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Next time someone trys to blame #capitalism on the cost of cars or a home now compared to in the 50's or at the the turn of the century just remind them we dont have a capitalism problem, we have a population problem. For most people in their 40's the population of the planet has virtually doubled since were kids, there isnt as much to go around as there used to be (and since the turn of the century the population has increased 5x).
And wealth has accumulated with a very small group of people.
This was also true in the past, so you could argue we only have a population problem.
But if we distributed wealth more evenly, there would be much less of an issue.
@ABScientist And yet The percentage of people below the poverty line has went from ~70% > 10% world wide in that time despite a greater wealth disparity... Funny that huh, its almost like having rich people or a wealth disparity doesnt cause poverty at all.
Why do I hear so much about people struggling? Your statistic seems to suggest that there is actually no problem.
@ABScientist No it doesnt suggest there is no problem.. It suggests (and explicitly states) that the problem has gotten much better.. 70% to 10% is a huge improvement, but it isnt the same as saying the problem was eliminated, only greatly improved.
As to why people wrongly think it got worse, thats simple, because fear and hype sells... while things have gotten monumentally better economically for everyone the news still makes money off convincing you the opposite, and it has worked, consistently, for over 100 years.
@freemo @ABScientist Better for everyone except for the extremely poor and, interestingly, the upper middle class.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve
Productivity has also increased greatly in that time, with the benefits going almost entirely to the very wealthy:
https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-at-the-top-dwarf-those-of-low-and-middle-income-households-1
Yes, something trickles down, but not much.
To be explicit notice your elephant curve is income.. it does not account for the change in population, nor does it account for the fact that 70% of people were out of the workforce before and now 60%+ of those are in the workd force… So must of that can be described simply by the fact that the same group now needs 10x more money collectively to make the same money individually, since there are so many more of them
@peterdrake
No as we covered its even better for the extremely poor. Extreme poverty world wide has decreased from 70% to less than 10% world wide… that is absolutely an indication it is better for the poor (since the vast majority of them arent poor anymore).
The literal facts disprove that.. Simply the fact that billionairs keep increasing steadly over those 100 years and during that time poverty and violence went down consistently clearly disproves that assertion, clearly having a greater wealth disparity did not make things worse at all, in fact they have objectively gotten much better.
@ABScientist