Is increasing economic inequality inevitable without catastrophe?

ucbalumnus
Tue, 09 May 2017 20:56:43 +0000

musicprnt:

Income inequality drives people forward, but there comes a point where that drive switches from aspiring to do better and becomes greed, pure and simple, and that is a problem.

Well, greed seems to be part of human nature, regardless of what level of economic inequality there is.

What may be more of a problem with extreme levels of economic inequality is that it tends to come with lower levels of economic mobility. In other words, the economy shifts to become less of a meritocracy where even those born into the lower classes have a chance to move up to one where your economic outcome is largely inherited from that of your parents. Such an economy tends to be less efficient in the long term as talent born into the lower classes is more likely to be wasted, while popular discontent at the economic situation increases. Such popular discontent may manifest itself into various unpleasant political movements, such as racist ones that see some other racial/ethnic/religious group as the enemy that is stealing jobs from the common people, or far-left-economic-ideology ones with unrealistic expectations of how the economy can be organized. There can also be other social ills like high levels of crime and corruption.