Wealth distribution

**Sarmatian** · 01-21-2014, 10:30

It seems that the phrase "the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" has never been more true than today. A British institute, Oxfam, published a report that 85 (yes, eighty five) richest people in the world hold as much wealth as 3.5 billions poorest people. The number of people that can fit on a single bus holds as much wealth as half of mankind. Those 3.5 billions hold only 0.7% of the world's wealth. Almost half of the world's wealth is currently in the hands of the richest 1%.

We've known for a very long time that the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger, and with money, comes power and influence. In almost all western countries, despite the rich having immense increase in profits, they managed to lower the amount of taxes they pay. This is especially true in USA. Since 1980, the amount of wealth held by 1% of richest Americans increased 150%. Practically all wealth increase since 2009, 95% of it, went to the richest, while the bottom 90% of Americans have become poorer.

Simply put, the difference in wealth is so huge that it dwarfs the difference in wealth in middle ages between aristocracy and peasants.

I'm pretty sure that concentration of so much money, and by extension power and influence, is a very serious threat to democracy. Sure, we get to pick our leaders, but we pick from a few offered to us who are funded by those 1% and who appear in the media owned by those 1%.

What do you guys think of this? Can the trend be stopped? Will it lead to instability and be a threat to democracy in the long run?

**a completely inoffensive name** · 01-21-2014, 10:49

I think that's a big bus you got there.

In all seriousness. The problem is that Western society has implicitly accepted the idea that the supremacy of the individual must not be violated and that expenditures are simply a form of expression. Thus things we can choose to be (and used to declare) off limits are instead increasingly shoved onto the free market to be bought and sold by a select few who want to accumulate such wealth in order to buy these new "products".

The truth is that there will always be a select few that simply have lots of money in disproportionate amount, this is capitalism. But the wave of neo-conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s has convinced people to award the wealthy with status in recognition of their wealth when really the wealth and its accompanying standard of living should be its own reward. By catering to the idea that there should be another option if you have the money, you only encourage a society where the vultures are rewarded for their shenanigans.

If you don't get what I am talking about, I am talking about things like box seats at sports stadiums and privately owned toll roads/lanes, which allow the rich to seclude themselves from the rest of society and ignore/ be ignorant of the infrastructure issues that only they have the clout to deal with.

**CountArach** · 01-21-2014, 14:24

Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

I think that's a big bus you got there.

The rich can afford mega-buses. It is truly a different lifestyle.

**Fragony** · 01-21-2014, 10:52

I don't give a crap that some people are filthy rich, good for them. If they get a nasty disease they are just as dead. Of course they have influence but I don't expect that to be a threat.

**Andres** · 01-21-2014, 10:54

Originally Posted by Fragony

I don't give a crap that some people are filthy rich, good for them. If they get a nasty disease they are just as dead. Of course they have influence but I don't expect that to be a threat.

If you don't consider it a threat, then you are incredibly naive.

You only become that rich at the expense of many other people.

It's simply disgusting.

**Fragony** · 01-21-2014, 11:04

Originally Posted by Andres

If you don't consider it a threat, then you are incredibly naive.

You only become that rich at the expense of many other people.

It's simply disgusting.

It hink the EU is a much bigger threat to democracy. I don't find it disgusting that they have so much more than I have. If human rights are respected I am all ok with that. That's what should be kept in check, when violated acted upon. But what does it matter that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't find it an unjustice.

**Fisherking** · 01-21-2014, 11:20

Originally Posted by Fragony

It hink the EU is a much bigger threat to democracy. I don't find it disgusting that they have so much more than I have. If human rights are respected I am all ok with that. That's what should be kept in check, when violated acted upon. But what does it matter that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't find it an unjustice.

Wealth alone is not the issue. It is the power they weald. It does not make all equal before the law. Their influence means the laws end up suiting what they want and the rest be damned.

The have the best government money can buy. That is the point.

**Husar** · 01-21-2014, 11:25

Originally Posted by Fragony

It hink the EU is a much bigger threat to democracy. I don't find it disgusting that they have so much more than I have. If human rights are respected I am all ok with that. That's what should be kept in check, when violated acted upon. But what does it matter that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't find it an unjustice.

Ever heard about the labor conditions of the poorest who work for the rich in Asia and Africa? Are their human rights respected in the quest for ever-increasing profits?

**Fragony** · 01-21-2014, 11:28

Originally Posted by Husar

Ever heard about the labor conditions of the poorest who work for the rich in Asia and Africa? Are their human rights respected in the quest for ever-increasing profits?

Who make the stuff you buy? That is wrong of course, but you still support it with your wallet.

**HoreTore** · 01-21-2014, 11:20

Originally Posted by Sarmatian

Simply put, the difference in wealth is so huge that it dwarfs the difference in wealth in middle ages between aristocracy and peasants.

No need to go that far back in time. The wage difference between CEO wage and employee wage has increased massively just from the 80's. Pointing out that there's no proper reason why a CEO of today should make so many times more than a CEO of the 80's(there's no reason to believe that we are working harder or smarter now than in the 80's) of course leads certain people to whine about communism and Stalin and mass-murder and all that rubbish.

One of the fundamental flaws of capitalism is the lack of a corrective mechanism to wealth accumulation. Having capital makes it easier to gain more capital, having more capital makes it even easier to gain much more capital and so on. The threat of going back to square one is minimal.

The end result is that the the level of wealth owned is increasingly becoming detached from the work put in. I will have roughly the same amount of wealth no matter what I do in life, and I will never sink to the level of wealth of Joe Indianslum. Joe Indianslum, on the other hand, can work as hard as he wants, but he will never be able to attain the level of wealth I have even if I choose to sit on my couch watching TV all my life.

The idea that we live in a meritocracy is false, we are living in a hereditary system. Our birth determines our lives just as much as the birth of a crown prince affects his chance of becoming king.

**Andres** · 01-21-2014, 11:31

Originally Posted by HoreTore

No need to go that far back in time. The wage difference between CEO wage and employee wage has increased massively just from the 80's. Pointing out that there's no proper reason why a CEO of today should make so many times more than a CEO of the 80's(there's no reason to believe that we are working harder or smarter now than in the 80's) of course leads certain people to whine about communism and Stalin and mass-murder and all that rubbish.

One of the fundamental flaws of capitalism is the lack of a corrective mechanism to wealth accumulation. Having capital makes it easier to gain more capital, having more capital makes it even easier to gain much more capital and so on. The threat of going back to square one is minimal.

The end result is that the the level of wealth owned is increasingly becoming detached from the work put in. I will have roughly the same amount of wealth no matter what I do in life, and I will never sink to the level of wealth of Joe Indianslum. Joe Indianslum, on the other hand, can work as hard as he wants, but he will never be able to attain the level of wealth I have even if I choose to sit on my couch watching TV all my life.

The idea that we live in a meritocracy is false, we are living in a hereditary system. Our birth determines our lives just as much as the birth of a crown prince affects his chance of becoming king.

Giving us the idea that we live in a meritocracy must be one of the biggest scams in the Western world from the last few decades.

Sure, you'll have exceptions and everybody always refers to exceptions when you say we do not live in a meritocracy, forgetting that it are, well, exceptions and not the rule.

I don't think accumulating wealth in itself is bad. After all, we are humans and most of us need some selfish incentive to try our best to make ourselves useful for society. You are absolutely right that it's the limitless and uncontrolled accumulation of wealth that is problematic.

**HoreTore** · 01-21-2014, 11:35

Originally Posted by Andres

I don't think accumulating wealth in itself is bad. After all, we are humans and most of us need some selfish incentive to try our best to make ourselves useful for society. You are absolutely right that it's the limitless and uncontrolled accumulation of wealth that is problematic.

I consider accumulation of wealth to be a glorious thing. The problem isn't a person accumulating wealth, but rather the accumulation of wealth by wealth itself reaching the point where nearly all the accumulation occuring is due to wealth and not the efforts of a person.

The basic premise of the carrot and stick-feature of capitalism is that a persons effort determines that persons piece of the pie. The problem is that the persons effort is largely irrelevant, and all that matters is the persons existing piece of the pie.

**Ironside** · 01-23-2014, 18:28

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Are we ever going to reach a point were we don't need more artists, writers, actors, academics, athletes, travel guides, or other weirdos?

You don't need to produce something valuable to call it work. You just need to produce something others appreciate. When machines do all our production, we can all become failed writers struggling to make it.

Now that's a dystopic future!

It's going to be big stuff in a post scarcity society. And some will be satisfied by it. But I don't think it by itself is going to solve "who are the have and the have nots" and the "what's the meaning of my life" frustration that will appear.

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

The obvious answer is a world in which the average person's needs are met whether they are working or not. The workplace will be dominated by robots, social mobility will disappear, and the only silver lining is that perhaps, just maybe, the poor will be taken care of.

Taking care of the poor will happen or it'll become very authoritarian society. Bored but living poor people will create minor unrest (not enough people to care to create major unrest). Starving poors will go for revolution.

Social mobillity depends, but it'll probably slow down.

Robots should indeed become more common, although that'll take many decades. We'll experience it starting, but not dominating is my guess.

**drone** · 01-23-2014, 20:44

You guys lack the proper imagination and cynicism necessary to see the true dystopian future. When the job market dries up, everyone is going to become a lawyer.

**HoreTore** · 01-23-2014, 20:52

Originally Posted by drone

You guys lack the proper imagination and cynicism necessary to see the true dystopian future. When the job market dries up, everyone is going to become a lawyer.

If only guns were legal in Norway, I'd off myself right here and now.

**Andres** · 01-23-2014, 22:23

Originally Posted by drone

You guys lack the proper imagination and cynicism necessary to see the true dystopian future. When the job market dries up, everyone is going to become a lawyer.

I always knew I'm ahead of my time.

Look at me! I'm the future!

**Xiahou** · 01-24-2014, 02:14

If you're worried about income inequality, just make sure we go into a global recession and stay there. Recessions always shrink the gap between rich and poor.

Personally, I think a more pressing problem is the sad state of the average persons motivation and work ethic and their poor financial literacy. Instead of demonizing the rich, people should examine how the rich got rich and see if they can emulate that.

**Sarmatian** · 01-24-2014, 07:53