re: #330 Dark_Falcon

I don’t see that as tied to disparity, though. If everyone gets richer, how much does it matter if the guy at the top get richer faster?

First of all, everyone isn’t getting richer, and that’s one of the key parts of income disparity. Wages for most have stagnated, or shrunk. Income for the highest income earners has risen. So, what you’re saying is a hypothetical not related to our situation.

What you’re talking about is a situation where everyone is getting wealthier every year— as in, everyone is able to buy more medical care than they could last year, more housing, more food— but some people are getting much more wealthy every year. In that case, the problems are limited by scarcity; that could still be a problem if, for example, as in Japan, land and space were at a premium. Japan has a much lower income disparity than we do. If they had a much higher one, then even in boom times where everyone was profiting hugely, those whose incomes were rising at a faster rate could afford to pay higher prices for the larger pieces of land.

So, when you have a scarcity— be it land, medical care, or access to politicians— then income disparity is always going to make that scarcity worse. In Japan, a higher income disparity would mean that the ordinary workers, even if their incomes increased year by year, would be able to afford smaller apartments, since that good would be more and more consumed by those at the higher end of the income scale.

If there are no scarcities, there are no problems with income disparity. When we reach a post-scarcity society, let me know, I’ll throw a party.