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by cycomanic 616 days ago
Except for the fact wages and middle class wealth has not kept up with productivity for ages in most western countries.

Also considering that the super-rich in developing nations are not that far behind the super-rich in developed nations, why hasn't their wealth trickled down and uplifted those developing nations? The reality is that developing nations have even higher wealth inequality, so refuting your argument.

2 comments

Wages won't ever eat up 100% of the productivity gains. That defeats the point of investing in productivity gains. If you have ten ditch diggers, but then buy a steamshovel, the operator of the steamshovel earns more than the ditch diggers, but doesn't earn 10 salaries.

I am from a developing country. There aren't a lot of super rich here. In fact there isn't much wealth at all. Having some greater gini coefficient doesn't mean you have more wealth, inequality really isn't a relevant measure.

If raising wages was the only component to development, Somalia could simply set their minimum wage to $50 an hour and watch the country soar. Wages follow development, not the other around.

Actually my realization comes when seeing that super rich in developing nations don't even compare to super rich in developed nations. Like there's sky above sky. My country's elites bow to world's elites.