# Understanding Risk **URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-risk/576302 **Category:** Great Debates **Created:** [March 28, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-risk/576302 "2011-03-28T20:06:25Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 289
### Author: ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus) #### Post date: [April 5, 2011, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-risk/576302/289 "2011-04-05T08:37:04Z")
A chief reason for income inequality (which seems to be the recurring theme of this thread despite its odd title) was already mentioned in a more aptly-named thread: > [@Why has so much power/influence left labor and gone to capital, at least in the US](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-so-much-power-influence-left-labor-and-gone-to-capital-at-least-in-the-us/575656/30): > > > [@Why has so much power/influence left labor and gone to capital, at least in the US](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-so-much-power-influence-left-labor-and-gone-to-capital-at-least-in-the-us/575656/16): > > > > One of the most important explanations is being overlooked here. > > > > Income sources include workers, and the rent of land and owned capital. In a primitive society the human workers themselves comprised most of the wealth; a semi-skilled worker in a village of 100 might expect to get 1/100 of the income. But with increasing industrialization, more and more of the total wealth takes the form of invested capital, scarce land, and very skilled specialist workers. It is straightforward to conclude that unskilled laborers “deserve” far less than their proportional share. > > That was extremely well said. Curiously, the resident apologist for capitalism’s excesses seemed to understand the point. Perhaps his memory is selective. > [@emacknight](#): > > I work to earn money to buy things I want (99% of which is travel). Remove the option to travel and I’m not going to bust my ass day in and day out. > > … quite a few of my friends … had all the stuff they needed and then began looking at the job they were performing. Some of them took unpaid leave, others scaled back their hours. > > Like it or not, jobs are the result of consumerism. So, only 1% of your income is for non-travel necessities and luxuries. Supposing those needs to be only $40,000/year, that makes your annual income $4,000,000. [DEL]Lucky you!![/DEL] Thank you for being such a hard-working contributor to American greatness. Listening to this, one might almost think **emacknight** is unaware that some workers have scaled back their hours **involuntarily** , and have more pressing concerns than which new consumer electronic device to buy. Wake up, America! The way you let the fat cats dominate discourse makes me suspect that, despite its rhetoric of freedom, your country is becoming the stereotype of a deluded people. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-risk/576302)._