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Comment by iqster | Hacker News Reader

Sadly, that is not the way captialism works. The 1% of people will have everything and the remaining 99% will starve. I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite quotes: "Capitalism is the best system we have for creating wealth. It is a lousy system for the distribution of wealth."

I suspect I will make some flack for this comment. I'm not arguing big govt. Rather, I'm pointing out that in a world where a small number of individuals CAN produce the majority of wealth, we need a better system for redistribution to avoid a dystopian society.

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"The 1% of people will have everything and the remaining 99% will starve"

It's been tried: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

In the US, you try for a wealth distribution anything approaching what you're discussing and what you'll actually end up with is 1% of the population under a constant barrage of sustained small arms fire. Parents aren't going quietly watch their children starve.

Incidentally, I agree wholeheartedly that we need a better redistribution system.

It will be interesting (and terrifying! don't get me wrong, but also interesting) to see what happens if we get to this point - there is no Bastille for the masses to storm, throwing out the entirety of the democratic government would accomplish very little in terms of wealth redistribution, and the military now has the literal capability, though hopefully not the strength of will or weakness of conscience, to kill every member of the starving horde. Our distribution of wealth may not be as skewed as pre-revolutionary France, but our concentration of might is far higher.

"Sadly, that is not the way captialism works. The 1% of people will have everything and the remaining 99% will starve. I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite quotes: "Capitalism is the best system we have for creating wealth. It is a lousy system for the distribution of wealth."

This isn't true. It's one of (if not the best) system for distributing wealth. Anybody can start their own company (look at all the startups on HN alone) with relatively little money and generate wealth for themselves.

I don't think there's any evidence that 99% will starve. Certainly not in this country. Our problem is obesity. This chart on Wikipedia is showing that though in income inequality is increasing, all quintiles are also increasing (inflation adjusted.) Not only that, but the TV's that you can buy now are a lot better than those you can buy in 1940, ditto for the cars, houses, apartments, etc. And food is dirt-cheap if you actually try to be cost-conscious about it.

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