ENGLISH

Write an essay of 750 words that compares and contrasts two essays on the subject of socio-economic class. First, read the essays by Gandhi and Stiglitz. Make note of each authors thesis and supporting details. Once you have read and understood both essays, briefly summarize them. Your summaries should include the authors thesis and most important subtopics. Guidelines for summarizing and comparing/contrasting are available in Chapter 14 of Reading the World (p.596)

Once you have summarized the essays, compare them to each other. Both authors write about the inherent inequality enabled by socio-economic class, yet they do so in different ways. What similarities and differences do you see between the two authors discussions of inequality? How would you describe the difference between how Gandhi addressed inequality and how Stiglitz addresses it?

Make sure your essay has the following.

an introductory paragraph that briefly introduces both authors and your thesis statement
body paragraphs organized by topic sentences (Chapter 12)
MLA citation for all summarized, paraphrased, and quoted material from outside sources
Transition words and phrases to guide readers from one idea to the next (Chapter 12)

CONTEXT

Mohandas Gandhi (p.401) takes as his topic the relationship between material progress and moral progress, suggesting that when people enjoy great wealth, they suffer moral depravity. He argues that the path to moral strength is not through material progression, especially since the worlds greatest teachers have embraced poverty as a path to moral strength. The Western worlds focus on materialism is a source of moral impoverishment, and Gandhis country, India, is suffering from the disease of materialism. India is growing polluted and congested with the increase of industry, yet Indians have not gained any ground in moral strength over the centuries. If anything, industrialization causes moral decay. Gandhi quotes Wallace, a British naturalist, who cites modern Englands moral decay in acts such as prostitution, gambling, suicide, and war. Gandhi concludes by calling for India to reject Great Britains influences, specifically the materialism that brings with it moral decay. Instead, India needs to hold to its own traditions and keep the spiritualism that is central to its culture, even if this means rejecting material progress.

Joseph Stiglitz (p.425) points out that the current level of economic inequality in the United States is unusual, both in historic terms and in terms of comparable countries in the world today, and it has caused the most recent recession to affect people disproportionately. But this inequality was created by government policies and other economic forces, which we must examine in order to understand how to address the problem. We must, Stiglitz argues, address inequality on several levels, and we must realize that socioeconomic inequality was worse in the pre-capitalist, pre-industrial societies, in which religion was used to naturalize the unequal treatment of different classes of people.

Both ancient and modern societies understood that social inequality was not natural, but that it was ultimately the result of military power. Those with power have always used it to increase their economic success at the expense of othersand to make it seem like the resulting inequality was the result of natural forces. As religious justifications for inequality failed, those with wealth and power found other justifications, including, most prominently, the marginal productivity theory, which held that wealthy people contributed more to society than poor people. Nowadays, economic factors play some role in our current inequality, but much of it is due to government practices and policies that have the effect of distributing wealth from the bottom of the economic ladder to the top; government creates the economic playing field and allocates resources for education and job training. Government policies determine the regulations under which businesses operate, how much to tax people at different income levels, and government chooses how much tax revenue to redistribute to the lower income levels. Those with money and power in the current system have a great incentive to use that money and power to influence government in their favor.

Thus, people can become wealthy in two ways: either by creating wealth that doesnt exist or by finding ways to rearrange wealth in ways that give them a larger share. The latter method of creating wealth is called rent seeking, and it redistributes existing wealth without creating wealth for anybody.

Rent seeking refers to the securing of any concession from the government that redistributes societal wealth toward the rent seeker. Rent-seeking activities include securing monopolies, tax breaks, and regulatory exemptions that allow a business or individual to transfer costs to society (such as the cost of polluted air or water) without sacrificing revenues. Many of the worlds richest people are involved in finance and made their fortunes by shifting money around rather than creating wealth.

^^^ THIS IS THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVER BY OUR INSTRUCTOR, PLEASE MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW THEM CAREFULLY AND ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS PROPOSED.
I WILL ALSO LINK THE IMAGES FOR THE ESSAYS THAT ARE REQUIRED FOR US TO READ JUST INCASE THE CONTEXT WAS NOT CLEAR ENOUGH, THEY WILL BE LISTED IN ORDER STARTING WITH GHANDI’S ESSAY THEN THE OTHER ONE.