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by RetroTechie
876 days ago
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True. But what ancient civilizations had individuals with say, >100,000x the wealth of average citizens? Powerful rulers, sure. With their own palaces, pyramids or whatever. Probably with their stash of gold somewhere. But as extreme as today? I'd argue no. A tiny, tiny % of the population controlling a ridiculous amount of wealth, is a recent phenomenon for which there is no need, no good reason, and basically everyone is worse off as a result. That's the weird part, imho. What keeps the remaining 99.999+% of the population from correcting this situation? |
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This is a misconception. A powerful ruler might make his subjects worse off by plundering their wealth. But many of the billionaires on modern lists of wealthy folks grew their wealth via entrepreneurship that made others vastly better off. This is one of the key differences between the ancient pre-industrial and the modern world. Prior to the industrial age it simply wasn't feasible to create such amounts of wealth on a sustained basis, though a skilled craftsman would've been relatively well off.