Abstract
Income and wealth inequalities in the United States have risen sharply over the past four decades and have reached levels that are unprecedented in the postwar period. Christian theology and ethics have much to offer public debates about inequality and can prompt public action to reduce those forms of inequality that limit human well-being and capability. This article reviews trends of economic inequality and develops a framework to address these disparities.
Introduction: The Concept of Inequality
Economic inequality is one of the most urgent issues of our time. It is also one of the most complex to describe and define. In this article, I review critical data on the levels and trends of economic inequality in the United States and then develop a moral and theological framework for understanding and framing actions that confront those forms of inequality that diminish human well-being and capability. 1
Equality would appear to be a relatively clear concept. For instance, we can speak with precision about equal shares of a pie, equal numbers of days in a week, or equal pay for the same amount of work. In contrast, inequality is defined by what it is not, and it is a matter of degrees. How unequal is unequal? A fifty/fifty distribution is equal. Is a fifty-one/forty-nine split unequal? Yes it is, of course, but not as unequal as an eighty-five/fifteen distribution.
In addition to being a mathematical concept, equality stands as a moral ideal, which is grounded, in Christian theological terms, within the understanding of humans’ equality before God. In economic or social practice, we must ask how close to that ideal a situation must be in order for us to deem it to be morally acceptable. Ethicists and theologians speak of relative equality as an approximation that would satisfy the requirements of justice. Put differently, how much economic inequality is acceptable in a just society? 2 A related question is: Equality of what, or inequality of what?
Economists typically focus on income as a proxy for an individual’s utility, and income thus becomes the principal indicator of well-being. 3 I have argued that conceptions of human capability, rather than the focus on income alone, offer a broader understanding of economic well-being and justice that is compatible within theological and moral frameworks. 4 The sections below begin with discussion of income-based inequality and progress to an exploration of the many dimensions of well-being that can be furthered through economic justice.
Levels, Trends, and Factors of Inequality
In his recent book Aftershock and documentary Inequality for All, Robert Reich frames the issue of economic inequality with three questions. First, what is happening in regard to income and wealth inequalities in the United States? Second, what are the contributing factors to the rise in economic disparity? Third, why is this phenomenon important, and why should we care? 5 These are helpful and fitting questions. The first section of this essay provides a critical overview of the descriptive realities of inequality in the United States in order to provide background for a response to the third question of why and how inequality is a moral and theological issue.
Economic Inequality in the United States
Within the United States, trends in income inequality are well established. In the post-World War II period (some analysts begin earlier, with the Depression), income inequality steadily decreased until the late 1960’s. Since the 1970’s, income inequality has risen sharply. This trend is confirmed by multiple indicators, including shares of overall income going to families in different quintiles of the population, the proportion of income going to those at the top and those at the bottom, or by summary measures of inequality such as the Gini coefficient. 6 Thus, there is broad consensus among economists about the downward trend in income inequality through the 1960’s, followed by an upward trend in inequality over the past four decades.
Are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? While the answer may seem obvious, these are, in reality, two separate questions. There is no doubt that if the “rich” are defined as the ten percent, one percent, or even a tenth of a percent of the U.S. population who are at the top end of the economic distribution, the rich have indeed become more affluent over recent decades. The overall poverty rate has fluctuated, but it is essentially in the same place as it was in 1965. 7 The poor are still struggling, but they are struggling in different ways than in earlier decades.
This point highlights the fact that inequality and poverty are distinct concepts. Poverty is a measure of how persons at the bottom end of an economic distribution are faring. According to the U.S. official definition, poverty is based on the inability to afford a set of expenses calculated using the price of certain food items and an assumption about the share of food costs within total expenses. 8 In contrast, “inequality” is a phenomenon of the entire distribution of income, and it thus is a relational concept of how people are faring relative to one another in the same society. The trend shows that the rich are getting richer, while the poor (and middle class) are staying relatively flat, which corresponds with an increase in inequality. Especially when we expand our understanding of poverty beyond income measures alone, as discussed below, such increased inequality may have very real effects of making the poor ever less well off, in terms of overall well-being.
Why is Economic Inequality Increasing?
The second question—why economic inequality is increasing—is more complex and contested. It is relatively clear that inequality in the United States has increased over the last four decades. What has been contributing to this phenomenon? Disparate factors have come into play. Analysts regard globalization as a culprit, though that term has many definitions, meanings, and dimensions. 9 The main trends have been the increasing ease of communication and transport, the transition of manufacturing jobs to lower-wage societies, the rise of free-trade arrangements, and the lowering of tariffs. These changes have gone hand in hand with the decline of manufacturing jobs in the United States and the shift in our economy toward service sectors, which tend to have a high level of income disparity.
Global processes have had a major impact on the U.S. economy and the American income distribution. “Winners” of the recent decades of globalization include entrepreneurs and financiers who comprise the “top one percent” in the United States, the Chinese middle class, and, significantly, consumers who enjoy cheaper and better products. Relative “losers” in globalization have included the working class, especially in manufacturing, in the United States. Former World Bank economist Branko Milanovic has shown that growth across the global income distribution varies significantly, with the Chinese middle class (near the fiftieth percentile of the global distribution) representing the most rapid growth, alongside the global top group, which includes many from America’s top one percent. The U.S. middle class, which stands in the top quarter of the global income distribution, saw almost no real income growth between 1988 and 2008. 10
Although the focus of this article is on U.S. economic inequality, it is notable to look at U.S. income distribution in comparative perspective. Many developed nations have higher levels of disparity, though most economists—notably, Simon Kuznets and his “Kuznets curve” of economic growth and inequality—believe that as development reaches more and more members of a society, income disparities eventually decrease. 11 Among industrialized nations, the United States has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world; in OECD nations, only Chile, Mexico, and Turkey have higher disparity levels. 12
In addition to global forces, domestic political factors have played a part in rising inequality since the 1970’s. The process of deregulation of financial markets has had a significant impact, with income and wealth gains in the finance sector skyrocketing in recent decades. Deregulation has been combined with the lowering of the top marginal tax rate for those in the top bracket from seventy percent in the 1970’s to just under forty percent presently. In addition, the decline in the capital gains tax rate from over thirty-six percent in the mid-1970’s to fifteen percent currently (or twenty percent, above a certain income threshold) has been a significant factor in the rise in inequality. 13
There is no simple answer to the question of why U.S. income (and wealth) inequality is increasing. Global, technological, and political shifts have all played a part in widening economic disparity. These are broad, sweeping changes for which there are no easy public policy responses. Within the moral framework, presented below, these factors inform the directions that responsive actions can take.
Inequality as a Moral and Theological Issue
This brings us to the heart of the ethical, and theological, concern to be discussed: how is economic inequality a moral issue? Why should we care that some people have bigger paychecks than others or have more money in the bank? Is it about relative access to economic goods and services? Is it about social status and relative position? Is it about political power and a sense of membership and efficacy in one’s own society? Alternatively, as some critics have suggested, is it merely a matter of the envy the “haves-nots” harbor for the “haves”?
There is no doubt that it would be impossible, and arguably undesirable from a political perspective that values individual freedom, to achieve absolute equality in any sphere, including income or wealth. Although there are many philosophical and political ways to articulate it, free markets are connected with individual choice and the incentives that inform those choices. Philosopher-economist Amartya Sen has pointed out that economists tend to emphasize the instrumental value of free markets (they contribute to economic productivity), but that economists should also emphasize the intrinsic value of markets (that markets can, when operating with requisite social and political protections, give people more freedom of choice in their work and how they spend their money). 14
The question becomes: how much economic inequality is consistent with, or acceptable for, establishing the social conditions for realizing moral equality? There is a sense among many citizens, though not among all, that U.S. society has crossed a line in the level of economic inequality, so that the situation is now morally troubling. 15 The 2011 collective bargaining protests in Madison, Wisconsin, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, and the protests against Walmart and other companies for an increase in minimum wage are just a few examples of social awareness of income inequality leading to unrest in the last few years.
Approaches to inequality that are grounded in positive moral or theological frameworks of equality can be effective in criticizing current realities. The Catholic social tradition has emphasized the common good, defined as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.” 16 Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium (the “Joy of the Gospel”), invokes that tradition to condemn current levels of economic inequality around the world. Francis calls for a society and economy that honors the human dignity of all persons. He notes the ways that inequality can obstruct the attainment of such a society. A certain level of social cohesion, he argues, is required to create the requisite social conditions for all people to have dignity in community. 17
Berenice Abbott (1898–1991). Photograph of Wall Street buildings in New York City. The Wall & Hanover Building at 63 Wall Street is in the background; the Farmers Trust Building at 22 William Street is on the right; and National City Bank at 55 Wall Street is on the left. Museum of the City of New York/New York, NY. Photo Credit: The Museum of the City of New York/Art Resource, NY.
Data suggest that, in overall terms, lower inequality levels tend to promote higher levels of growth in the economy. 18 There are various reasons contributing to this reality. Less inequality could correspond to a better trained workforce (i.e., among those in the middle and lower ends of the socioeconomic strata and to more engaged citizens who have a stake in society and feel a sense of value and place, instead of a sense of disillusionment and disenfranchisement. The social ruptures reflected in protests and movements are less likely to occur in a more equal society. More equality in a society contributes to a greater sense of trust and social capital than more unequal societies do. Equality contributes to what many ethicists and theologians identify as solidarity and that Adam Smith called “fellow feeling.” 19
The line between self-interest and morality becomes fuzzy, but studies show that attention to inequalities actually make a society stronger for all citizens, rich and poor. Social epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson and co-author Kate Pickett show that there are strong correlations between high levels of economic inequality and high levels of social problems, as well as low levels of social trust, which lead to low voter turnout, formation of gangs, higher rates of crime, and increasing poverty. Conversely, the benefits to a society approaching closer income equality can be enjoyed by all persons in that society. Whether one is interested in the well-being of others, particularly the least well-off, or if one is interested primarily in one’s own well-being, the outcome is the same: more equal societies provide more benefits for all groups. 20
Three Moral Frameworks
How we draw upon moral perspectives and how citizens communicate across them is a key issue for contemporary ethics and public policy. 21 Below, I will discuss the work of three influential thinkers who represent three different philosophical and theological frameworks to offer helpful perspectives on addressing inequality. Each of these three frameworks illuminates ways in which excessive economic inequalities inhibit overall human well-being and offers a picture of a more just society.
John Rawls: Two Principles of Social Justice
John Rawls offered what was arguably the most influential Anglo-American philosophical theory of justice in the twentieth century. 22 His theory is constructed on a thought experiment, in which citizens imagine that their society has not yet been arranged by social and economic class. Without knowing what their economic status will be in this society, participants are then asked to identify what kind of social and economic situation they would prefer. After conducting these thought experiments, Rawls makes one of the most famous arguments of modern times for a strongly egalitarian society and economy. If any one of us were standing in what Rawls calls the “original position,” that is, a place of reflection upon society before society is arranged, and if we were behind a “veil of ignorance” about our position in that society, we would prefer a society that has basic political guarantees and economic and social structures that protect the least well-off.
More specifically, Rawls suggests that the person in the original position who is ignorant of her or his situation would first agree that every citizen should have political rights and liberties consistent with equal rights and liberties for all. This is, of course, a radically egalitarian conception of political rights and freedoms, Rawls’ first principle of justice. Rawls’ second principle of justice has two parts. The first guarantees the fair equality of opportunity for all citizens, by which offices and positions would be equally open to all people. No family privileges or advantages would be extended to persons from one ethnicity, language group, or hometown. Again, this supports a strong form of egalitarianism.
It is only within this context of the first principle (the liberty principle) and the first half of the second principle (fair equality of opportunity) that Rawls introduces any possibility of economic inequalities. This latter part of principle two is called the “difference principle,” by which any inequalities of wealth and income would be arranged such that they benefit the least-well-off persons in society. For instance, if it could be shown that some level of wealth inequality—within the guarantees of the prior principles of equal liberties and fair equality of opportunity—might create incentives for persons to work more efficiently or creatively, then this might pass muster according to the difference principle. Yet, the presupposition of Rawls’ entire frame of two principles of justice is that the starting point for justice is political and economic equality. There exists a high burden of justification for any deviations from economic equality. Those justifications would have to be made in terms of a social contract of fairness that presumes legitimacy through the consent of all people. 23
Rawls’s framework builds upon social contract theory to argue that all persons deserve equal treatment. People choose, in essence, to join society (if even through tacit or implied consent) because it affords them protections and allows them to pursue their ends. On one level, this choice is based on self-interest. But on another level, the choice is deeply, inherently moral, if society were to provide the twin guarantees of equality and freedom for all.
H. Richard Niebuhr: Equality before God
Theological conceptions of equality start from a deeper foundational belief than secular views do about the human person. Theologian H. Richard Niebuhr provides one example of the grounding of equality. The account of moral equality is about humans’ equality before God. God is the source and the author of all life. Humans are created in the image of God, and each person derives his or her worth in relation to God. For Niebuhr, this “theocentric” grounding makes a few key points about equality. First, all persons derive their dignity not from their own abilities or merits, but because they are created in the image of God. This equality is universal in scope, as it encompasses all human beings. 24
At the same time, human equality grounded in relation to God reveals human limitations. “Reference to our origin may lead us to say: I am equal to the best among us; reference to our sin may lead us to confess: I am not better than the worst among us.” 25 Niebuhr attributes to collective or institutional human sinfulness many of the deprivations suffered by people who lack important social, political, and economic goods. Niebuhr acknowledges that human suffering is a reality of social life, but his theocentrism indicts those economic practices that keep persons from experiencing well-being. Specifically, he blames human greed on the part of the economically and politically powerful for the deprivation of others. Niebuhr calls for social limitations on concentrations of power, including economic power in the form of excessive wealth or income, because of the human propensity to abuse that power. 26
For H. Richard Niebuhr, equality is a moral ideal that captures the potential for redemption, liberation, and transformation. Equality grounds Niebuhr’s ethic of responsibility for fellow human beings, who are siblings of a common creator. “As a pledge the principle of equality is subject to ever new commitment. It must be re-enacted in decision after decision in courts of law, in legislation, in daily administration of common goods, and in national and international political actions.” 27 Although Niebuhr is ever-cautious about the capacity of humans to overcome personal and collective sin in their public efforts, theocentric moral equality requires an active engagement in various spheres of society to reduce inequalities that cause human suffering.
Gustavo Gutiérrez: God’s Preferential Option for the Poor
In contrast to Niebuhr, Gutiérrez initiates his analysis not from a moral ideal but from the social situation in which marginalized persons find themselves. If theology is to have relevance, he asserts, it must confront human suffering head on. As Frederick Herzog put it, theology needs to shift from orthodoxy (right belief) to orthopraxis (right practice/reflective action). 28
Thus Gutiérrez looks to the Christian story to illuminate ways in which God reaches out to human beings, especially to marginalized and impoverished persons. Where is God in experiences of human suffering? This is a central question in Gutiérrez’s massive corpus of writings. “The nub, the nucleus, of the biblical message, we have said, is in the relationship of God and the poor. Jesus Christ is precisely God become poor. This was the human life he took—a poor life.” 29
The traditional theological doctrine, embodied in the famous title of Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur Deus Homo, or “Why God Became Human,” is further specified as “Why God became poor.” 30 It is precisely around this locus—poor human beings in relation to all human beings, all created in the image of God—that the liberationist ethic turns. As Gutiérrez puts it, universality and preference for the poor go hand in hand in the biblical story. That is, God loves all human beings, and at the same time, God pays particular attention to those who are suffering.
God’s preferential option for the poor translates into a social ethic that should have a focus on the ways that current social, political, and economic injustices disadvantage some persons over others, and some groups over others—and on ways to remove those injustices. This ethic has personal, ecclesial, and public-policy implications.
The magisterial and liberationist strands of Catholic moral theology articulate the point in distinctive ways, yet they concur that a preferential option for the poor and a commitment to the common good fit together. Liberationists are skeptical about ways language of “the common good” is employed by the beneficiaries of the status quo. As Ignacio Ellacuría suggested, language of the common good is often invoked to uphold a social reality that is “neither good nor common.” 31 Given the current levels of economic inequality in both Latin American countries and the United States, liberation theologians invoke language of the common good to expose the social costs of vast disparities. The preferential option for the poor is a theological-ethical call to focus explicitly and urgently on the ways that inequalities impact the dignity of poor and marginalized citizens. If we ever are to achieve a societal good that is truly common, it will be by focusing our personal, church, and wider public efforts on the wellbeing of those most marginalized in our society.
These three moral approaches to inequality are quite distinct from one another in their starting points and methodologies and yet overlap in their concerns. Finding ways for citizens and people of faith from different moral vantage points to speak to one another and, ultimately, to collaborate in public action together is a key issue of our time to which these three voices speak. Drawing workable solutions from any of these frameworks requires interpretation and application for the contemporary reality. 32 In the remaining sections I draw on these approaches in order to address economic inequality.
Income, Capabilities, and Well-being
As noted above, poverty and inequality are distinct phenomena, with the former focusing on persons who fall beneath a determined threshold in economic distribution and the latter being a relational concept reflecting an entire population. Public policy has tended to focus on poverty in attempts to lift persons above a given threshold, whether it be the official poverty measure or another socio-economic indicator. Yet each of the three moral frameworks discussed above indicates that this approach is incomplete, because focusing on poverty as a statistic inadequately addresses the deeper ethical imperative of a just society and the relational quality of well-being. Niebuhr and Gutiérrez, in particular, emphasize the depth of human interdependence in discussion of economic justice. For Niebuhr, it is the mutual derivation of human worth from the same source and creator that compels a shared ethic of responsibility. Gutiérrez provides a deeper critique of modern Western individualism and presents a more collective conception of human community and well-being. Rawls’s account also depends upon a conception of society that is tied together by a social contract with quite rigorous principles of justice. 33 Rawls’ “difference principle” offers a relational condition that inequalities must benefit the least well off.
Clare Leighton (1898-1989), “Bread Line, New York,” 1932. Wood engraving on paper.Bequest of Frank McClure (1979.98.146). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Photo Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C./Art Resource, NY.
In faith communities and in public debates, some people have argued that as long as society helps people to reach a minimum threshold of economic stability, then it matters little, morally, what the top one percent earn. But according to this logic, only individual cases of poverty matter, while systemic inequality does not. To be sure, it is important to state in no uncertain terms that poverty matters a great deal, and the Christian moral imperative to fight poverty is strong. This requires creating social conditions that will enable flourishing and that will aid individuals to reach an adequate level of well-being.
In addition to combating poverty, per se, the Christian moral imperative must be to address economic inequality as an aspect of social community. This commitment is rooted not in a calculation of “poverty level,” but in the social conception of human well-being and in the social nature of goods. Well-being requires the ability to participate fully in society, which requires access to certain goods and services. Evaluating what constitutes well-being as a criterion of justice is a complex problem, because the type and quantity of goods needed in order to engage fully in society are ever changing. For example, two decades ago, no one needed to own a telephone to participate fully in society, because there were pay phones in many public places. Now, pay phones are a thing of the past, and persons who cannot afford a landline or mobile phone are less well off than they were twenty years ago, thus reducing their overall state of well-being.
The distinction between absolute and relative well-being is complicated, and yet, theologically and morally, human well-being is always relational. Some degree of social and economic equality, based on the moral imperative of human community, is necessary in order for those at the low end of the distribution to attain an adequate level of well-being.
Income is only one means, but a vital means, for attaining well-being. Income provides access to the basic goods necessary to well-being, such as food and housing. Income also provides other goods, such as education, healthcare, and participation in social groups and activities that comprise important components of well-being. For this reason, I have suggested that the framework of the “capabilities approach” can be an important part of theological and ethical reflection upon economic life. This frame, developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, allows us to understand the complex nature of economic goods as both instrumental (means) and intrinsic (ends) components of well-being. 34 Further, focusing on capabilities—understood as what people are able to do and to be within their social contexts—allows us to focus on the communal and societal aspects of both well-being and justice.
Moral attention to inequality informs an understanding of well-being that is both multi-dimensional and relational. We must ask about inequality, for instance, in various spheres, not only in income, but in educational opportunities and outcomes, and in healthcare. We must focus not only on helping people attain or surpass certain thresholds, whether they are income-based or more all-encompassing. True well-being for all requires descriptive and normative analysis of economic distributions specifically and social relations more broadly.
Multi-layered and Multi-dimensional Responses to Inequality
The steady increase in levels of U.S. income inequality over four decades lends special urgency to faith-based and other public responses. The complexities identified in this article make it clear that there are no simple formulae or solutions. Instead, the approach outlined here calls people of faith to engage in a variety of social spheres and at personal, congregational, civic, and various political levels with the aim of improving human well-being, among other ends.
Although the scale of global, domestic-political, and other factors contributing to inequality trends are truly mammoth, there are ways to shift them. From a comparative perspective, we see that societies that balance a vibrant market system with strong public infrastructure and social support manage to constrain economic inequality to a lower level than the U.S. experiences. There is no doubt that there are tradeoffs between economic productivity and economic equity, and these require careful reflection. Yet, those civic and public policy debates should also take into account the work of persons such as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, as well as scholars of social welfare systems such as Gøsta Esping-Anderson, which shows the strong relationship between low income inequality and high levels of social well-being. 35
Addressing economic inequality should take a broad, multi-dimensional approach that must include analysis of policies directly related to income, such as minimum wage and a living wage. Policies that incentivize work by increasing the after-tax wage rate, such as the earned income tax credit, can have a significant effect on an adequate standard of living. In regard to relational ethics of inequality, the proportion of the salary of CEOs to the median wage, or to the minimum wage, should be a topic for public conversation. These ratios have skyrocketed in the United States over the period from 1970 to the present. 36
Analysis and action should also extend to job training and preparedness. There is win-win scenario for economies and societies in which individuals are well trained to fill the jobs that are available in their own community. In many locales, churches host or otherwise support local job training programs. On this front, there is significant space for more collaboration between government agencies and local faith communities. 37
Another vital area that needs focus is public transportation, particularly for those who cannot afford to maintain or who are unable to drive their own vehicles. I formerly lived in a city where there was one bus line commonly known as the “jobs bus,” because it shuttled individuals from the urban core to their jobs at a retail and office area. Public transport systems in metropolitan areas have been under criticism because of their aging infrastructures or their limited areas of coverage. The investment required to establish public transport systems is daunting—often with high initial costs—and thus they require significant political and economic clout to accomplish. Public-private partnerships have shown to be successful in some cities, including Denver. 38
Attention to economic inequality requires additional focus on healthcare and educational access and quality. Good health and education are two of the most intrinsically valuable aspects of well-being; each also plays an instrumental role in allowing people to pursue other important capabilities, including but not limited to finding gainful employment. Debates over “Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act) and extending healthcare coverage to all citizens are crucial ones. Not only how many people are covered, but what types of care they can access, are important considerations. Although a fuller analysis of healthcare is well beyond the scope of this article, the significance of that question could not be more relevant to economic inequality.
Similarly, we must focus on educational policy and the educational opportunities and outcomes that account for demographic and residential patterns. In overall terms, the premium on a high school education vis-à-vis no high school, and the premium on an associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree vis-à-vis high school diploma, have risen in recent decades alongside the general trend in economic inequality. 39 Programs to move all persons to a high-school diploma or GED, and to continue to make college affordable, are essential aspects of addressing inequalities and to increasing well-being.
Finally, it is important to state that the public debate about taxes is a central part of this conversation. As Robert Reich has demonstrated, the trend in the reduction of the capital gains tax rate, which is collected disproportionately from the higher end of the economic distribution, maps closely to the increase in inequality. As noted above, the top income tax rate has also been reduced during the period of rising inequality. At the local level, property tax rates must also be examined vis-à-vis funding for initiatives that could help everyone, including funding for public transport, education, and public health.
Individuals can be involved in multiple ways to address inequality. Some advocates of justice may criticize the ineffectiveness of direct service provided by individuals in face-to-face contact with persons in need. In my perspective, there is no clear either/or dichotomy between service and justice. Rather, they are overlapping and potentially complementary actions. In all of the areas noted above—job training, education, healthcare, transportation—volunteer opportunities for direct service exist. These opportunities can occur through religious congregations, civic groups, and other voluntary organizations. Personal outreach with people who have different social or economic experiences can humanize our efforts to build a more equal and just society.
Another level or locus for action is, of course, the faith-based congregation. The tradition of faith-based social service emerging from congregations in the United States is an old one; Alexis de Tocqueville noted it in the 1830’s. 40 Two realities, however, of the postwar period should be acknowledged as having taken a significant toll on the corps of volunteers from congregations. First, the steady de-institutionalization of religion in America has led to fewer persons, as a share of the population, for whom the religious congregation is a center of social activity. Second, the corps of volunteers from congregations has been disproportionately female, and the massive entrance of women into the workforce has meant a decrease in available volunteers at the local church or synagogue level. Yet congregations can continue to play significant roles in local social service outreach in all of the sectors of socio-economic need outlined above. 41
Civic action at the neighborhood and local levels can and often do overlap with congregational action. It is at this locus that the harmonization of strategies might be most useful. Cities that manage to achieve “smart” development attend to the coordination of jobs and transportation as well as access to healthcare and education. 42 As one example, the city of Richmond, Virginia, has opened an Office of Community Wealth Building, with the task of gathering together the various governmental, private, and faith-based resources to cut through bureaucratic hurdles in order to work toward economic equality. Thad Williamson, a professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, and the head of this new City of Richmond office, draws upon his own theological ethics training as well as his political philosophy background when he describes this work not as “anti-poverty,” but as “community-wealth” and “individual-capacity building.” 43
Public policy must be a central part in any approach to reducing economic inequality. Each of the dimensions noted above, from wages and jobs policies to tax rates, requires governmental change. In our complex society, individual acts of charity or justice will not suffice to meet the needs of fellow citizens; institutional change is needed. This requires, of course, advocacy work by individuals, faith communities, and civic associations in order to effect policy changes.
Conclusion
Economic inequality is a matter of justice that touches on many aspects of human well-being. Understanding and addressing inequality requires descriptive, empirical analysis as well as normative evaluation. This, in turn, can lead people of faith to action in the public arena. The moral and theological frameworks presented here suggest that excessive economic inequalities do not create the social conditions under which all people have an opportunity to flourish. More positively stated, we must strive to create social, economic, and political conditions under which all persons can realize their human dignity as moral equals.
Footnotes
1
I would like to thank organizers of and participants in the Theologian in Residence Program, Fort Collins, Colorado, for their helpful responses to a presentation of this material on October 30, 2014.
2
I have discussed the concepts of equality and inequality in Douglas A. Hicks, Inequality and Christian Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), esp. 17– 42 and 114–66.
3
I am here using “well-being” as the most general term to describe a person’s overall quality of life. “Capability” is one way of reflecting well-being; as I discuss below, capability has to do with all that a person is able to do and to be in his or her society.
4
Douglas A. Hicks, Money Enough (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 25–33.
5
Robert Reich, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future (New York: Vintage Books, 2010); Inequality for All, featuring Robert Reich, directed by Jason Kornbluth, and produced by Jen Chaiken/72 Productions (2013).
6
The Gini coefficient is a standard measure of whole income distribution based on distance from equal incomes. Trends in income equality/inequality are measured by indicators such as: increases to the Gini coefficient, the declining share of overall income of the lowest quintile (or twenty percent of households by income), and the increasing share to the highest quintile (households at the ninetieth percentile as compared to the income of the household at the tenth percentile). These data are provided at 
.
8
The official definition of income poverty in the United States and the determination of a poverty line have long been under debate, and it is safe to say that no president has wanted to watch the poverty rate increase through a re-definition of poverty that embraces more households.
9
Douglas A. Hicks, “Globalization,” in Encyclopedia of Leadership (ed. James MacGregor Burns, Georgia Sorenson, and George R. Goethals; 4 vols.; Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire, 2004), 1:571–78.
10
11
Simon Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” American Economic Review 45 (1955): 1–28.
12
13
Tax Policy Center, “Tax Facts: Individual Historical Data,” available at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/listdocs.cfm?topic3id=39&topic2id=30.
14
Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, 1999). For a contrasting, libertarian perspective markets and liberty, see Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
15
16
Second Vatican Council, “Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (ed. David O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992), 166–237.
17
Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2013).
18
Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price on Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 104–47; Federico Cingano, “Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth,” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163 (Paris: OECD, 2014), available at .
19
Rebecca Todd Peters, Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014); Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie; Indianapolis: Liberty, 1982).
20
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009).
21
I have discussed these issues of drawing on multiple perspectives in a pluralistic society in Inequality and Christian Ethics, 85–113.
22
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).
23
Rawls, Theory of Justice.
24
Hicks, Inequality and Christian Ethics, 114–21.
25
H. Richard Niebuhr, “The Idea of Original Sin in American Culture” in Theology, History, and Culture: Major Unpublished Writings of H. Richard Niebuhr (ed. William Stacy Johnson; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 190.
26
Hicks, Inequality and Christian Ethics, 121–27. See also Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner’s, 1932).
27
H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 73.
28
Frederick Herzog, God-Walk: Liberation Shaping Dogmatics (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988).
29
Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History (trans. Robert R. Barr; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), 13.
30
31
Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., “Human Rights in a Divided Society,” in Human Rights in the Americas: The Struggle for Consensus (trans. Alfred Hennelly, S.J.; ed. Alfred Hennelly, S.J. and John Langan, S.J.; Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press), 63.
32
Gutiérrez himself, of course, remains engaged in this interpretive work.
33
Here we join the debate between John Rawls and Michael Sandel on whether the former’s approach requires only voluntary, associative ties among persons—ties that can be broken—or non-voluntary, constitutive commitments that truly bind us together. See Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
34
See especially Douglas A. Hicks, “Gender, Discrimination, and Capability: Insights from Amartya Sen,” Journal of Religious Ethics 30 (2002), 137–54; Hicks, Money Enough, 25–33.
35
Wilkinson and Pickett, The Spirit Level; Gøsta Esping-Anderson, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) and idem, The Incomplete Revolution: Adapting to Women’s New Roles (Cambridge, MA: Polity, 2009).
36
37
See Mary Jo Bane, Brent Coffin, and Ronald F. Thiemann, eds., Who Will Provide?: The Changing Role of Religion in American Social Welfare (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000).
38
39
40
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Harper Perennial, 1969).
41
Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 65–79.
42
Suzanne W. Morse, Smart Communities: How Citizens and Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking to Build a Brighter Future (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004).
43
Bill Bradley, “Don’t Call It Anti-Poverty: New Richmond Office Looks to Build ‘Community Wealth,’” NextCity.org, April 18, 2014; available at .