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What is the problem of wealth being concentrated? Common people do not need wealth to earn money, they earn money from jobs. Gradually business will see it need

What is the problem of wealth being concentrated? Common people do not need wealth to earn money, they earn money from jobs. Gradually business will see it needs consumers to grow further and some measures will be taken to make these people more productive to be able to earn and spend, as rich don't exist in a vacuum.

nickthemagicman 9y ago
> Gradually business will see it needs consumers to grow further and some measures will be taken to make these people more productive to be able to earn and spend To rephrase: You're saying that the "common" people are just not working hard enough and the rich need to take measures to make them work harder so that they can be better consumers. It's the "common peoples" fault that there is no middle class because they don't work hard enough. According to you...India has a half billion lazy people.
StephenMelon 9y ago
Besides the scientifically proven downsides for society and general human wellbeing that inequality is known to cause, why should people’s lives be improved or not at the whim of “business” and the “non-common”, most of whom are the beneficiaries of inherited wealth or a gamed system? What gives people the right to live a parasitic, non-contributory existence at the expense of the labour of other humans? You seem to be systematising and forgetting that you are talking about billions of real lives?
- cloverich 9y ago
  > Besides the scientifically proven downsides for society and general human wellbeing that inequality is known to cause . (Honest question) do you have some citations where this has been studied, specifically in cases where the low-end of the inequality spectrum isn't poor? (i.e., to demonstrate the inequality and not the absolute state is the culprit)
tekmate 9y ago
i could actually respect libertarians if you guys would stop pretending that trickle down is a thing and embraced that a society with .1% superrich, 19-20% well off experts and 80% serfs is the natural endgame of your ideology
- jeffbax 9y ago
  Don't blame libertarianism for the state having broken the market so badly that wealth inevitably gets funneled to the few. Crony capitalism is not libertarian, rabidly competitive markets are. The natural end of that is generally going to be prosperity across the board, and hopefully a government financially solvent enough to actually pay for those in need and essential services, all of which should be lower as a result of a better market doing much of that naturally.
  - tekmate 9y ago
    libertarianism in action IS crony capitalism pretending anything else is akin to talking about how "real communism has never been tried"
  - xixixao 9y ago
    I have never seen even a simple argument for why your second paragraph should be true. On the other hand I understand the principle that money makes more money (the principle of investment and ROI), and I don't see how "competitive market" tackles this. It basically feels like the capitalism starts off from fairly-level playing field, but over time becomes more and more unstable, the gap ever-widening. We have already seen it fall (at the beginning of communist regimes), and I'm afraid we'll see it fall again. That's a pessimist view, which I hope won't turn out to be true, but I'd be interested in exploring alternatives.
    - hueving 9y ago
      In truly competitive markets it wouldn't be so easy to park money for guaranteed returns.
coldtea 9y ago
>What is the problem of wealth being concentrated? The first problem is that wealth means control (e.g. from how VCs control opportunities to create businesses through their funding, to how the rich can buy politicians and laws). So concentrated wealth = less democratic country (not in electing government, in actual control of what's to be done and opportunities). Second problem is that concentrated wealth is not used in directly buying, so it sits out of circulation. A rich person can have 95% of its income sit in idle investments, land, etc, and still live like king with 5% of his earnings per year, while a middle class/working class person will spend most (say 70%-100%) of what they earn, thus keeping the economy going. And when that 95% the rich keep is much much bigger than the aggregated 70% of what the majority of working people spend (e.g. because 1% of the people control 80% of the wealth), then you have a stifled economy and a dwindling middle class. And lots of other issues, but those are quite major...
- walshemj 9y ago
  What do you mean by idle investments? land is presumably rented out to farmers so its not idle
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Land could be real estate, which, if not just sitting idle, it's still the epitome of rent-seeking. Plus, land rented to farmers is productive because of the farmers, not because of the land -- and would still be a sinkhole of money from the middle class (the farmers) to the rich person doing the renting, not entering circulation like the money a farmer would make (to buy animal food, seeds, whatever, and to live their family).
    - walshemj 9y ago
      You know that a large proportion of the returns from the stockmarket are made by reinvesting dividends. "rent seeking" seems to either be used by people who don't understand how trade/investment works or want something or subsidies' or its a dog whistle that tends to go with gold bugs, cryptocurrency fantasists and then on to much less pleasant things

nickthemagicman 9y ago

> Gradually business will see it needs consumers to grow further and some measures will be taken to make these people more productive to be able to earn and spend To rephrase: You're saying that the "common" people are just not working hard enough and the rich need to take measures to make them work harder so that they can be better consumers. It's the "common peoples" fault that there is no middle class because they don't work hard enough. According to you...India has a half billion lazy people.

StephenMelon 9y ago

Besides the scientifically proven downsides for society and general human wellbeing that inequality is known to cause, why should people’s lives be improved or not at the whim of “business” and the “non-common”, most of whom are the beneficiaries of inherited wealth or a gamed system? What gives people the right to live a parasitic, non-contributory existence at the expense of the labour of other humans? You seem to be systematising and forgetting that you are talking about billions of real lives?

cloverich 9y ago
> Besides the scientifically proven downsides for society and general human wellbeing that inequality is known to cause . (Honest question) do you have some citations where this has been studied, specifically in cases where the low-end of the inequality spectrum isn't poor? (i.e., to demonstrate the inequality and not the absolute state is the culprit)

tekmate 9y ago

i could actually respect libertarians if you guys would stop pretending that trickle down is a thing and embraced that a society with .1% superrich, 19-20% well off experts and 80% serfs is the natural endgame of your ideology

jeffbax 9y ago
Don't blame libertarianism for the state having broken the market so badly that wealth inevitably gets funneled to the few. Crony capitalism is not libertarian, rabidly competitive markets are. The natural end of that is generally going to be prosperity across the board, and hopefully a government financially solvent enough to actually pay for those in need and essential services, all of which should be lower as a result of a better market doing much of that naturally.
- tekmate 9y ago
  libertarianism in action IS crony capitalism pretending anything else is akin to talking about how "real communism has never been tried"
- xixixao 9y ago
  I have never seen even a simple argument for why your second paragraph should be true. On the other hand I understand the principle that money makes more money (the principle of investment and ROI), and I don't see how "competitive market" tackles this. It basically feels like the capitalism starts off from fairly-level playing field, but over time becomes more and more unstable, the gap ever-widening. We have already seen it fall (at the beginning of communist regimes), and I'm afraid we'll see it fall again. That's a pessimist view, which I hope won't turn out to be true, but I'd be interested in exploring alternatives.
  - hueving 9y ago
    In truly competitive markets it wouldn't be so easy to park money for guaranteed returns.

coldtea 9y ago

>What is the problem of wealth being concentrated? The first problem is that wealth means control (e.g. from how VCs control opportunities to create businesses through their funding, to how the rich can buy politicians and laws). So concentrated wealth = less democratic country (not in electing government, in actual control of what's to be done and opportunities). Second problem is that concentrated wealth is not used in directly buying, so it sits out of circulation. A rich person can have 95% of its income sit in idle investments, land, etc, and still live like king with 5% of his earnings per year, while a middle class/working class person will spend most (say 70%-100%) of what they earn, thus keeping the economy going. And when that 95% the rich keep is much much bigger than the aggregated 70% of what the majority of working people spend (e.g. because 1% of the people control 80% of the wealth), then you have a stifled economy and a dwindling middle class. And lots of other issues, but those are quite major...

walshemj 9y ago
What do you mean by idle investments? land is presumably rented out to farmers so its not idle
- coldtea 9y ago
  Land could be real estate, which, if not just sitting idle, it's still the epitome of rent-seeking. Plus, land rented to farmers is productive because of the farmers, not because of the land -- and would still be a sinkhole of money from the middle class (the farmers) to the rich person doing the renting, not entering circulation like the money a farmer would make (to buy animal food, seeds, whatever, and to live their family).
  - walshemj 9y ago
    You know that a large proportion of the returns from the stockmarket are made by reinvesting dividends. "rent seeking" seems to either be used by people who don't understand how trade/investment works or want something or subsidies' or its a dog whistle that tends to go with gold bugs, cryptocurrency fantasists and then on to much less pleasant things