Defending The One Percent? Poor Arguments For The Rich?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Published In

Harvard Review Of Philosophy

Abstract

This paper discusses the philosophical view proposed by Gregory Mankiw in his recent article “Defending the One Percent” (JEP 27-3, 2013): the just deserts view in application to income distribution. Mankiw’s view suffers from three unsolved problems: the Criteria Problem, the Measurement Problem, and the Problem of the Missing Desert Function. The overall conclusion is that Mankiw’s normative “Defense of the One Percent” fails quite drastically.

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