Hypothetically, let’s say there is a period of 1000 years where there is at any given time a continuously even distribution of wealth, and zero population growth or decline. Would the global economy as we know it be able to to function, assuming the 1000 year started in the near future?
Also, aside from logistical concerns, would anything change if the population fluctuated during this time?
Even distribution of wealth with respect to what (evenly distributed geographically, or evenly distributed such that every human (adult?) has the same amount of wealth, or what, exactly?)? Furthermore, by what mechanism is the even distribution to be maintained for 1000 years?
According to this, we’d all be living well below the poverty line: Income of the Average Person on Earth - The Physics Factbook
That’s for income not wealth. I saw a thread a while back that stated that if you liquidate everything of value without moving the market and distribute it, everyone would get about $95k. Of course, it is impossible to do that. I also don’t know how it would be possible to keep wealth evenly distributed for 1000 years except by confiscating it if someone got rich. I also don’t know if the economy would grow.
FWiW,
Rob
How could the economy even function? If I pay you $100 for something, there is an immediate disparity in wealth. Especially if I am buying something intangible from you. Total equality of just about anything is kinda a Bad Idea in practice.
What incentive would there be to grow the economy?
The OP needs to define wealth. Assuming the transaction is fair, and if we count assets, exchanging money for things doesn’t change the distribution of wealth.
But - it would be impossibly unstable. Consider an artist who converts $10 of canvas and paint into a painting someone would be willing to pay $100 for. The creation of value destroys the equal distribution of wealth, unless no value add were allowed.
And what about consumables? If I pay $10 for food, I might pay the fair price for the food, but I’d have nothing after. (Unless human fertilizer suddenly became very valuable. 
) It is a bad idea in the same way that exceeding the speed of light is a bad idea.
I think that after the 1000 years is up, the same type of people that are hogging all the wealth today will be hogging all the wealth before long.
If you gave everybody an equal share tomorrow, in 10 years you would see the same distribution of inequality we have today. And 10 years is probably overoptimistic.
Well, I for one, want my 1/6,000,000,000 of the Crown Jewels.
Right Now!
Well for one, the market for ultra luxury goods would disappear overnight.
I dunno the value of the Crown Jewels, but when wealth is concentrated, we get someone worth $6 Billion who gives (lets say) $10 million annually to museums. If we divide up his wealth so that every single person on the planet gets $1 … well, wouldn’t we rather have museums?
With an equality of wealth (taken to mean money), your most likely scenario is that money would be meaningless and instead power and influence would be what people strive for.
When money began to re-emerge, you’d end up with it having to fight it’s way back in against the status quo, where thugs, liars, and mob bosses were best able to rise in society. Being an entirely world run by mafioso and dictators where everything was accomplished through connections, bribes, and threats, it would make a very shaky foundation for a free market to have to build upon. Free markets don’t do well in places where corruption is rampant (except on small scales.)
That is to say, that your best predictor of the outcome would be the USSR and post-Soviet Russia.
The trouble with sharing the wealth is that there’s just so little of it. They usually end up sharing the poverty instead. We have plenty of that.
Sure, *we * would. But the person whose child is dying of malnutrition would probably prefer the $95K.
An important economic concept to bring to this discussion is comparative advantage. That is the relative ease with which someone produces something. Someone may produce art easily but struggle to produce food. Another person may grow food readily but be unable to produce art. They create value by producing what they do best and exchanging. This is what motivates the growth of the economy, and I would argue that it would continue to motivate growth under this hypothetical equal wealth scenario, assuming equal wealth doesn’t mean identical wealth and identical human capital.
I think the advantage would go to people with a comparative advantage in producing something that was very useful to people with about $95k in assets. Further, the advantage would probably go to people who produced something very useful to people with $95k in assets who weren’t used to having much money and could basically support themselves in subsistence but not do much else. Very speculatively, I think that brings us to bankers.
First off, how is the money (wealth) redistributed after the transaction? Are actual goods transferred between people or cash equivalents? Who is doing the transferring? If this is all magical, then all answers are meaningless, unless you also program all humans to also be robots.
Assuming money is redistributed (that is the easiest scenario) and assuming men with guns threatening peoples lives forcibly (for those who don’t follow some other written down procedure or enactment) is what ultimately enforces the redistribution, the world will either become a marvelous Utopia of 1000 years of peace or, much more likely, engulf itself in anarchy causing whatever economy is in place to come crashing down and a feudal society rising from whatever ashes remain from the fallout of widespread, global, violent revolution. Then, and only then, will a free market society eventually (give or take 200 or so more years) rise to something representing current markets today (assuming all else being equal.)