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My personal (purposely incomplete!) answer is because the whole world doesn't deserve to be rich. Imagine this scenario to help understand why: Let's say the

My personal (purposely incomplete!) answer is because the whole world doesn't deserve to be rich. Imagine this scenario to help understand why: Let's say the top richest people gave away so much money that every person on earth was a millionare. What would happen? People wouldn't change their spending and other habits, in fact they would buy more useless stuff. Prices would thus rise and rise until they matched the new million-fold buying power. (Think about this: Would you keep your pretzels at $0.50 if you knew everyone was a millionare? Ofc not.) And then? Then we would be right back to where we started: Most people would be just as poor as before, and the rich would be just as rich as before. To the downvoters: I'm genuinely interested in your serious rebuttals of my hypothesized scenario.

dr-detroit 4y ago
actionfromafar 4y ago
There are several studies which have shown that cash transplants have a lasting beneficial effect on poverty.
- jdthedisciple 4y ago
  That must be to a very limited degree to the point where you can't extrapolate the effect to my hypothesized scenario. In fact there is evidence in support of my thesis: Most lottery winners lose all their won money within a few years.
  - RugnirViking 4y ago
    That's a myth, which stemmed from a misquote of NEFE [1]. Most research shows that this isn't really true. https://time.com/5427275/lottery-winning-happiness-debunked/ https://time.com/5427275/lottery-winning-happiness-debunked/ [1] https://www.nefe.org/news/2018/01/research-statistic-on-financial-windfalls-and-bankruptcy.aspx https://www.nefe.org/news/2018/01/research-statistic-on-fina...
1234letshaveatw 4y ago
As mentioned in other comments, you can't escape scarcity. If everyone became a millionaire overnight, would there be enough mansions for everyone to buy the next morning? How about PS5s? How about steaks? It's wishful thinking and politicization to pretend otherwise.
- serverholic 4y ago
  Scarcity will always exist. However, the system we are in doesn’t exactly make the best use of resources. Some things are artificially scarce, like diamonds. Other things are made to be cheap and disposable like clothing so you’ll buy more in the future. And other things are made proprietary so that you’ll have to buy multiple of the same thing. A simple example of the last point is modern consoles. PS5s and XBoxes are basically PCs at this point. Yet they are made to be incompatible and minimally upgradeable.
serverholic 4y ago
Yes because the system is built to support certain types of people. If we are playing monopoly and you’re good at monopoly then it makes sense that you’d likely win if we started over. Also, some people are smart enough to study the game and emulate good monopoly play but they’re not naturally good at it. However if we switched to another game you might lose your advantage.
welshwelsh 4y ago
>Prices would rise and rise until they matched the new million-fold buying power Prices would rise, yes. But they would not rise proportionally to the increase in purchasing power. At the extreme case, imagine a person with $0. If they are given $1 million, they are now ∞% wealthier. If the cost of food rises 1,000,000%, they can still afford more food then before. But prices won't rise that much. Your 50¢ pretzel might cost $1,000 now. But that won't last: if you can get an extra $1 million by selling 1,000 pretzels, people will do that. In the medium term, the supply of pretzels will increase and maybe the price will drop to $100. I am not implying that wealth distribution solves scarcity. But it does redistribute power and resources, so that everyone's desires and needs are more equally catered to.
isitmadeofglass 4y ago
> What would happen? You are completely out of touch with the reality that the majority of the human population still faces. What would realistically happen was that people would buy washing machines and have more time to read books with their children.

dr-detroit 4y ago

actionfromafar 4y ago

There are several studies which have shown that cash transplants have a lasting beneficial effect on poverty.

jdthedisciple 4y ago
That must be to a very limited degree to the point where you can't extrapolate the effect to my hypothesized scenario. In fact there is evidence in support of my thesis: Most lottery winners lose all their won money within a few years.
- RugnirViking 4y ago
  That's a myth, which stemmed from a misquote of NEFE [1]. Most research shows that this isn't really true. https://time.com/5427275/lottery-winning-happiness-debunked/ https://time.com/5427275/lottery-winning-happiness-debunked/ [1] https://www.nefe.org/news/2018/01/research-statistic-on-financial-windfalls-and-bankruptcy.aspx https://www.nefe.org/news/2018/01/research-statistic-on-fina...

1234letshaveatw 4y ago

As mentioned in other comments, you can't escape scarcity. If everyone became a millionaire overnight, would there be enough mansions for everyone to buy the next morning? How about PS5s? How about steaks? It's wishful thinking and politicization to pretend otherwise.

serverholic 4y ago
Scarcity will always exist. However, the system we are in doesn’t exactly make the best use of resources. Some things are artificially scarce, like diamonds. Other things are made to be cheap and disposable like clothing so you’ll buy more in the future. And other things are made proprietary so that you’ll have to buy multiple of the same thing. A simple example of the last point is modern consoles. PS5s and XBoxes are basically PCs at this point. Yet they are made to be incompatible and minimally upgradeable.

serverholic 4y ago

Yes because the system is built to support certain types of people. If we are playing monopoly and you’re good at monopoly then it makes sense that you’d likely win if we started over. Also, some people are smart enough to study the game and emulate good monopoly play but they’re not naturally good at it. However if we switched to another game you might lose your advantage.

welshwelsh 4y ago

>Prices would rise and rise until they matched the new million-fold buying power Prices would rise, yes. But they would not rise proportionally to the increase in purchasing power. At the extreme case, imagine a person with $0. If they are given $1 million, they are now ∞% wealthier. If the cost of food rises 1,000,000%, they can still afford more food then before. But prices won't rise that much. Your 50¢ pretzel might cost $1,000 now. But that won't last: if you can get an extra $1 million by selling 1,000 pretzels, people will do that. In the medium term, the supply of pretzels will increase and maybe the price will drop to $100. I am not implying that wealth distribution solves scarcity. But it does redistribute power and resources, so that everyone's desires and needs are more equally catered to.

isitmadeofglass 4y ago

> What would happen? You are completely out of touch with the reality that the majority of the human population still faces. What would realistically happen was that people would buy washing machines and have more time to read books with their children.