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Governments should value economic equality before prosperity

This topic underlies many important issues in society. Thanks to Pro for instigating the challenge. Definitions Prosperity. Prosperity is measured by the average annual income of the members of a society. For societies that rely mainly by subsistence agriculture and barter, Calculations of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [1. http://en.wikipedia.org...], measured by monetary transactions, divided by population will not accurately reflect the relative wealth of the community. In any society, not all of GDP is reflected in individual income. I doubt that either issue will be important in the debate, but they might arise. For our purposes GDP per capita will be a suitable measure of prosperity. Distributions of wealth. Perfect equality would be everyone in society having exactly the same income. As a graph of numbers of people versus income distribution, in a perfectly equal society all the people would appear on the graph at a single spike at one income level. While there is only one way for everyone to be equal, there are many ways that wealth may be unequally distributed. If the factors leading to some quantity occur randomly multiply, the result will be a log-normal distribution. [2. http://en.wikipedia.org...] The distribution of the sizes of trees in a forest, IQ scores, the sex drive of humans, he sizes of cities, and a host of other natural phenomena are well described by the log normal distribution. So if a forest grows undisturbed, the trees will nave a log normal distribution of sizes. A farmer growing oranges will trim the trees to uniform size, artificially producing equality. I know this statistical talk is inherently very nasty, but I doubt there is any way to avoid it. Poverty level. We will need a definition of "poverty level." This is somewhat controversial of late, because the U.S. government has introduced a new definition of poverty in terms of equality. For this debate, I want to use the definition: The level of income in a society at which the basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are met. The income level at which basic needs are met varies with the society. In the U.S., it is a family income of about $30,000 a year. $30,000 per year in underdeveloped countries would correspond to substantial wealth. It varies substantially within the US. In rural areas, $30,000 allows a better lifestyle than in expensive urban areas. I have no objection to using other definitions of poverty level in the debate, but I ask alternatives be distinguished by some additional word added to the phrase poverty level. Again I don't think we need an extremely precise definition. I will be arguing that the economic goal of society should be to raise as many people as possible above the poverty level, meaning that we should want as many people as possible to have their basic needs met. I think we can argue that without getting into a discussion as to whether for a particular society "basic needs" includes a cell phone or not. Happiness. I will need a definition of happiness. Fortunately, the idea of happiness is universal. There are actually measures of levels of happiness in societies. The important think is that the measures all depend upon self-assessment. The principle is that if you think you are happy or unhappy, there is no better authority for the opinion. The Wikipedia article on happiness economics gives an overview of the subject. [3. http://en.wikipedia.org...] The Satisfaction with Life Index is, I think, a pretty good measure. [4. http://en.wikipedia.org...]. United Nations Human Development Index is empirical, but it seems reasonable. [5. http://www.cnngo.com...] the two generally follow each other in broad outline. Pro's definitions Pro is right when he says that economic equality is about standard of living, but he's wrong in asserting that employers being fair has anything to do with that. People may be economically equal or unequal largely independent of employment. For example, The Prince of Monaco provides free housing to all citizens, and that has nothing to do with employer fairness. Subsistence agriculture has a high degree of equality with everyone self employed. "Fairness" is completely subjective. What Pro or the government thinks is fair may be completely at odds with other concepts of fairness. I have heard the argument that it is unfair to discriminate on grounds of competence. Pro also claims government must do all it can to fight unemployment. That's not a measure of equality. Again, rich princes may provide a large amount equalization without concern for employment. I agree that unemployment is a concern in economic policy, but that concern arises in my case and Pro's case. It's not part of the definition. A significant minimum wage always increases unemployment, but whether that is good or bad overall is a matter to be argued. If equality is the primary goal of economic policy, it can always be achieved through universal poverty. The question is about the priorities of policy. What's more important? On to Pro's case.