Re:Income inequality today may be higher today than in any o...
by TheOtherHobbes on Saturday July 02, 2016 @03:06PM
(#12023481)
It's also true there are different kinds of demand.
Poor people need a mass market economy. They need the support of huge economic and physical supply chains to create/grow/ship/distribute/sell food and goods.
The economy of the rich tends to rely on boutique artisanal goods and services that are more likely to handcrafted, hand-made, and labour intensive - for a very much smaller volume of labour.
You can't run an economy if the former networks aren't profitable because they supply essential goods and services to most of the population. They also create employment for large numbers of people.
You can run an economy quite happily if no one at all is producing hyper-expensive yachts and one-off handbags.
Worse, you can't run the economy of the rich without the economy of the poor to support it. The rich economy only works when it can skim profitability off the poor. If there is no profitability, everyone goes bankrupt.
Poor people need a mass market economy. They need the support of huge economic and physical supply chains to create/grow/ship/distribute/sell food and goods.
The economy of the rich tends to rely on boutique artisanal goods and services that are more likely to handcrafted, hand-made, and labour intensive - for a very much smaller volume of labour.
You can't run an economy if the former networks aren't profitable because they supply essential goods and services to most of the population. They also create employment for large numbers of people.
You can run an economy quite happily if no one at all is producing hyper-expensive yachts and one-off handbags.
Worse, you can't run the economy of the rich without the economy of the poor to support it. The rich economy only works when it can skim profitability off the poor. If there is no profitability, everyone goes bankrupt.