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Why concentrate on share of GDP? Isn't it more relevant how many people are starving? How many people are literate? How long people are living and what the qual

Why concentrate on share of GDP? Isn't it more relevant how many people are starving? How many people are literate? How long people are living and what the quality of their life is? I don't think share of GDP is a proxy for any of those. Perhaps median wage is though at PPP. The trends there are not great, but not as dire as this (IMHO false) picture implies.

dangerlibrary 9y ago
Because money isn't just for sustenance and shelter - it's also a way to buy power, freedom, and autonomy. As the shares become more uneven, people's ability to act to better their own circumstances without a handout from the ultra-rich (or without the permission of the ultra rich) is curtailed. Look at businesses being dominated by companies that can afford high fixed costs in order to gain huge economies of scale. Good luck opening a mom-and-pop grocery next to a Wal-Mart, or even an independent gas station within two miles of a Sheetz.
- vlunkr 9y ago
  GDP != money though. It doesn't matter what part you play in the GDP if you make enough to live happily.
  - lovich 9y ago
    If all else remains equal the yes, if you are happy with what you get already you'd be fine. However we do not live in a society with static rules. Corporations and to a lesser extent individuals are constantly competing and lobbying to get rules changes in their favor, look at the current net neutrality fight. If workers have an ever decreasing share of GDP then they have an ever decreasing amount of power with which to counter that lobbying or lobby for themselves, and it's the sort of thing that can snowball
petra 9y ago
The real excat numbers aren't really important but the point is that there's a trend(also showing in median PPP like you say), a long term trend that shows employees get less of the pie, and I think it's reasonable to assume that automation will push this much further and has a chance to create unemployment.
matt4077 9y ago
Poverty has been defined in relative terms for decades, because all the data shows that this has a better correlation with various measures of the effects of poverty, such as poor health and early death, criminality, extreme political opinions, risk of homelessness, life satisfaction etc. Example: even when corrected for purchasing power, the vast majority of people on earth are poorer than the bottom 10% in the US. Yet they tend to do much better on those measures above than absolute definition of poverty would suggest.
- ericd 9y ago
  I'd keep in mind that the causality might be the other direction - it might not be relative poverty causing those things, it might be those things causing relative poverty.

dangerlibrary 9y ago

Because money isn't just for sustenance and shelter - it's also a way to buy power, freedom, and autonomy. As the shares become more uneven, people's ability to act to better their own circumstances without a handout from the ultra-rich (or without the permission of the ultra rich) is curtailed. Look at businesses being dominated by companies that can afford high fixed costs in order to gain huge economies of scale. Good luck opening a mom-and-pop grocery next to a Wal-Mart, or even an independent gas station within two miles of a Sheetz.

vlunkr 9y ago
GDP != money though. It doesn't matter what part you play in the GDP if you make enough to live happily.
- lovich 9y ago
  If all else remains equal the yes, if you are happy with what you get already you'd be fine. However we do not live in a society with static rules. Corporations and to a lesser extent individuals are constantly competing and lobbying to get rules changes in their favor, look at the current net neutrality fight. If workers have an ever decreasing share of GDP then they have an ever decreasing amount of power with which to counter that lobbying or lobby for themselves, and it's the sort of thing that can snowball

petra 9y ago

The real excat numbers aren't really important but the point is that there's a trend(also showing in median PPP like you say), a long term trend that shows employees get less of the pie, and I think it's reasonable to assume that automation will push this much further and has a chance to create unemployment.

matt4077 9y ago

Poverty has been defined in relative terms for decades, because all the data shows that this has a better correlation with various measures of the effects of poverty, such as poor health and early death, criminality, extreme political opinions, risk of homelessness, life satisfaction etc. Example: even when corrected for purchasing power, the vast majority of people on earth are poorer than the bottom 10% in the US. Yet they tend to do much better on those measures above than absolute definition of poverty would suggest.

ericd 9y ago
I'd keep in mind that the causality might be the other direction - it might not be relative poverty causing those things, it might be those things causing relative poverty.