Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 4-28-2020
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Journalism
First Advisor
Mark Dolan
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This project seeks to create a deep understanding of some of the key causes and effects of economic inequality. In it, I review a wide variety of research and reporting on inequality as well as interview people that have been impacted by inequality in my community, Oxford, Mississippi. This information, as a whole, is not meant to create a complete, comprehensive understanding of income and wealth inequality, which would be impossible. Instead, it is a meditation on the origins, cycles, outcomes and ethical implications of the phenomenon. In it, I contend that the vast majority of negative outcomes of inequality, which impact everyone, can be solved with the tools already available to governments and communities; change does not occur largely because cultures consider human dignity on the scales of income and market value. Our collective role in creating and upholding this harmful culture of classism should disturb communities and challenge them to change their ideas about and policies affecting individuals with lower levels of income or wealth.
Recommended Citation
Payne, Jonathan, "Separate and Unequal: The Causes and Effects of Economic Inequality in Our Communities, and What We Must Do About It" (2020). Honors Theses. 1366.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1366
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