[cube]

It is my observation that nations which have greater wealth disparity have a greater potential to produce more wealth.

example 1) A society where people are equal can only have wheelbarrows to transport goods because that is the most people can afford.
But a society that has wealth disparity has an advantage. The super rich can invest in railroad tracks.
Obviously railroads have a greater capacity then wheelbarrows.

example 2) An egalitarian society is where everybody must farm with back breaking hand tools like shovels and rakes because that is the most people can afford.
But a society that has wealth disparity has an advantage. The super rich can purchase expensive mechanized farm equipment like tractors and harvesters. This can be rented out to farmers to increase their productivity.

Not only is wealth disparity a good thing.
I believe the more the better!
It is clear that the greater the disparity the greater the amount of capital will be available to invest in advanced technology to increase efficiency.
Because wealth disparity is a good thing, I believe society should encourage it.
The rich should be encouraged to accumulate even more money.
The more money the rich have relative to the common man, the better we will all be off.
Therefore a flat tax system and the elimination of ALL social welfare can only benefit society by producing more wealth.

This will be my last thread I will ever create on this board.
*rides off into the sunset in search of truth and knowledge*

[Hermes]

Torture is a good thing. The more a person suffers, the more their potential for sympathy for another in suffering. If no one is tortured, then no one will have sympathy for anyone else.

[bl00k]

Ofcourse theres some truth. A total egalitarian society is utopian.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')Not only is wealth disparity a good thing.
I believe the more the better!
It is clear that the greater the disparity the greater the amount of capital will be available to invest in advanced technology to increase efficiency.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hermes', 'T')orture is a good thing. The more a person suffers, the more their potential for sympathy for another in suffering. If no one is tortured, then no one will have sympathy for anyone else.

[Quinny]

A poll with no reasonable answer from a guy who bangs on about strawmen and trolls. YAAFJ.

[kmann]

The theory may look good on the surface, it breaks down in actual practice. The problem is that great wealth disparity is usually achieved by oppression rather than innovation, on the good ole boy network rather than merit. It also results in political and economic instability - one of the causes of the great depression was polarized wealth, a small middle class.
Also, social welfare has a place, if minor, especially in a country as wealthy as the US.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t is my observation that nations which have greater wealth disparity have a greater potential to produce more wealth.

[Byron100]

Well, I'm just going to do this the lazy man's way and just say, "Just wait and see."

Time will tell if countries that have the largest wealth disparities will do better than the ones that don't. If Cube's theory is correct, then we'll see verification of this some decades from now. If Cube is wrong, we'll likely see results of that sometime down the line - hopefully sooner, rather than later...LOL.

And yes, I do like pie...especially when there's enough to share for everyone.

[gt1370a]

I think some degree of wealth disparity is a good and necessary thing. There has to be some kind of incentive for people to make sacrifices, work hard, and take risks. The goal of increased wealth is a "better" incentive than, say, working at gunpoint.

Archie Bunker said it best: "The problem with equality is, it ain't fair. What's the point of a man working hard all his life if all he ends up is equal!?"

[Jester]

Many countries with the biggest separation between the wealthy and the poor classes, do not have it good at all. My wife is from Peru, where the difference between the poor that live in squalor and the wealthy that live in their fortress like abodes, is tremendous. The poor barely scrape by and the rich protect their fortunes.

Kidnapping of members of wealthy families is commonplace. It's about the only way the poor have a hope of doing anything other than trying to make enough to eat...

kudos on making a poll without the option to say "no, I think you're wrong"...

[dorlomin]

Large disparities in wealth create crime and corruption. The largest disparities in wealth are normally achieved by the subdugation of the lower classes. The human capital in such states is normally woefully underdeveloped. Nor is a wide gap in wealth necessary for the mobilisation of capital. Through savings, insurance and investments a wide part of society can actively pool its capital so it can be allocated to projects to create more productivity, actualy you can include tax in this as through tax a system of general education can be maintained.

Also historicaly superwealthy elites have gone for vainglorious projects to display their ostentatious wealth. It requires a growing middle class and the growing incomes of a working class to fund the growth in consumption that has driven the industrialised world.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'N')ot only is wealth disparity a good thing.
I believe the more the better!
It is clear that the greater the disparity the greater the amount of capital will be available to invest in advanced technology to increase efficiency.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jester', 'k')udos on making a poll without the option to say "no, I think you're wrong"...

[Hermes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his will be my last thread I will ever create on this board.

[CarlosFerreira]

Your observation would be fundamentally correct in autarky, cube. However, with the possibility that capital might come from outside, I am not sure. If you consider that "society" is all the world, we agree. It takes both capital and labour to develop, but capital is more important for innovation.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'A')n egalitarian society is where everybody must farm with back breaking hand tools like shovels and rakes because that is the most people can afford.

[venky]

Well, I dont by the theory entirely, why cant the poor (or rather the savings of the middle classes; which do form a large portion of the money invested in the world economy) pool together and do everything the rich person can do.

The key is balance; which leads to question of political equality. My view is that too much or too little economic equality inevitably leads to an erosion of political equality; which almost certainly leads to a more autocratic form of government.

If wealth extremes in a society go beyond certain unhealthy levels; wealth will be concentrated in ever decreasing hands; these individuals or groups will able to also concentrate all political (and even policing or military power) in their hands and condemn most of human society to perpetual poverty and lack of opportunity. One only needs to look at the third world today to see numerous examples of this. One can also look at the history of the West for additional examples; like monarchies and kingdoms, the principate of Ancient Rome, fascist dictatorships, plutocracies.

On the other hand too much equality goes contratry to human nature. There are vast differences in the abilities and motivation of various human beings and over a period of time these differences will lead to great differences in the accrual of wealth by these individuals. Equality can be forced only if there is an outside agent (i.e. a socialist government) that actively redistributes the wealth. This naturally is unpopular with those sections of the populace ; the productive ones who feel they are losing in such a scheme. This system will also very likely (as clearly shown in recent history) lead to an erosion of political equality with the political and policing power in the hands of the redistributors, i.e. the socialist elite.

I believe the system favored by the OP Cube will work well if the following conditions are met.

*Ample living space
*Infinite natural resources for all practical purposes
*Perpetual economic growth
*A middle class and an entrepreneural class comprising atleast 50% of the population who would clearly benefit from such a system and are likely to support it.

In other words the United States of the late 19th and 20th centuries which probably is the closest to the ideal Cubestan, that a major nation has ever come to.


P.S. Sorry to see you leave Cube, always enjoyed your posts; and made me appreciate Liberatarian thinking a lot more than I used to.

[vaseline2008]

Here's what sometimes happens...

A World Enslaved

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')eet Benavil Lebhom. He smiles easily. He has a trim mustache and wears a multicolored, striped golf shirt, a gold chain, and Doc Martens knockoffs. Benavil is a courtier, or broker. He holds an official real estate license and calls himself an employment agent. Two thirds of the employees he places are child slaves. The total number of Haitian children in bondage in their own country stands at 300,000. They are the restaveks, the “stay-withs,” as they are euphemistically known in Creole. Forced, unpaid, they work in captivity from before dawn until night. Benavil and thousands of other formal and informal traffickers lure these children from desperately impoverished rural parents, with promises of free schooling and a better life.

[Quinny]

I found the link extremely disturbing. I thought I was reasonably well read, but didn't dream that it could be so easy. Thanks for the link to the site, some interesting stuff there.

The sad thing is that some on here would believe the actions justifiable!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vaseline2008', 'H')ere's what sometimes happens...

A World Enslaved

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')eet Benavil Lebhom. He smiles easily. He has a trim mustache and wears a multicolored, striped golf shirt, a gold chain, and Doc Martens knockoffs. Benavil is a courtier, or broker. He holds an official real estate license and calls himself an employment agent. Two thirds of the employees he places are child slaves. The total number of Haitian children in bondage in their own country stands at 300,000. They are the restaveks, the “stay-withs,” as they are euphemistically known in Creole. Forced, unpaid, they work in captivity from before dawn until night. Benavil and thousands of other formal and informal traffickers lure these children from desperately impoverished rural parents, with promises of free schooling and a better life.

[CarlosFerreira]

The problem with Haiti is not inequality or disparity.. It's a dirt poor country, whose ecosystem has been absolutely torn apart through years of mismanagement and gross appropriation by bad rulers. It's a place with no capacity to support its current population and, as such, it's a country fertile in these sort of horrid schemes.