Piketty claims the inequality of wealth is increasing and that this will cause problems of justice. Even though he might be right in his first claim, he has been criticized that he lacks the proper...Show morePiketty claims the inequality of wealth is increasing and that this will cause problems of justice. Even though he might be right in his first claim, he has been criticized that he lacks the proper moral arguments to defend his second claim. Yet, that does not mean he is wrong. To demonstrate why inequality of wealth is unjust, I will first need to determine what justice requires. To do so, I will examine Dworkin’s and Anderson’s theory of justice. I will argue that following either Dworkin or Anderson, Piketty is right and the current level of wealth inequality is unjust. Therefore, justice requires us to do something to reduce inequality. I will assert that a direct taxation of wealth is the best tool to do so. To examine how this would work out in practice, I will analyse the situation in the Netherlands. I will show that current wealth tax rates are strikingly low, but that merely increasing these rates would not work as a solution as people are poorly informed and use fallacious moral arguments. For that reason, I will follow Prabkahar in my conclusion that as a first step, it is essential to make people aware of the workings of taxation.Show less
Luck egalitarianism is a theory that follows from Dworkin. It is an interesting theory of distributive justice which states that differences in wealth are allowed when based on differences in...Show moreLuck egalitarianism is a theory that follows from Dworkin. It is an interesting theory of distributive justice which states that differences in wealth are allowed when based on differences in ambition. Differences based on endowments are not allowed. The original formulation of luck egalitarianism by Dworkin has three problems: the harsh treatment problem, a distributive paradigm and the background inequalities problem. This dissertation tries to reformulate luck egalitarianism in a responsibility sensitive way in order to overcome the three problems. The conclusion of this dissertation is that the responsibility sensitive interpretation of luck egalitarianism comes closer to solving the problems than Dworkin's original formulation, however the responsibility sensitive interpretation does not solve all of the problems.Show less
