[Closed] World's richest 85 people = same wealth as 3.5 billion of poorest

Humans have two modes of behaviour

lol. And not metaphorically.

its a tautology to point out empires conquered - not every people became an empire nor tried

Human nature changes depending on prevailing circumstances.

The system of governance is one of millions of factors that can influence this change.
As is distribution of wealth, provision of necessities, climate, population density etc.

Claiming a direct causal relationship between one type of government and changes in human nature, without taking into account those other factors is simplistic in the extreme.

5thElefant - Member

its a tautology to point out empires conquered - not every people became an empire nor tried

Sure, but they still took slaves, or became slaves. There have always been hierarchies. The everyone is equal socialist dream has no basis in history.

A perfect example. 😀

I'm not sure anyone here is arguing for society to be completely 100% equal - just that it should be a lot, lot more equal than it is now.

The NHS only exists in one country and has only for the last 70 years. Yet it is heavily dependent on companies to delivery it services, from drugs, to MRI scanners, to ultrasonics, x-ray kit etc. etc. Asprin, Paracetamol, GP surgeries, penicillin, x-rays, all existed before the NHS came into being.

Capitalism delivers, but it does need checks and balances, and only a mad republican would argue otherwise. But with the correct ones it is the best system, and we have seen immense changes in the last 200 years, that outstrip anything seen before it.

I'm not sure anyone here is arguing for society to be completely 100% equal - just that it should be a lot more equal than it is now.

Although I think the posters here would be devastated if the world's wealth was distributed evenly.

Although I think the posters here would be devastated if the world's wealth was distributed evenly.

If it happened overnight then sure - but let's face it most people posting on here lead extremely comfortable lives and could easily afford a significant drop in wealth without it causing any genuine hardship.

Apparently the worlds average salary is about £12,000 a year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17512040

If it happened overnight then sure - but let's face it most people posting on here lead extremely comfortable lives and could easily afford a significant drop in wealth without it causing any genuine hardship.

On the plus side we'd see an end of the "I can't lose weight" threads.

I think it's time for an infographic:

[img] [/img]

hmm:

[img] [/img]

hmmmm:

[img] [/img]

Apparently the worlds average salary is about £12,000 a year.

Phew...I'm just scraping in above average. (Just doing my tax return, see.)

Mmm, interesting infographic!

I agree, this is what capitalism delivers. It promotes greed, it creates demand for stuff we don't really need, it strips the planet of resources. God knows what would happen if the undeveloped world gets to a point where it would like to consume as much as say the average Brit or American.

As an aside, if we're going to have free market capitalism, let's not go bailing out big business or subsidising the private sector eh? If a a business has got too big to fail and it fails, then tough!

A material reason why this is getting more acute than we might have imagined 50 years ago is the ability to hold wealth offshore. Massive concentrations of wealth are able to persist offshore, without being overly troubled by taxes on death, on the holding of wealth or on profits. Because of the relative sophistication of "wealth management" as an industry, there is a lot of awareness of how to preserve capital from being wasted or dispersed. Also the lobbying power of increasingly transnational ultra-wealthy families is considerable.

That is a relatively new phenomenon (newer than the idea of breaking up these concentrations using death taxes anyway) and it is one that will be difficult to deal with.

That infographic doesn't show (a) the Elders of Zion and (b) any lizards.

Load of made-up rubbish.

You can take it from him ^^^ he knows.

Capitalism delivers,

we have seen immense changes in the last 200 years, that outstrip anything seen before it.

Done for effect but it has some merit to it

As we ]have used a mixed system either side can lay claim to their side being the best at delivering the gains. you need to be highly poiliticised to claim only one side is responsible for these gains IMHO

Ps if you wish to claim all the gains you need to take all the bad stuff to so capitalism gave us pollution, global warming, nuclear weapons, arms trade, tobacco industry , drug dealers etc

The numbers are staggering and i think people underestimate the differences between million, billion and trillion. Here's something which might help:

1 million seconds = 12 days
1 billion seconds = 31.7 years
1 trillion seconds = 31688.8 years

[b]blooddonor[/b] - Member 
I like this one, 1% of the population of UK pays 26% of the tax!

As toward the rich do with their money, in regard to the UK (and most developed economies) they pay higher trades of tax on relatively large incomes generating significant tax revene (as above) and they pay large amounts of sales tax on what they buy.

@grum you are quite right that on a relative basis we in the UK are a very rich country we could give up a lot of material possessions and still survive. In practice people are not going to do that. We also have on a global basis an extremely egalitarian society with broadly shared opportunities for all with universal education and health care, we are very lucky to live in such a country, by an accident of birth we could have been much worse off elsewhere,

The headline statistic is reflective of massive population growth in poor countries. Governments in those countries see population growth as building a nation and creating human raw materials for economic growth. That's their and their voters choice and not a cause of great stress to us. It's very sad and difficult if they have low life expectancy and food shortages, very low wages but that is a side effect of their policies.

The headline statistic is reflective of massive population growth in poor countries.

@BigDummy - I think the offshore argument is overplayed. If you make it impossible to hold wealth offshore but live in (say) the UK then those people just move to live offshore and the country loses out. There is no doubt taxation of online business needs to change, likewise companies like Starbucks which use multiple companies and transfer pricing to reduce their tax bill but these could be addressed quite simply with an online sales tax and removing royalty payments as being tax deductible.

Nuclear weapons were not delivered by capitalism but by governments, primarily the UK and US. Great technological feat and always nice to have at the back of the cupboard for the next time a mental dictator gets out of hand.

Pollution is interesting, but I think it would happen whatever system we had in place, as ultimately humans are lazy.

It's worth noting that in the early days of the industrial revolution there wasn't much if any government regulation. Things were pretty bad!

If you dont pay folk enough benefits they cheat and fiddle the system therefore we should pay them more money to stop them doing this

Sorry my mistake they are of course immoral scum sponging off us but the rich are noble bringers of wealth who pay their fair share of taxes etc so lets not discourage them from living her and avoiding tax

I think very few will move off shore and we just need to make sure they can never ever return even to visit to see what they really value 😉

Nukes took both private and the public sector to deliver - as does pretty much everything in a mixed economy

Actually the rest of the world is getting richer with many countries heading for coming out of poverty (as defined by the UN) over the next 20yrs. Capitalsm has somehting to do with thisw (not trhying to say it is an ideal system, but nothing is) cause we in the rich west need our cheap consumer goods, so we look to the poorer countries to manfuacture them for us. As they do that they then become wealthier and start to develop their own economies and get richer. In my lifetime things used to be made in Hong Kong, then Taiwan, now China, India, which are all countries that were very poor and are now very rich. in the future it will be Vietnam and eventually Africa. So our desire and addiction to cheap consumer goods is actually partially a cause for pulling poorer nations out of poverty.

But its not a fair world, there is no getting away from that.

I think the offshore argument is overplayed.

The big change is the emergence of offshore financial centres, and the colossal amount of capital that has accumulated in them. That interacts with reductions in the barriers to the movement of capital around the world, and much greater competition amongst countries for investment capital which is ultimately conduiting through the offshore financial system.

As DD hints above, this is my field. I'm not big into writing huge essays on here. The best readable thing on the subject I'm aware of is [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tax-Havens-Globalization-Cornell-Studies/dp/0801476127/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390221212&sr=1-2 ]here.[/url] The numbers are pretty remarkable.

Off-shoring is a distinct issue from tax competition between "proper" countries. Almost no-one lives in the British Virgin Islands, and for very good reason. They prosper because of gaps between (or the deliberate design of) the tax systems of countries that people do generally live in.

If you dont pay folk enough benefits they cheat and fiddle the system therefore we should pay them more money to stop them doing this

@BigDummy if offshore tax havens didn't exist it would not change the headline statistic above, the worlds poorest people are very poor. In fact there is a chance that the rich countries would be even richer.

I blame Dem Babylon:

[img] [/img]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to get biblical on yo asses:

17:3 ...I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written a mystery: Babylon The Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth.

17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

And lets not forget:

[img] [/img]

@Junkyard Capitalism has proven the most successful system by far, pretty much every attempt at anything else has been a dismal failure.

Capitalism has only proven to be resilient, which could be classed as successful, but its only because those with most to gain from it and have a hand in governmental power who keep it on life support.

While you could say it has given us progress over the lets say the last 200 years, it all depends on how you measure that progress. Without the social reform and protections from the previous century that has given us a share in the "bounty" of capitalism, I think many cheerleaders here would think differently.

Well it's time to think differently, as those social reforms and protections are being slowly but surely being removed until we will simply have capitalism in it's worst form once again, which is why inequality in this country is getting worse.

I don't see class these days, I only see two categories. The rich and the rest of us. Cheerleaders, put your pom poms down.

Human society hasn't always been pyramid shaped, that's a very recent phenomenon. A cursory look at anthropological studies will show that the majority of human history was characterised by egalitarianism, cooperation and mutual support. Such elements can still be found amongst the Hadza of Tanzania and the bushmen of the Kalahari desert. Many aspects of their culture are infinitely more civilised than ours.

No amount of population growth can account for the fact 85 people hold absolutely phenomenal levels of the worlds wealth/income NO amount.

Well it's time to think differently, as those social reforms and protections are being slowly but surely being removed until we will simply have capitalism in it's worst form once again, which is why inequality in this country is getting worse.

In Ireland after the crash poverty went down. They measure it against the average income. The average went down so many poor people suddenly came out of poverty. Magic.

Nobody was actually any better off.

So let's take Bill Gates for example. He founded Microsoft and over his lifetime both he amd his company have paid huge amounts in tax as well as generating thousands of jobs. So what exactly would you have had happen instead ?

Then founded the Gates Foundation and is doing more good than most countries.

Be careful mentioning the Gates Foundation. "more good than most countries". Hmmmm. When you look into it it's worse that the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

So let's take Bill Gates for example. He founded Microsoft and over his lifetime both he amd his company have paid huge amounts in tax as well as generating thousands of jobs. So what exactly would you have had happen instead ?

This is something I always think gets overlooked. The natural trickle down and wealth creation not only from direct employment but tertiary service providers too.

Look at Spitalfields Market in London - literally hundreds of stalls selling all manner of (not cheap) food, gifts, clothes etc etc, all small businesses, all viable because of the wealth generated in the City.

Or a reverse of that - I grew up in Luton, and when Vauxhall downsized, the knockon effect was massive to everything from parts suppliers, burger vans, local retailers and so on.

People need to see past the "capitalism is bad" thing that keeps getting spread everywhere. The alternative (some form of socialism/communism) always results in massive poverty and corruption at high level. Human nature drives us to be acquisitive creatures - trying to deny that is a falsehood.

Be careful mentioning the Gates Foundation. "more good than most countries". Hmmmm. When you look into it it's worse that the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Grangemouth is another example, if it had shut most of those folk would have found good paid jobs elsewhere, but the community around it would have had a nasty hit.

The foundation of much modern wealth dates back to the plundering of the new world, with genocide and slavery giving rise to a vast influx of resources and funds into both the aristocracy and the churches...

Thanks to the already vast divide, with continued investment, the rich get richer and the disparity increases; in spite of this, it's not all bad, with improved quality of life for the majority of us, however, as the bank hustle of 2008 has shown, those already harbouring wealth are not content, and want to ensure public money continues increasing the bulging private pockets of the select few.

Even if an individual such as Bill Gates accumulates vast wealth in his lifetime, the combined wealth of many families who's links and allegiances go back centuries means he doesn't hold that much power by comparison.

Interesting discussion. My tuppence worth ...

Capitalism comes in many varieties - some of which are more gentle than others, capitalism is just the risk of capital wealth in endeavour to gain a return. But in any form for capitalism to benefit all there has to be a proper dynamic tension between labour and capital. The golden age of capitalism was post WW2 where growth in wealth was distributed between the providers of capital and normal workers - there was a spiral-up in growing living standards, consumerism and social welfare (and not just in the UK) - production drove wealth and wealth drove consumption etc (Fordism). There are many arguments about why it worked, some to do with balance of power between capital and unionised labour, fear of a demobbed and potentially militant workforce turning to communism pushing against traditional embedded wealth, a feeling of national debt to the working man for the war effort, primarily domestic manufacturing feeding domestic markets so retaining wealth etc...

Apart from that period, the history of capitalism has been a raising of the wealth of the top more than the bottom. This doesn't mean that the bottom (or middle) hasn't benefited, just not at the same rate as the top. So the inequality gap rises - but is the bottom/middle any better or worse off than under an alternative - who knows. Some argue that soviet communism advanced a basically peasant agrarian nation to a modern state faster than capitalism has done elsewhere - despite the horrendous loses of the second world war - but at what cost to personal freedom, human rights and totalitarianism would seem to always lead to corruption whatever the best intentions of the revolution that put them in place.

This is happening more quickly now as the transnational nature of business and the ease of moving capital from one economy to another weakens the position of workers/unions/governments to pursue a social justice agenda. This transnational nature of business means it is very difficult for any single country to pursue socially progressive policy as it damages competitive position.

I would argue that the balance of power has shifted to much to away from labour in favour of capital - but I can't see anything that can be done about it now there is a world economy.

I applaud Bill Gates for trying. If someone amasses wealth to the extent that he had, and then tries to do some good by by-passing all the middle-men and putting it back in at the bottom, then more power to them.

Why don't more follow in his footsteps? And by "more", I mean, all of them. We all end up in roughly the same size coffins don't we?

Arse - I'm really trying not to get involved with the Bill Gates thing.
I need to step away from the internet for a bit and ride my bike.

Good post olddog.

I think the major issue is one of political representation. The vast majority of us would rather see a fairer distribution of wealth. So how come we don't have one? Our democratic system isn't doing its job.

The vast majority of us would rather see a fairer distribution of wealth.

I'd guess the majority (in the West) might say that, until they realised the size of the pay cut they'd be getting.

I already posted the world average salary (12 grand a year). I've lived on that much before happily enough and could do so again.

I was referring to within the UK, where most of us would get a payrise.

However you make a good point, it gets more complicated when you look at the world as a whole.

I already posted the world average salary (12 grand a year). I've lived on that much before happily enough and could do so again.

But many couldn't. I certainly couldn't get near living on that and supporting my family.

We can start with the richest hundred though. It's ok, they can have a nice big house or two, a yacht and enough coke and hookers to do them for the rest of their lives. We can even make sure their (probably useless) offspring are looked after too.

We can see how that goes, then start on the next hundred.

I certainly couldn't get near living on that and supporting my family.

I bet you could get a lot closer than you imagine.