A global study led by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and published in the journal Scientific Reports finds that economic inequality on a social level cannot be explained by bad choices among the poor nor by good decisions among the rich. Poor decisions were the same across all income groups, including for people who have overcome poverty.
I find these types of studies very important, because things don’t have to be this way. People are people regardless of class, race, gender, etc. Inequalities between these different groups are entirely social and constructed, and a natural result of our in-group out-group thinking and time causing resources to congregate one way or another.
It makes sense that things are this way right now, but as we learn more and build our systems things don’t need to and shouldn’t stay this way. The issue is that for the people who currently control resources and wield power this feels like ‘coming for them’ or taking what they’ve earned, but they don’t actually have any right to these resources any more than the rest of us do- They’re just people. We are a huge, complex system that should be maintained for the benefit of all, not the benefit of the few.