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Andrew Smith's avatar

We badly need to have a sense of upward mobility - the idea that the people at the bottom can make their lives better through a reasonably fair process involving innovation, hard work, and luck.

When that stops working, pitchforks start coming out. They're out now. There's just so much wealth inequality that the upward component for those at the bottom is virtually nonexistent. This leads to all sorts of bad outcomes like the loss of the rule of law (if there's no hope in improving your status, why bother following the rules of the system?) and a lack of voting. Severe wealth inequality is very, very bad.

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Fay Reid's avatar

Good post, Edwin. Too many people do not understand that any economy ONLY works when regulated toward fairness for all persons in the sphere. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations" published in 1776, while stating that capitalism was the best economic system for prosperity stated it must be regulated and those regulations enforced to prevent the greed of a few to obstruct the good of the many. In America, the two Roosevelt cousins understood this and used the legal system to break up monopolies, strengthen the right of labor so we have had periods where life for the vast majority of Americans was pretty darned good. Then little by little greed raises its ugly head. Con men step in and we return to monopolistic oligarchy. The thing for citizens such as yourself to do is keep asking for laws to prevent the fat cats sitting at the top to accumulate all the wealth, leaving only the dregs for the rest of you citizenry.

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