Income Inequality, Self-Interest, Unethical Behavior, and Me

Opinion

When I first came to the U.S.  from three years ago, I noticed an interesting detail about locals. They always take your word for it. My friend, who, like me, moved here from Ukraine, asked his sister to help him with work permission papers. She lived in the U.S. her whole adult life and eventually convinced him to use her lawyer to file for his work permit. She guessed the process had to be incredibly complicated, so it’s better to just pay the attorney $1,000 for his help. When my friend told me that, I just raised my eyebrows.

 I filed my application for work permission myself, and the only thing I had to do was spell my name correctly and check a box indicating I had no felonies. Ever since then, that’s been my experience with people who have lived in the U.S. for a long time: if someone told them something, it must be true. My mom was just as confused by that attitude as I was. She told me, “They are so easy to scam. It’s like they’re asking for it.” When she was about to get her driver’s license, we found something familiar. There were people from Brighton Beach offering cheap driving tests for “their people.” It was $400. But they said it’s usually way more than that, and claimed that she was getting a discount, especially since we are refugees. However, my mom’s friend, who is also from Ukraine, repeatedly told her under no circumstances to go to “our people.” My mom ended up doing a regular driving test with an American instructor, for which she paid $25, 

Why would a service specifically designed for immigrants by other immigrants possibly take advantage of them? Moreover, why am I, someone who for a long time was afraid to cross a road at a red light, suddenly feel like scamming people is sometimes okay? 

A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology about the connection between perceived inequality and unethical behavior cleared it up. The study examined how inequality reduces the sense of control, and simultaneously increases the acceptability of unethical behavior.  Researchers noted that unethical behavior usually implies cheating, self-interested lying, and stealing. Reflecting on this topic became a thought experiment for me. I thought, “Well, Robin Hood was stealing in a very unequal society. Are you going to call him unethical, too?” 

The U.S. index of wealth inequality is almost twice as high as that in Ukraine, which doesn’t make Ukraine perfect. We have other factors that make us feel like we don’t have control over our lives. We have had two revolutions in the last 25 years, we are fighting a war, and our currency has lost around 85% of its value since 2008. But at least we know that most people in Ukraine experience it all equally. When you move to a different country, especially the U.S., which simultaneously happens to be very wealthy and very unequal, you suddenly realize that you are very likely to never be in the same position as people who were born here. The inequality is so great that some people who were born and lived their whole lives in the U.S. might never be able to buy a house. For people who grew up in the U.S., the idea that you can never be where others are simply because you were born into less fortunate circumstances changes people. I couldn’t imagine trying to steal anything from a store when I lived in Ukraine. Today, I often buy things from Amazon and return them after one use because I can’t be bothered to care about Jeff Bezos’ income. 

I wonder if it’s really a bad thing to change our ethical standards when we know that we are actively harmed by inequality every day. On the other hand, the study shows that we show more self-interested behaviors when we have no control over things. We trust people less and are more likely to perceive them as enemies trying to undermine us. While, as an immigrant, I initially saw Americans as naive, I can also view them as people who trust or show more empathy. After all, it is nice to be able to tell a college professor that you are sick, and they will actually take your word for it.

This essay was supported and written in collaboration with the Social Mobility Lab in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership.