Ever since agriculture allowed some of the population to not be farmers, there has been inequality.
Overall, it’s probably a good trade-off. I’m not ultra rich, but I’m not a subsistence farmer either. So, some inequality is probably the price we pay for technology.
The current world is better off than most of history. Since the Odyssey is in theatres now, look at that. Odysseus is a king in a palace-centric economy where the riches flow to the kings who then redistribute it to everyone else. In the middle ages peasants were tied to the land from birth. They weren’t slaves, exactly. But, it was pretty similar.
Capitalism was supposed to be more efficient and fair. Instead of the bosses being born as bosses and the workers born as workers, in theory a boss who made terrible decisions could lose his capital and become a worker. A worker who had an idea and could find investment could become a boss. In the 1800s that was revolutionary, until that point classes were classes for life. But, of course, for it to work there needed to be laws and those laws needed to be enforced.
The US was revolutionary at the start because it was going to be a country without a king. They carefully designed the system so the president wasn’t a monarch. However, there were some problems. First, these were 20 year olds in the 1700s. They didn’t know game theory. They were idealists who thought that congressional representatives would be honest and honourable. They didn’t think a party would collude with a corrupt president. Second, these were aristocrats. Sure, they didn’t like kings, but they thought that only land-owning white males should have a say.
So, really, it’s no surprise that a few hundred years later the people who would have been the land-owning aristocrats 1000 years ago are once again in control.
It remains to be seen if the people can once again restore a sane level of inequality, or if this American experiment has run its course and something new will emerge.
Ever since agriculture allowed some of the population to not be farmers, there has been inequality.
Overall, it’s probably a good trade-off. I’m not ultra rich, but I’m not a subsistence farmer either. So, some inequality is probably the price we pay for technology.
The current world is better off than most of history. Since the Odyssey is in theatres now, look at that. Odysseus is a king in a palace-centric economy where the riches flow to the kings who then redistribute it to everyone else. In the middle ages peasants were tied to the land from birth. They weren’t slaves, exactly. But, it was pretty similar.
Capitalism was supposed to be more efficient and fair. Instead of the bosses being born as bosses and the workers born as workers, in theory a boss who made terrible decisions could lose his capital and become a worker. A worker who had an idea and could find investment could become a boss. In the 1800s that was revolutionary, until that point classes were classes for life. But, of course, for it to work there needed to be laws and those laws needed to be enforced.
The US was revolutionary at the start because it was going to be a country without a king. They carefully designed the system so the president wasn’t a monarch. However, there were some problems. First, these were 20 year olds in the 1700s. They didn’t know game theory. They were idealists who thought that congressional representatives would be honest and honourable. They didn’t think a party would collude with a corrupt president. Second, these were aristocrats. Sure, they didn’t like kings, but they thought that only land-owning white males should have a say.
So, really, it’s no surprise that a few hundred years later the people who would have been the land-owning aristocrats 1000 years ago are once again in control.
It remains to be seen if the people can once again restore a sane level of inequality, or if this American experiment has run its course and something new will emerge.