Re:1984 v. Brave New World
by barrkel on Friday October 24, 2014 @08:44PM
(#8506719)
I'm not worried about "undeserved" wealth or lack of mobility, I'm worried about increasing inequality.
It doesn't matter if there's a different 1% every year, if 1% owns 90+% of the wealth - and that's where trends are headed.
I think "deserved" wealth often isn't; a lot of it is luck of birth and opportunity, and more of it is being in a position of leverage to earn more by being high up in a hierarchy. But even if it is fully "deserved", it is still problematic.
What does "deserved" even mean in this context, anyway? It is not enough for wealth to be gotten by moral means, "deserved" must reflect a judgement by society as a whole, that everyone is in aggregate and justly better off by rewarding any particular person their particular share of everyone's future production (viewing wealth as a claim on future production).
It doesn't matter if there's a different 1% every year, if 1% owns 90+% of the wealth - and that's where trends are headed.
I think "deserved" wealth often isn't; a lot of it is luck of birth and opportunity, and more of it is being in a position of leverage to earn more by being high up in a hierarchy. But even if it is fully "deserved", it is still problematic.
What does "deserved" even mean in this context, anyway? It is not enough for wealth to be gotten by moral means, "deserved" must reflect a judgement by society as a whole, that everyone is in aggregate and justly better off by rewarding any particular person their particular share of everyone's future production (viewing wealth as a claim on future production).