TThe gap between the haves and have-nots has grown even wider in recent decades in many rich countries. However, at the same time, researchers observed that most people against inequality theoretically, but they disagree on how it should be addressed. People's opinions on this issue seem to vary, depending in part on how and whether they observe inequality around them.
These perceptions seem to be skewed by a person's social circle, which often consists of people with similar incomes and wealth levels. These homogeneous niches can lead many of us to underestimate broader income inequality. This bias in our personal samples may influence attitudes toward taxes and other policies that distribute wealth.
Now new studyin the magazine PNAS Nexussuggests that when low-income people see many wealthier people in their neighborhoods, they are more supportive of wealth redistribution than when their neighborhoods appear fuller of people in a similar economic group. Findings based on online interactive group activities suggest that this is also associated with increased risks of conflict.
Researchers from the Santa Fe Institute and the London School of Economics have created a model that simulates how people observe inequality in various social network structures and vote on taxes to redistribute money. They then tested the model's predictions using an online experiment in which 1,440 US study participants voted on tax rates.
Participants were randomly assigned “poor” or “rich” with corresponding numerical ratings, and could only see eight people representing their hypothetical social network on their screen at a time. Study participants were told in advance that they would potentially see a wide variety of scores. In these mini-societies, members voted on the tax rate. Ultimately, the median vote will win, and theoretically the tax will be evenly distributed among all users. People could view their group's voting results and change their vote over the course of three rounds. They then completed a questionnaire that asked about individual demographic characteristics, voting motivations and their opinions of the results.
These imaginary worlds included a range of scenarios with varying degrees of richness. Ultimately, segregated networks in which people saw only others with similar incomes resulted in the least redistribution of wealth through taxes, although the “poor” and “rich” were comparatively satisfied and found it fair, and the votes were the least polarized. Meanwhile, when poorer participants observed many rich participants, taxes distributed more money to people, but people reported less satisfaction and their votes were more polarized. Across different network scenarios, “wealthier” actors infrequently increased their support for redistribution. But over more rounds, support grew among the poor as they saw the positive impact of higher tax rates.
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These results differed from the model that predicted that a network with majority-rich members would reduce vote polarization. This is because the rich did not increase their support for redistribution under any scenario, “while the poor became radicalized to demand 100 percent taxation.” Ultimately, the authors identified “a trade-off between the level of redistribution and the agreement on it that has no easy solution,” they acknowledged in the paper.
“We found that wealth segregation is inequality’s best friend: it preserves the status quo while keeping the poor apathetic,” study author Milena Tsvetkova, a computational sociologist at the London School of Economics, wrote For Talk“On the contrary, monitoring the rich increases support for redistribution and reduces inequality.”
Going forward, the researchers suggest raising awareness of extreme wealth through social media, news reports, and political discussions. While this may exacerbate growing social tensions, Tsvetkova noted that “discontent and polarization may be necessary for social change in a highly unequal society.”
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