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A comment on US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days. Parent comment

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by paganel on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:46AM (#24079783)
> There has never been a case in human history where one group of people voluntarily gave up their wealth, status and privilege to another group of people. Wealth transfer always leads to violence.

There was an interesting book published about two years ago (I'm too lazy to search for it) which showed that wealth "re-calibration" only really happened as a result of violent change. I know I wouldn't be here in front of a computer writing this comment if it hadn't been for WW2 that brought communist rule to my Eastern-European country, which communist rule brought forced industrialisation with the help of mass education (that was of course free, unlike before WW2). That benefited my parents who could make the "leap" from the countryside to the city. Probably a new war could similarly eliminate the wealth inequality in countries like the US.

Actually I looked for it and I'm 99% sure this is the book: "The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century" [1]

[1] https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691183251/th...

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Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by kortilla on Friday August 07, 2020 @05:36AM (#24080108)
> Probably a new war could similarly eliminate the wealth inequality in countries like the US.

Perhaps just by destroying wealth. It’s unlikely that any violence could improve the US middle class since it’s already richer than the middle class in most other countries. Best you can do at that point is just try to eliminate the wealthy if you’re fixated on income inequality.

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