# Let's debate wealth inequality **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819 "2005-01-20T23:44:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819/101 "2005-01-27T21:12:04Z")
Are you even certain we can really say that wealth inequality exists at all, except as a temporary step? In the US, most indivudals eventually reach the middle class even if they don’t start there, and then exit it later in life, as far as income is concerned. Secondly, I’m not at all sure you can demonstrate wealth inquality has actually increased. The heady days of Reconstruction and the gilded age were surely the height. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt - they had fortunes much vaster than any modern tycoon I know of, Gates included. Secondly, those big fortunes tend to either dissipate or get invested back again into the economy over time - thus benefiting the rest of us more or less like we would want anyway. While the indivudal may get use of wealth, nobody can hold onto his wealth without giving other people the use of it. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819/102 "2005-01-28T13:04:30Z")
See the example of Colombia where you have huge gaps in wealth and you have a extremely wealthy class that lives behind huge layers of security while the rest of the country wallows in poverty. They travel to Miami on the weekend to spend their wealth and it obviously isn’t trickling down to the masses. So its not a “no brainer” that wealth will “help” others. ``` Naturally the wealthy will spend their money... but their financial heftiness is what also might prevent contenders from defying their dominance on certain markets. Upstart companies would be bought out or outspent. This might create a rigid caste that will never be "poor" again. Social mobility and competition all but gone. ``` ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819/103 "2005-01-28T13:53:00Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > SOMEBODY’S been listening to a little too much Rush Limbaugh. The welfare system was pretty much dismantled back in the 90s, msmith. YOu will fucking starve if you try to get by without working in America nowadays. Frex, here in Georgia the maximum allowable income for SSI is $687 a month – for a family of three. The maximum benefit is $283 a month. Your maximum income per month for a family of three would be about $1000. The average rent on a two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta? $650 a month, leaving $350 a month for food, clothing, utilities, etc. > > Do the math and tell me this is some kind of an incentive. You’d have to be fucking insane to want to live like that. Well if your choice is making $283 a month to do nothing vs not much more for a job, some people will choose to do nothing. That is what a disincentive is. Safety nets are supposed to keep you from starving on the street, not provide luxury. > [@Lulia](#): > > So, to you, the only poor are junkies and unemployables? No, but a lot of people are poor because they have made very bad choices with their lives. Others just don’t have the skills they need to succeed in life. > [@Lulia](#): > > What I meant is that no self-respecting occidental individual will let go of its sacrosanct “right to get rich” to ensure a better distribution of wealth. It’s easy to say that when it’s someone elses wealth. > [@Lulia](#): > > Like Nike or Wal-Mart or whatever would never, in their right mind, pay workers 10$/hour in America when they can pay them 0.50$ and hour in Asia. 'Cause, you know, it would make a huge dent in the profits. And these poor Asians won’t know the difference, because they were never rich anyway. To them, 0.50 $ an hour is a fortune, man, a fortune! Yes God forbid Nike earns a profit. > [@Lulia](#): > > Except now Asia is waking up to the “free market”, and many North Americans are discovering what’s its price. Yes, Asia countries and India are starting to form a middle class which they never had before. And they are developing a taste for the same products our middle class enjoys. I’m also having trouble reconciling the hypocricy of your statement that “occidental” individuals should give up their “right to get rich” but not when it’s “occidental” jobs transfering to Asian countries. I guess wealth distribution is ok as long as it’s being distributed from people wealthier than you. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819/104 "2005-01-28T16:56:22Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Well if your choice is making $283 a month to do nothing vs not much more for a job, some people will choose to do nothing. That is what a disincentive is. Safety nets are supposed to keep you from starving on the street, not provide luxury. Interesting idea of “luxury” you have their. Can’t say I see how $283 a month provides for much in the way of luxuries in the U.S. Perhaps you could enlighten us? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819/105 "2005-01-28T17:00:27Z")
The logic behind wealth inequality is simple. Capitalism creates winners and losers in the economic playing field. I’m cool with that. The winners use the capital they have to retain their advantage in the marketplace. I’m cool with that, too. But the winners, especially the very welathy, also game the system so that they don’t have to pay taxes on their wealth (see the book “Perfectly Legal” for an expose so that the tax burden gets unequalized as much as possible, and so that the barriers to entry into the marketplace are as high as possible for competitors. I am not cool with that. Ultimately, the effect that all the gaming effected by the wealthy is to strangle the middle class and lead to Third World conditions of a wealthy upper class and a vast poor class (see: Columbia). There is considerable evidence already cited in this thread that things are trending that way in America. I would say that’s a problem, unless Columbia is your idea of an ideal future for America. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-wealth-inequality/285819.md?page=5)