There's a common notion that a crisis provides an opportunity. In 2008, the global financial crisis gave us pause - both in Ireland and abroad - to consider how, and for whom, economies are run.
However, in the years that have passed, many feel an opportunity for systemic change has been lost, and statistics show income imbalances have actually increased since the crisis. A recent study found one-third of Ireland's income is earned by the top 10 per cent, which ranks us dead last in the EU.
Last year French economist Thomas Picketty became a global sensation with the publication of his Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The book, which discusses the unequal distribution of wealth, sold 1.5m copies, cemented income inequality as one of the major talking points in global politics.
Today, Shane Coleman will be joined by Dan Price, an American CEO who recently garnered international attention by slashing his own pay by 90 per cent so he could raise the salary of every employee at his company to meet his own.
You can tune in at 5.30pm to hear the interview live or catch up with the podcast later.
Price's Damascene conversion came after reading a recent paper published by two academics at Princeton's Center for Health and Well-being, which concluded that "high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness, and that low income is associated both with low life evaluation and low emotional well-being."
Some very happy employees at Gravity Payments (Facebook.com/gravitypayments)
Deciding he could live comfortably on significantly less money, and seeing an opportunity to make his employees happier, he made some drastic changes to how his company was structured.
In a weekly meeting at credit card payment processing company Gravity Payments, he announced that his $1m salary would be reduced to $70,000, which would be the standard for each employee.
During an interview with ABC News, he described CEO pay - which for Standard & Poor 500 companies in 2012 was 354 times that of the average US worker - as "way out of whack."
It may seem like a very unseasonable re-telling of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but Price's approach is but another way of addressing income imbalances. And it raises the question of whether redistribution of wealth is the answer, and if so, whether this should be compulsory.
Picketty's thesis holds that inequality is inherent in capitalism, and that the solution is redistribution through a global wealth tax of up to two per cent and progressive income tax of up to 80 per cent. This, he says, is the only way to avoid an oligarchical society where social and economic instability become routine for the majority.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates, currently the world's second wealthiest person, agrees that inequality is a major issue, but rejects Picketty's solution. In a blog post, he called for a "progressive tax on consumption" rather than capital, saying this would punitively tax those ultra-rich who purchase yachts and cars, without targeting those who invest in business and philanthropy.
Other proposed approaches include corporate profit-sharing and employee stock ownership, increasing affordable education, publishing companies' pay ratios, and - on the extreme end - even embracing mass migrant labour.
In short, there is no one obvious solution, but with elections approaching in the US and UK, income inequality will be central in political debate for some time to come. And while not everyone will be so lucky as the employees of Gravity Payments, their salary boost shows that even the privileged are becoming increasingly aware of the need to rectify harmful divides within society.
