The Rich Don't Work Anymore–Working Is for Poor People

I thought that in classic feudalism the lords ("non-working rich") most definitely did have to work to keep their positions - they had to supply men and fight for their king personally when required.

Edit: You can arguably still remnants of this in parts of the British Army - particularly cavalry regiments.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/NZiWbL8p...

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It was the agrarian problem that sparked off the violence that was ultimately to destroy the Republic. Tiberius Gracchus' bill, enacted in 133 B.C. for distributing the public land, after leaving a generous allowance to the occupiers, in small lots to poor citizens, excited such furious resistance among the senatorial landowners that a group of them lynchded Gracchus. This was the first in a series of violent clashes between two groups who called themselves the _optimates_ and the _populares_. The nucleus of the _optimates_ was the small clique of nobles (men whose fathers, grandfathers, or more remote ancesters had been consuls) who more or less monopolized the highest offices and dominated the Senate, but they had wide support among the propertied class, even, as Cicero says, propserous freedman; otherwise they could not have maintained their unbroken hold on the higher magistracies. They were conservatives, who regarded the rights of property as sacred, and therefore resisted bitterly any attempts to redistribute land or cancel debt. They were upholders of the constitution and of religion, which could be used to block any revolutionary legislation. Though at times they had to yield to popular pressure, they always remained the government.

The _populares_ were a much less well defined group. Their leaders were individual politicians or very small groups of politicians, who at intervals attempted to legislate in the interests of the people, by which they meant the common people. Most of them were also nobles, and their usual weapon was the tribunate of the plebs, which was the normal legislative office --- when the Senate wanted a law passed it normally requested the tribunes to put it to the plebeian assembly, and a tribune could pass a law without the assent of the Senate --- and possessed other formidable powers, such as an all embracing veto and the right of impeaching the most senior magistrates (after their year of office) before the people: it was also an office to which it was easy to be elected, since there were ten tribunes a year. The _populares_ developed a regular programme of legislation. First came the distribution of smallholdings to landless citizens. These were at first offered to all. Later, when Marius began to recruit landless peasants into the army, the distribution was limited to time-served soldiers, who obviously had a superior claim. The next point in the programme was the provision by the state of corn for the proletariat of Rome at a price that they could afford. From time to time the _populares_ were interested in the problem of debt, which frequently meant agricultural indebtedness. They were early successful in introducing the secret ballot into voting in the assembly, for legislation, elections and trials. They also stood up against the execution of Roman citizens without a lawful trial; the Senate was very prone to ignore this elementary right of the citizen in what it deemed to be political crises. Most _populares_ advocated the grant of citizenship to the Italian allies. They were generally interested in the welfare of the provincials; most of the extortion laws were promoted by _populares_. Finally, they substituted _equites_ (citizens owning 400,000 sesterces who were not senators) for senators as jurors in the criminal courts.

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(Quoted in greater length above.)

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." —Guess Who

Of course they did. You don't have to spend money to benefit from it. You get access to opportunities people without wealth don't have, most important being loans and such means of raising capital.

Personally I think Pikettys suggestions make sense if we're trying to truly build a system where the quality and quantity of work performed is as closely mapped to the amount of wealth gained as possible. The nuances are difficult - i.e. how do we deal with the fact that parents want the best education for their children, etc? There must be set some thresholds, and as usual, people will find ways to circumvent those thresholds.

Opinions also differ on how big of a role luck plays. I lean towards the view that noone truly 'deserves' wealth because they are all products of their genes and upbringing, so if someone is lazy, is it truly their 'fault'? They lack certain neurological impulses that other people have, but how were they supposed to gain these impulses in the first place? Maybe the only difference between that person and someone non-lazy and 'successful' is that the successful kid once saw a television show about Thomas Edison which the other kid happened to miss. To me it seems obvious that it is these kinds of coincidences that make a person what s/he is. Then we create environments to make certain coincidences more probable, but there are never any guarantees that your child will not become a heroin addict, develop mental issues, or what have you. And I don't think the child is ever truly 'at fault' although we may phrase it as such in order to try to import the correct neurological pathways in our child's brain.

And the same is true for the occurrences that lead to massive wealth. In many cases it takes genius (which, as I argued above, is a matter of chance IMO) but as many people will attest, genius is only part of it - you also have to be at the right place at the right time.

Given all this it seems unreasonable to me to say that any wealth is 'deserved'. In my view, the only thing that can positively be derived from the concept of wealth is as a motivator for people to innovate. Thus, when wealth becomes something that you inherit, it has less of a sociological purpose.

I call BS on "any of it". They spent enough -- and not that much is really needed compared to their total wealth -- to live like kings, with several luxury houses all across the country/globe, yachts, private jets, parties and all.

>I don't know enough about the Clinton welfare reforms to have an informed opinion but having a job makes it a great deal easier to get another job.

It can also make it harder, as you can't go looking for a job when you're overwhelmed working two jobs or 10+ hour shifts (as many of the "lazy" poor do). Besides this all presumes there are jobs for that particular job market -- else, merely looking or at best going from one crappy job to another is not much of an improvement.

The more better of (e.g. us programmers) can take months off of work, even start a personal project, and use our savings to get by for a while before starting to look for a new job. The poor play job seeking in a harder mode. Double so when they're fired from the previous one.

>So 40% of the 10 wealthiest Americans made their own money? That sounds like the mark of a dynamic economy.

Does it really? Seems like it should be comparative -- if 60% done the same in the past, then it would be sounding like the mark of an economy becoming less dynamic...