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Old 12-09-2006, 04:17 AM
Propertarian Propertarian is offline
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Default Re: Why relative inequality matters

[ QUOTE ]
How do you plan to do that? Especially in such a way that there are still incentives to mass produce the new technology for the rest of the public?

[/ QUOTE ] I can think of a lot of different ways to decrease relative inequality without toppling incentives; most industrialized democracies have used some of them at one point in time. The reason that Japan, Germany, Sweden, Norway (et al) have less relative inequality than the U.S. is not a big mystery but a clear consequence of the rules of the game and government programs.

Over the past 50 years growth and inequality (measured by the Gini) amongst advanced capitalistic nations has been negatively correlated, not positively; correlation is of course not causation, but this is something to keep in mind before you just assume that more equality necessarily leads to less growth.
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