8 people own more wealth than 50% of World

[vendic]

Latest studies find that 8 people now own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the World's population.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ics-broken
The gap is continuing to increase.

[SciFiFisher]

I wonder what the relative quality of life is for the majority of the people? There have been a couple of articles recently showing that the relative quality of life today is far better than it was 200 years ago, etc, etc.
Except for those in extreme poverty the average broke person today lives in circumstances that would be considered "well off" by the standards of 100 years ago.

Looking at it in those terms does that make it less of a social injustice that less than 1% of the population owns or controls 80% of the wealth? I am not trying to twit anyone I really wonder if that is part of the reason there has not been more social upheaval in relationship to the growing wealth inequality.

[Rommie]

I've thought about this a little too. You just don't get many revolutions in societies where there's enough to eat and better opportunities for your children. (We can argue about the latter in the USA, but on a global scale hundreds of millions have recently joined the middle class in the past decade.) Like, you don't exactly expect to see much social upheval in modern China to get rid of the government in the next few years, because people are too busy trying to get a slice of the pie to worry about Internet censorship.

I'd also be curious to see how this inequality compares to the Gilded Age. Pretty damn comparable, I'm sure, but I'm always one to enjoy historical comparisons.

[vendic]

I'm not sure that comparisons can be made going back 200 years ago fisher. For example, while things might have been worse back then, try finding a 200 year old person that says, "you young whipper snappers don't know how good you have it!"

The other thing to consider is that back then people that had nothing are technically wealthier than many are now since we have been conditioned to live in a debt based society. Which is all great while there is income to pay that debt. When it stops however things get bad fast. Suddenly people can't afford to pay debts and their property is gone. Given that most people live with about one pay period to hunger (if they lose one week they have trouble getting back out) while back in the past, even though most were poor and had little, their hunger point was longer as most had food to keep them going.

What I'm getting at is that long ago people could survive without a job for longer periods of time. Imagine high levels of poverty in the USA hitting now. Cities would be rioting. Combine that with the pay check to pay check life of most people and it's not hard to imagine a very real and serious problem coming from what appears to be no where. e.g. If someone did a massive coordinated cyber attack on the banking institutions in the USA, it would roughly take a week for huge problems to surface crippling the country.

The other thing that makes history hard to compare to the modern era is that we all have far greater access to information and to share information. Things going viral were not so common or easy back then as news traveled slow. Now news travels so fast one could imagine the entire country going berserk at the same time whereas in the past this would take time to spread making it less problematic and easier to contain. This makes a movement far easier to start and it also puts wealth disparity out there in the public eye where before the poorer people wouldn't even have access to that sort of thing.

What I'm saying is that all the pre-conditions are already here for such an unprecedented event. All that's missing is the right spark. This is a huge problem that never existed before and most likely has not even been considered by our politicians. There were plenty of signs and time between the peasants being unhappy and the peasants revolting in times long gone. I'm not so sure that exists anymore. Considering the revolutions that did happen in the past given that the signs were there and no one acted, what will it be like now that it's quite possible for it to happen near overnight?

In other happy news, it's not raining here and is partially cloudy so our solar panels are going to get to charge the batteries. That means the fridge will stay cold. Yay us! Life is always better with a cold fridge.

[Rommie]

What I'm getting at is that long ago people could survive without a job for longer periods of time.

Charles Dickens would like a word.

[vendic]

If that could be arranged it would be cool. lol

[Tarragon]

I wonder what the relative quality of life is for the majority of the people? There have been a couple of articles recently showing that the relative quality of life today is far better than it was 200 years ago, etc, etc.

Wouldn't that actually be the "absolute" quality of life? Of course, it's qualitative not quantitative, and the Hedonic Treadmill factors in. But yeah, generally a lot is better - or has the capacity to be better - because it's been built up on foundational institutions and their many singularities.

There is always the possibility that expanding the construction beyond what the foundation can hold allows the possibility of collapse. Some may think we're teetering on the brink, but it's more like we're beyond the brink, teetering at the end of a cantilever outside the footprint of the foundation. We may want to set down a new foundation, or a secondary foundation point. Or we could build up from the foundation enough for cable-staid support. Right now we're building up and out without the top extending cables of support to those at the expanding bottom. Those at the top and bottom think the other needs more integrity, but what they need is to work together for "Tensegrity."

[SciFiFisher]

The other thing that makes history hard to compare to the modern era is that we all have far greater access to information and to share information. Things going viral were not so common or easy back then as news traveled slow. Now news travels so fast one could imagine the entire country going berserk at the same time whereas in the past this would take time to spread making it less problematic and easier to contain. This makes a movement far easier to start and it also puts wealth disparity out there in the public eye where before the poorer people wouldn't even have access to that sort of thing.

What I'm saying is that all the pre-conditions are already here for such an unprecedented event. All that's missing is the right spark. This is a huge problem that never existed before and most likely has not even been considered by our politicians. There were plenty of signs and time between the peasants being unhappy and the peasants revolting in times long gone. I'm not so sure that exists anymore. Considering the revolutions that did happen in the past given that the signs were there and no one acted, what will it be like now that it's quite possible for it to happen near overnight?

I think in a way we do have an example to consider. The French Revolution. If you study what happened then and compare it to now there are some interesting parallels. IIRC the French Revolution was sparked by very similar disparities in wealth distribution. The French people ignited when they lost hope that things would get better. Once people lose hope and feel like they have nothing left to lose all hell breaks loose. One of the reasons I brought up the relative quality of life idea is that IMO having a reasonable quality of life has a tendency to buoy up hope. If I have shelter, food, and a reasonable belief that my children have a chance at a better life than I had I am less likely to decide to join the revolution. Or become part of a mob baying for the blood of anyone who has money.

What seems to be occurring at the moment is a crossroads point in history that future historians may point to and say "After Donald Trump was elected president U.S. Fascism rose to power. When the people realized that the Fascists planned to starve them all to death they rose up and took back the country. And that children is why we have the Socialist People's Republic Of these United States."

[vendic]

We have plenty of examples in history but none that can ignite so quickly. The tensions in this country are growing. Everyone seems on edge. It's not a good thing.