What Attempts Have Been Made To Reduce Social Inequalities?

If inequality is built into the way society is layered, can anything be done about it? Governments around the world certainly think so. They tax the rich more heavily, pay benefits to the poor, set a floor under wages, pass laws against discrimination and open schools and clinics to everyone. Some go further and float the idea of a basic income paid to every citizen. This lesson is about that great effort to soften, and sometimes to shrink, the gap between rich and poor.

You will first learn to define poverty itself, the difference between absolute poverty that threatens survival and relative poverty measured against the normal life of your own society, and meet Townsend's idea of relative deprivation. You will then work through the main tools governments use to reduce inequality, from progressive taxation and welfare benefits to free education and healthcare, and learn to weigh how well each one really works. By the end you will be ready to argue both sides of whether the state can make society fairer.