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When was the last time wealth accumulated so greatly in so few hands, the dark ages? It would be really interesting to know what history can tell us about what
by bfrog 7y ago
When was the last time wealth accumulated so greatly in so few hands, the dark ages? It would be really interesting to know what history can tell us about what this potentially means for our future.
- mikeash 7y agoThe late 1920s. Fortunately, nothing bad happened after that.
- itsaidpens 7y agoYou get it.
- andy_ppp 7y agoYou’d have to think we live in some kind of simulation if this happens with such invariability...
- mikepurvis 7y agoProbably best to wait a decade or two before commenting with such confidence about what you think the outcome of today's events and circumstances will be.
- shakyshakyshaky 7y agoif only someone could have predicted this http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~ehrbar/cap1.pdf http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~ehrbar/cap1.pdf
- htk 7y agoMaybe it is the opposite of what you're implying. ex: The creation of value is so high that the discrepancies increase, but everyone is reaping the benefits, just in different proportions.
- itsaidpens 7y agoTell that to someone making 35K/year.
- Consultant32452 7y agoDoesn't matter. If you could choose when to be born, but not know your race, sex, gender, sexual preference, general health, or family income.... There is no doubt it's better to be born in 2019 than 1919.
- mikeash 7y agoHow about 1999 or 1989?
- Consultant32452 7y ago1999 for sure, especially if you don't get to choose where you're born across the world.
- mikeash 7y agoAgreed if we're looking at the whole world, but I thought we were looking at the US specifically.
- Consultant32452 7y agoThe difference across a decade is somewhat negligible. But just in the last few years we've gotten gay marriage, marijuana is getting legalized, crime reform, HIV treatment is becoming widely available... Humans have a tendency to focus on the one or two things that might be worse for them, but over all life is better in almost every way you can think of. Every year is better than the last.
- harimau777 7y agoIt is a good thing that we treat minorities and the poor better than we did in the past. However, that doesn't mean that the middle class are not worse off than they were at that time.
- maxxxxx 7y agoI thought this has been the course of history for a long time. Elites take more and more for themselves until they push things too far and they get overthrown. Then the cycle starts again with a different elite.
- phkahler 7y agoI'm not sure the word "overthrown" is good - nobody is going to do that today. "Until things fall apart" is more general and entirely possible today. See Venezuela for example. Still no overthrow, but it has fallen apart and the leadership would probably prefer that hadn't happened - though I could be wrong about that.
- maxxxxx 7y agoWith overthrown I guess I also meant things like antitrust regulation in the early 1900s or the union movement which was reduced power of the robber barons. This doesn’t always have to be violent. Not sure what better word could be used instead of overthrown.
- shakyshakyshaky 7y agoNow I don't like the terminology "elites" as it lends itself to populism, but in this framework it's useful. Soon enough, the elites will not be overthrowable. The advantage that the many have over the few is the retraction of their consent; without housekeepers, farmers, maintenance workers, the rich have historically been forced to capitulate because they couldn't maintain their standard of living without the workers. With the rising tide of automation, I can see a very near future where the workers are simply obsolete, and the division between classes will become so wide as to be completely un-transversable. Those in control of the farmland and the machines that tend it will have no use for the lower classes any more. That's why we need to work on decentralized production, with households owning a production factor of their own which will keep them producing value. Think decentralized factories.