Study: Most prefer wealth distribution similar to Sweden

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/25/p ... ar-sweden/

According to research (PDF) carried out by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and flagged by Paul Kedrosky at the Infectious Greed blog, 92 percent of Americans would choose to live in a society with far less income disparity than the US, choosing Sweden's model over that of the US.

What's more, the study's authors say that this applies to people of all income levels and all political leanings: The poor and the rich, Democrats and Republicans are all equally likely to choose the Swedish model.

lol But they sure don't vote that way. Even Obama realized he didn't have the votes to restore the Clinton tax hikes.
Those interested in raising taxes lost many seats in both the House and Senate.

AspenValley wrote: www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/25/poll-weal...tion-similar-sweden/

According to research (PDF) carried out by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and flagged by Paul Kedrosky at the Infectious Greed blog, 92 percent of Americans would choose to live in a society with far less income disparity than the US, choosing Sweden's model over that of the US.

What's more, the study's authors say that this applies to people of all income levels and all political leanings: The poor and the rich, Democrats and Republicans are all equally likely to choose the Swedish model.

92%, "all equally likely"? I would not think 92% of people could agree if it is day or night.

The article isn't about taxation, it's about income inequality. It also made some interesting points that perhaps Americans aren't aware of just how extreme income inequality has become. Perhaps if they were to become more aware they would vote differently, eh?

Phone poll "if the top 8% of the country has an annual income of $1 million/year, would you, if given the opportunity to be given this much income without working more, by taking money from the top 8% would you want to be part of this group"

Poll results.
92% yes
1% Undecided
7% No, I make more than that and wouldn't want to lose income

Go figure!

If Americans could get something for nothing, they would cooperate and support it. However, if one were to propose to establish this method of wealth and income, as a main focus of our government's endeavors, I'm certain Americans would say "I'd rather work for a living".

Obviously no one has read the article, let alone the study itself.

The study portrayed three pie charts showing distributions of wealth. One showed a "perfectly equal" distribution, one showed a distribution similar to Sweden's, and the third showed one similar to the U.S. (the least equal distribution of the three).

We presented respondents with the three pair-wise combinations of these pie charts (in random order) and asked them to choose which nation they would rather join given a “Rawls constraint” for determining a just society (Rawls, 1971): “In considering this question, imagine that if you joined this nation, you would be randomly assigned to a place in the distribution, so you could end up anywhere in this distribution, from the very richest to the very poorest.”

As can be seen in Figure 1, the (unlabeled) United States distribution was far less desirable than both the (unlabeled) Sweden distribution and the equal distribution, with some 92% of Americans preferring the Sweden distribution to the United States. In addition, this overwhelming preference for the Sweden distribution over the United States distribution was robust across gender (Females: 92.7%; Males: 90.6%), preferred candidate in the 2004 election (Bush Voters: 90.2%; Kerry Voters: 93.5%) and income (less than $50,000: 92.1%; $50,001-100,000: 91.7%; more than $100,000: 89.1%). In addition, there was a slight preference for the distribution that resembled Sweden relative to the equal distribution, suggesting that Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, but not to the degree currently present in the United States.

Link to the study itself: http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norto ... 0press.pdf

I think those are very interesting results, and there were equally interesting results when respondents were asked to estimate the actual distribution of wealth in America. Almost all respondents estimated America's distribution to more closely resemble Sweden's than the actual distribution in the U.S.

So anyone actually want to discuss the implications of the results, or are you all just going to make lame jokes about slanted phone polls?

Or your study is flawed? How can Americans not know about the unequal distribution of wealth? Seems evey night you see people on TV both reality and fictional TV with much more wealth than most Americans.
Sometimes on studies like this, people want to show themselves more egalitarian or better morally than they are in real life.
Reminds me of the study that shows when people's names are attached to the giving, they donate more. Anonymous donations tend to be smaller.

SS109 wrote: Or your study is flawed? How can Americans not know about the unequal distribution of wealth? Seems evey night you see people on TV both reality and fictional TV with much more wealth than most Americans.
Sometimes on studies like this, people want to show themselves more egalitarian or better morally than they are in real life.
Reminds me of the study that shows when people's names are attached to the giving, they donate more. Anonymous donations tend to be smaller.

I don't think the study was flawed. It appealed to self-interest. "Which society would you rather be dropped into with a random chance of ending up anywhere in the economic spectrum?" I don't see much chance of that being swayed by people trying to show themselves as "better morally". If they were, there would have been many more people opting for the "perfectly equal" society.

I think what the study shows is that people don't want a society with no rewards for hard work, but they don't want a society where so few have so much. And I also think the study shows people just don't have any idea of the extent to which that is true in 2011 in America. The difference in income between the poorest Americans and all but the top 5% is only a few thousand dollars. But the difference in income between someone at the 95th percentile for income and someone in the top 1/2 of 1%? It's MILLIONS of dollars.

Yes, I think a hard-working surgeon or successful small business person should earn significantly more than someone with few skills working at an entry level job. I just don't see why a hedge fund manager should earn as much as HUNDREDS of surgeons. Or THOUSANDS of teachers or firemen or police officers or middle managers.

Regardless of whether the study was flawed or not, if you want to distribute wealth equally, also distribute work contributions equally.