Re: MD the quality of equality

From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Aug 17 2004 - 14:58:10 BST

  • Next message: Platt Holden: "Re: MD the quality of equality"

    Hello Wim:

    Wim said:
    > A certain amount of internal equality is necessary to keep societies
    > together. Too much internal inequality (compared to inequality between
    > societies) motivates people to 'defect': it turns them against 'their'
    > (former) society and makes them seek membership of another one that
    promises
    > more internal equality.

    mel:
    You've just pointed out why the American experience was able to
    survive its first fifty years, long enough to become stable. All the
    rural folks were in the same struggle and paying attention to
    taking care of business with only the occasional political riot.

    Contrast that with Venezuela with lots of riots and only somewhat
    less attention to 'taking care of business'.

    Wim said:
    Islamism happens to be such a society that promises
    > more internal equality...

    mel:
    Oh, the distance between promise and the actual execution.

    It often becomes a fine example of the tyranny of the mob in
    Egypt. It becomes 'Golden Handcuffs' anti-thetical to new
    social or intellectual forms on the Arabian peninsula.

    Wim said:
    > A certain amount of equality between societies is necessary, because the
    > whole of humanity is more and more becoming one society in many respects.
    > Too much global inequality threatens people's motivation to seek the good
    > for humanity as a whole and thus threatens the quality of our common
    future.
    >

    mel:
    Even the Pope came out with a similar statement...maybe that's
    what Enron was all about, making sure not too many people got
    rich... ;-)

    In practice the broad bell curve of distribution makes for greater
    stability compared to a severely disparate bimodal distribution for
    wealth, but the really tough part is how this is accomplished.

    thanks--mel

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