by inequality because they already have decent access to consumer goods, and the extra money the rich have doesn’t make them that much better off. Once one has an ordinary refrigerator, he writes, the added value of a luxury brand is not that great. W.W. is appealing to the familiar idea that the marginal utility of an extra dollar declines with income. As a general matter this is surely correct.