Here’s a cheeky provocative video… asking students if they would like to redistribute their Grades…you know, take top grades from honor students and give them to slouchers.
The filmmakers goal is to link the unfairness of redistributing students hard fought A’s and B’s with the “unfairness” of redistributing wealth in society.
Interesting comparison… but is it fair?
Via Andrew Sullivan comes this interesting argument by Robert Hanson against redistribution. He shows the video above and notes that few would support redistribution over income sharing. However, his real point is that
We humans are much better at coming up with reasons for opinions than at choosing coherent sets of opinions – we clearly have a powerful inbuilt capacity for hypocrisy.
Xpostfactoid responds with four reasons why GPA and income are different as well as responding to Hanson’s main point noting that
When a student says that GPA is “not the same” as monetary reward, that’s a moral intuition. And I bet a lot of them could come up with reasons within a week, or an hour. Some of them probably considerably better than mine.
Why should all this matter?
In America the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.
Not a happy situation, right? (unless you’re one of those lucky little bunch of rich folks)
This disturbing trend may becoming a worldwide phenomenon.
Thanks to the Economist
As seen in the picture above, inequality has been increasing across most of the developed world. Over at the Economist’s Free Exchange R.A. thinks that
it’s critical to address this issue if popular support for liberal economic activity is to be maintained.
If this a problem which needs fixing how should we do so? Do the Robin Hood thing…steal from the rich and give to the poor?
Which has us wondering do you folks out there on the interwebs have better reasons on why GPA is different than income? Or would you rather stay out late and enjoy the fruits of your neighbors study habits?
