http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/0...t-as-wealthy-as-poorest-half-report-says.html I can't think this is great for long-term world stability.
Probably. Most of human history has just a few people holding almost all of the power. Unfortunately that system is likely more sustainable than a system where pretty much everyone has equal wealth because before long, just a few would be back holding most of the power again.
I'd say just the opposite. Never before in human history did we have such an integrated world economy where just a few people could hold almost all the power. Maybe most of the power in the US was held by a small number of Americans, and most power in Germany held by a few Germans, and so on. But, with globalization, even elites in minor countries are disempowered by the world's billionaires. 500 years ago, Thai peasants could only be oppressed by Thai oligarchs. Today, they can be oppressed by oligarchs on the other side of the planet. And when an oligarch's reach can be worldwide, you just don't need as many of them in the system at all, resulting in fewer total of the ultra-powerful. Couple all of that with the automation of work that obviates the need for so many jobs and now more of the fruits of value creation goes to the equity-holders. So, more international reach plus stronger command over abnormal profits of value creation results in a greater concentration of power in the hands of a few than we've likely ever seen before in human history. I'm not sure what the question of sustainability really means though. Hopefully it is not sustainable in the sense that the masses may some day be more empowered than they are today. Or do we mean unsustainable as in volatile? Like this will all end in disaster -- depression, revolution, war. Hopefully not, but I have no idea. I'd say we also have some countervailing social structures like democracies, like public participation in stock markets, like public institutions, all of which provide a counterweight to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and take some pressure out of the system.
I think the whole thing is set-up to collapse at some point as a system driven by increasing wealth by moving said wealth from one group to another is ultimately going to peter out.
I get what you are saying, but power was always relative. There were people who held most of the power in every area but some areas were more powerful than others. The elites that held most of the power in the strong countries were always more powerful than those in weaker parts of the world. At one point that was seen via empire building, today it can be done with less bloodshed. It's the evolution of oppression. Honestly I think it's just a result of human nature and I doubt it can be changed.
Poverty is at the lowest levels ever right now. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=10043963&postcount=5 More years worth of data... Spoiler http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/05/news/economy/poverty-world-bank/ http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1 Is this sustainable?
Why did we have all the unrest and revolution in the middle east? It is not about democracy, it is about wealth. People in countries like Syria and Libya were not the extremely poor for the most part. If the trends continues, soon enough there will be revolutions in other countries, just like in many countries during the 1900s.
Did you mean to reply to my post? Because your response doesn't really match up with anything I wrote. Not a lot of people live in Syria and Libya. A lot more live in China and Southeast Asia where the huge advances in poverty reduction have occurred.
I was just pointing out just because relative standard of living have improved does not mean revolutions and wars would not break out in the future, and middle east is the prime example where people want to redistribute the wealth. Even though many places have improved living standards, they are still not high as prewar Syria and Libya in many cases.
Yeah that's because globalization is replacing middle class labor with much cheaper labor rates of the poor. So poverty will take an uptick downward but the middle class is feeling the huge squeeze.
Or you can note the expansion of capitalism in China and stability and Southeast Asia. This has been a very long and sustained trend of declining poverty. This is not just simply an uptick downward in poverty.
It's the race to the bottom that was predicted with globalization. Great for the wealthy, corporations, and third world economies. Bad for first world middle class and poor.
When the standard of living for those at the bottom improves, more of them live longer lives and have more kids thus you have more people living in poverty. Living in poverty is better than starving or dying of malaria so you make that trade off.
A race to the bottom because of globalization? I have no idea where that even comes from. Is that some sort of New World Order talk?
Once we built the credit and communications infrastructure that allowed the wealthy to profit as much off of the public's consumption and entertainment as their manual labor, it became way sustainable.
Yeah Globalization has been happening for a while now, and the poverty rate has declined. But that decline has been funded on the backs of the middle class who are struggling more now than ever - not just in the U.S. but globally. Meanwhile most of the wealth generated by globalization has gone to the rich. The link I shared shows it - the wealth is being sucked out from the bottom half so while poverty is in decline, they are doing it by spreading a smaller pie across an increasingly sized pool. People aren't starving, but they aren't thriving either. Ultimately there won't be any more wealth to transfer.
Throughout history this has been happening, just like throughout history, the populace revolts and kills the people at the top.
The British Empire ran things around the globe for a very long time. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of centralized wealth back then.
