Nothing new since Caligula: Wealth always has been concentrated

Nothing new since Caligula: Wealth always has been concentrated

click link

snip


No, we are not experiencing “Income inequality on a scale to make Caligula blush.” From time immemorial, wealth has always, and everywhere, been highly concentrated. And political power along with it. The overwhelming majority of people were poor and counted politically for nothing. Society was divided into two classes -- the Rich and the Poor. Only in the last century was extreme concentration of wealth reversed, although only moderately, and temporarily, in certain developed countries. Today America is once again a nation divided, no longer between the Rich and the Poor, but between the Rich and the Rest.

Adam Smith tells us with brutal incisiveness that “Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor”. This, he says, is why government has been established -- for “the security of property”. Government “is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” Little has changed since his day, except that the poor in our own country are today a small, although shameful, minority.
The rich of Smith’s day (and of all preceeding ages) were nobles and landed aristocrats. Government belonged to them of hereditary right and served their interests. For example, to help pay for Great Britain’s wars against Napoleonic France, income tax (paid by the property-owning few) was imposed and excise taxes (paid by everyone) were increased. When the war was over, only income tax was repealed.

Today’s rich are super-rich businesspeople and powerful commercial, financial and industrial interests.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/nothing-new-since-caligula-wealth-always-has-been-concentrated/article_fae8b774-8037-11e1-b8a2-0019bb30f31a.html#ixzz1s7lXslq4