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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCould wealth inequality be the biggest problem for civilization?
Dont know if anyone ever posted this here before...but I find it eye-opening.
This is the type of stuff that needs to be shown at election time over and over again.
elleng
(130,895 posts)davidn3600
(6,342 posts)aristocles
(594 posts)Throughtout medieval times on the European continent and all areas in the Middle East. Imperial Rome. Byzantine and ancient Greece. Dynastic Egypt. All regions originally conquered during the spread of Islam. China throughout history. Japan before industrialization. Mexico through most of history.
Need I go on? I could.
elleng
(130,895 posts)We think we're 'modern?' No bfd.
Auggie
(31,168 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)then assume complete and even redistribution of wealth across the planet.
What do you think the outcome would be ?
Do you think for example that those who have created wealth would repeat that in the knowledge that the redistribution exercise would likely be repeated ? Would those with new found wealth have any cause to work ? Would there be any point in having banking system as we currently know it given that a large proportion of the world's population probably don't use bank accounts?
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Civilization does not equate with some Marxist ideal.
Civilization arises where there is a surplus of wealth/resources.
Show me one egalitarian civilization in the history of humanity?
You begin with a false premise, so your whole argument fails.
TBF
(32,056 posts)and I certainly agree.
From NPR:
World's Richest 1 Percent Control Half Of Global Wealth
by Scott Neuman
January 20, 2014 3:04 PM
Just 1 percent of the world's population controls nearly half of the planet's wealth, according to a ahead of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.
The study says this tiny slice of humanity controls $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion people.
Other key findings in the report:
The world's 85 richest people own as much as the poorest 50 percent of humanity.
70 percent of the world's people live in a country where income inequality has increased in the past three decades.
In the U.S., where the gap between rich and poor has grown at a faster rate than any other developed country, the top 1 percent captured 95 percent of post-recession growth (since 2009), while 90 percent of Americans became poorer.
"Oxfam is concerned that, left unchecked, the effects are potentially immutable, and will lead to 'opportunity capture' in which the lowest tax rates, the best education, and the best healthcare are claimed by the children of the rich," the relief agency writes. "This creates dynamic and mutually reinforcing cycles of advantage that are transmitted across generations."
In other words, Oxfam says that if trends continue, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer ...
Much more here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/20/264241052/oxfam-worlds-richest-1-percent-control-half-of-global-wealth
Brigid
(17,621 posts)And start looking around for their torches and pitchforks, that's a problem.