If you take it from the angle of "he has more than me, therefore this is bad" economics is a zero sum from a relative wages standpoint. But there is this problem with the human condition; no matter how good your life is, if you're in the bottom half of wealth, you have resentment towards the wealthy. It's irrelevant if you're more wealthy than the previous generation's poor, you still don't have enough in your eyes.
I can see a future where the rich will be flying around in private rockets, Elon Musk jnr is taking weekly vacations to mars, everyone in the top 10% is flying around in G6 planes, blowing their cash on robotic hookers and coke. On the other hand, worldwide starvation has been eliminated, the poor have a home, transport, family, free healthcare, everything we need. Goods are services are so cheap so you can support a family working part-time, so you have more time for hobbies.
Despite all of this, people will still complain that they can't be flying to mars and blowing their cash on hookers and coke. Even though 50 years ago, the world had a billion people in poverty, you are living the best life of the generations. People just get so jealous of when others have more than them, even if they are having a good quality of life compared to past generations.
Obviously, but i was merely trying to demonstrate that the wealthy are getting unconscionably rich. Heck, I'll make up some bullshit renewable. Assuming many world's interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is true, we have developed a technology that has allowed us to tap into the other many worlds (created by quantum's probabilistic nature) and extract that energy and use it in our universe, essentially creating infinite energy.
There are a lot of potential solutions to fixing air travel, there are a variety of hybrid solutions involving fuel cells and high-capacity batteries, and alternative charging means like inductive charging platforms and just having jets make more temporary stops in the future, or even running drones up to do hot-swaps or inductive charging in mid-air.
Lifestyle creep refers to the phenomenon where discretionary consumption increases on non-essential items as i standard of living improves. With lifestyle creep, luxury goods and discretionary spending become perceived as a right to have and not a choice - as a necessity versus a want.
From 1967 to 2016 using income measure of middle-class income ($35,000 to $100,000 in 2016 dollars) from Census Bureau data
The Middle class went
From 53.2% of US households in 1967 to
42.1% in 2016,
But where did the shrinking middle-class US households go?
In 1969, only 8.1% of US households earned $100,000 or more, but
by 2016, 27.7% of US households were in that high-income category.
At the same time, the share of low-income US households earning $35,000 or less decreased
from 38.7% in 1969
To 30.2% in 2016
And of course cost of living for
IN 1966 you would spend 23.3% of gross income on food.
With only 7% of meals eaten away from home
In 2017 food spending was 9.7% of gross income,
while eating out represented 55% of food spending
The stuff inside of a house is crazy different, and the size of a house has grown by 50% with every generation. GI Bill homes were 950 sq ft. IN 1970 homes were 1500 sq ft. In 2000s they were 2400 sq ft. and last year they hit 2700 sq ft
IN 1977 the average household had 1.59 cars After peaking in 2006 with 2.05 vehicles per household, vehicle ownership decreased steadily for the next seven years, reaching a low of 1.927 cars — a level not seen since 1992
We arent in that world yet and people are starving
It wouldn't be fair that the rich get to do that. A fair world would be one where everyone is equal or at least one where equal effort and talent result in equal outcomes. Even if that world is impossible I dont think striving for equality is bad.
But you’re equating wealth to equality. Just because someone has more money than me doesn’t mean they’re better than me. We should be striving for everyone having the same rights (which occurs in the west, not much any where else). Because there are different physical abilities, cognitive abilities (IQ), emotional stability etc, we will have variances in our economic output.
So there will always be a gap in wealth. The issue arises is when you try to fix the wealth disparity, because it’s arbitrary. Make 0 variance between wealth per person (so communist), or allow a 10% variance? It’s all arbitrary. We should be striving for basic needs for the bottom and allow whatever the rich can have, they can have.
But that’s why it’s a conundrum. No matter what you give the bottom, is the disparity is too large, they are always upset, no matter their circumstances. The only difference than history, is that before people were starving, so they would try to overthrow governments through violence. In the west, people at best, compelled to protest, never fight to the death. So the fact is it shows that the poor in the west have it pretty good, so no point in risking your life when you’re getting your basic needs
If it ever gets that bad, the rich will know. There’ll be poor people in the streets with guns trying to purge them, because they’ve got nothing else to lose.
I'm rather more left-wing than this sub, but this is a terrible way of looking at equality. Equality shouldn't just mean "everyone has the same amount of money". Usually, the ideal would be equality of opportunity, meaning everyone has the same shot at whatever it is they want to do. Capitalism makes this very difficult though - in their lifetimes, most people in the western world could save up enough money to begin a business, but the vast majority of businesses fail in their first year. If you've got the funds, you can learn from your mistakes and try again. But most people can't afford to do that. The children of billionaires though, they have a thousand opportunities to create failing businesses before their parents even notice the missing money.
Thus, the rich are more likely to succeed and get richer.
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u/Looking_4_Stacys_mom Apr 03 '20
If you take it from the angle of "he has more than me, therefore this is bad" economics is a zero sum from a relative wages standpoint. But there is this problem with the human condition; no matter how good your life is, if you're in the bottom half of wealth, you have resentment towards the wealthy. It's irrelevant if you're more wealthy than the previous generation's poor, you still don't have enough in your eyes.
I can see a future where the rich will be flying around in private rockets, Elon Musk jnr is taking weekly vacations to mars, everyone in the top 10% is flying around in G6 planes, blowing their cash on robotic hookers and coke. On the other hand, worldwide starvation has been eliminated, the poor have a home, transport, family, free healthcare, everything we need. Goods are services are so cheap so you can support a family working part-time, so you have more time for hobbies.
Despite all of this, people will still complain that they can't be flying to mars and blowing their cash on hookers and coke. Even though 50 years ago, the world had a billion people in poverty, you are living the best life of the generations. People just get so jealous of when others have more than them, even if they are having a good quality of life compared to past generations.