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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

Historically, are there periods in which the wealthy holds an abnormally high percentage of wealth like now? If so, what did society do in response? Can we expect the same patterns to repeat?

For example, are there correlations between wealth inequality and the popularity of socialism? Does wealth inequality increase societal instability?

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> Historically, are there periods in which the wealthy holds an abnormally high percentage of wealth like now?

No. Even Roman emperors did not control this much wealth. Nor the patricians.

In the middle ages, even less - the feudal law mandated that the serfs get 33% of the produce from the fields, church 33%, and the local lord the rest 33%.

They didn't control this much wealth because they didn't have any way to create it. "This much wealth" simply didn't exist.

We’re talking ratios here. Second, it wasn’t possible to control it so well as it is currently.

Wealth always exists, and the world's wealth is always 100% at a given point, logically. The share that groups in the society take from that wealth is the topic here as another commenter explained. If the feudal lords could find a way to get 99% of that share like the billionaires do today, they would do it. But it was not possible. It has become possible because we let it happen.

Wealth always exists

No, it absolutely does not. Like civilization itself, it has to be intentionally created and maintained, and it can also be destroyed.

You and I live better than the Caesars did in countless ways. That's what it means to create wealth. Focus more on your own, and less on other peoples'.

> No, it absolutely does not

Of course it does. At any given point in time there is a definite amount of wealth that exists in the world. Back in the stone age at any given point in time, there was a definite value of all the wealth that was controlled by the human species.

> You and I live better than the Caesars did in countless ways

You are confusing the benefits of technological development with wealth. Caesars also lived better than people in the bronze age. Who in turn lived better than the people in the stone age. That does not change what percentages of the existing wealth of their time they controlled, and as a result, wealth inequality.

It depends the time or place you are comparing (e.g., seventeenth century Britain was a more unequal place than modern day Britain).

And in the Middle Ages, even if you just look at Western Europe, wealth distribution could be extremely variable between places and times. A peasant in eighth century Lombardy would have been subjected to totally different customs and laws than one in twelfth century Brittany, same with other segments of society. There was nothing like a universal "feudal law" anywhere. Even the concept of the "church" being a single monolithic thing that received X% of wealth makes no sense (e.g., bishops could simultaneously be lay lords with vast holdings, a monastery could be rich or poor, etc.).

Yes it varied but the main format still stood - the serfs had a sizable share of the economic value and the lords did not have 99% share like they do today.

> Even the concept of the "church" being a single monolithic thing that received X% of wealth makes no sense

Church's own domains and the share that the church receives from the crops of a feudal lord's domain are different.

If anything wealth inequality technically produces societal stability. In the form of a secure ruling class without rivals and thus a more stagnant society. The (god) king or emperor was unimaginably rich but few were stupid enough to try to rob someone who has secured the loyalty of legions. A more equal society results in relatively speaking any Tom, Dick, or Harry being able to influence things and would thus be far less stable.

Note the main point: that societal stability isn't automatically a good thing in itself.

You’re forgetting the times when the ask from the poor was more than they could handle resulting in riots and revolutions.

Well, this theory would be disputed by lots of french aristocrats who had the displeasure of having their heads mechanically separated from their bodies by sharp fast moving heavy blades some centuries ago.

And what happened after that? People love to cite the French revolution as a pancaea/implied death threat to anybody even slightly richer than them but forget what happened next. They not only had multiple monarchy restorations but got a Imperial dynasty which tried to conquer all of Europe.

The final outcome is irrelevant for the people who got their heads chopped.

I bet they'd rather have kept their cranial assemblies attached to their bodies for a few years more at least.

Yes anytime before today. In feudal society you had King/Nobel who owned all and serfs who worked their land.

That's patently false. Feudal law required that the serfs get 33% of the produce from the fields. The economy was mostly tied to farm produce and the serfs could not be kicked out from their houses.

Where did you get that from? You are talking about millions of people scattered over hundreds of political entities over hundreds of years. There might have been some commonalities, but certainly not anything like this rule.

The feudal laws of mostly Western Europe. Eastern serfdom has been much worse and much closer to slavery, however the serfs still had their house and share from the crops. The eastern European feudal lords, dukes, kings or emperors never had access to this much share of the wealth like ordinary billionaires today do.

Ah yes "Feudal law". Which Feudal law?

English. As mandated by the church. The rest of the feudal domains, while varied and some were much more brutal, also had the same setup in which the serfs were entitled to their share of the crop. So the point was and still is valid: Never in history a minority controlled this much of the world's wealth like the billionaires do today, including kings and emperors.

Both sides evolve tactics in reaction to each other just like the parasite and host evolve side by side.

So what you see tomorrow wont look like what happened yesterday.

For countries for which there was data, Piketty collected census and tax data for his book Capital and Ideology and my recollection is the worst inequality in recorded history was during pre French Revolution times where he measured using I think 10 percent bins for each percentage of a nation's wealth. He put all the data on his website, but I didn't bother looking into it further. But he noted that as a society got wealthier, the higher inequality can rise, because the non elites have enough to for basic survival in a wealthy society, i.e. rising tide lifts all boats but only up to a certain point.

Abnormally high like now? Have you read any history? Slavery and monarchy, that's what most of history looks like. What we live in is an abnormally low wealth disparity.

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