Doing the math, does that mean that 47% of the world's population owns the remaining 9% of the wealth?
The distribution of wealth tends to regulate itself over time -- albeit, relatively long periods of time... The pendulum swings back and forth. At one extreme, if 1 per cent owned 90% of the wealth, the other 99% would not have enough wealth to buy anything. The *stuff* that the 1% had, which defined their wealth, would be worthless, if thre was no prospect of selling it or converting it into a freely exchangeable form (such as money). Not to mention the *outrage of the masses* factor. And the *system*, as such, would collapse. How would the collapse manifest itself? The Russian Revolution and the French Revolution, before it, are prime examples... And the Fall of Rome, come to think about it... :-)
Another way of seeing it is poor folk lose hope in ever climbing out of poverty (or middle class moving into upper) when so much wealth is concentrated in so few hands. Did serfs often revolt over economic issues in feudal times? Human nature doesn't change much. Hopelessness is hopelessness.
The serfs of the middle ages were thoroughly oppressed, economically, and kept in ignorance of just about everything beyond what they needed to know to survive and serve their masters. They didn't know what they were missing. By contrast, the French lower and middle classes, leading up to the Revolution there, were acutely aware of what they once had and had lost. The Russian lower and middle classes thought they would be better off under Marxism, but they learned too late that the new system worked even worse than the old one, for them at least. The pendulum swings. The Soviet Union itself eventually fell apart, in 1991, under *economic* pressure, not political or social pressure... The overall lesson for power-hungry greedy rich bastards here is, do whatever you want, but keep the peasants *ignorant* and make sure they have *just enough* to eat...
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chiming
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Date: 2006-12-06 06:06 pm (UTC)From:The distribution of wealth tends to regulate itself over time -- albeit, relatively long periods of time... The pendulum swings back and forth. At one extreme, if 1 per cent owned 90% of the wealth, the other 99% would not have enough wealth to buy anything. The *stuff* that the 1% had, which defined their wealth, would be worthless, if thre was no prospect of selling it or converting it into a freely exchangeable form (such as money). Not to mention the *outrage of the masses* factor. And the *system*, as such, would collapse. How would the collapse manifest itself? The Russian Revolution and the French Revolution, before it, are prime examples... And the Fall of Rome, come to think about it... :-)
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Date: 2006-12-06 06:34 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 07:00 pm (UTC)From: