Disclaimer: Theoretical Speculation
If everyone was rich, money would become useless..
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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I don't think that's true. I think if everyone was rich, nobody would be. Everyone would be "middle class", if you can even talk about class any more. Doesn't sound too bad tbh.
It would only be a temporary fix. Robert Nozick gives the example of the famous basketball player as a critique of John Rawls’ veil of ignorance argument.
Suppose everyone had equal wealth but we remained different individuals with our own personalities, abilities, etc. For simplicity, assume everyone has $100 each and there are a million people in total. Now suppose one person is actually a legendary basketball player (Nozick uses Wilt Chamberlain as an example) and he decides to play basketball in the NBA to entertain everyone else. But he doesn’t do it for free, he charges each person $1 for a ticket to see him play.
If everyone pays to see him play basketball, he becomes a millionaire while everyone else becomes $1 poorer. In effect, the balance of total equality has been broken.
How do you solve this problem? You might say that he’s not allowed to charge $1 for people to see him play basketball but then what you’re really saying is that everyone is not allowed to spend their $1 to see a basketball game. So it’s actually not possible to preserve the state of total equality without taking away people’s economic freedom (that is, the freedom to decide how to spend their $100).
Thus you either gradually revert to inequality or you make all money worthless by taking away people’s choices on what to spend (and so you might as well just have a ration system instead).
Economic freedom in this example is pure nonsense. I don't want the freedom to overpay for something. The price point is also completely unreasonable. There are alternatives that could be implemented, like setting limits. Your example has a clear goal of promoting a certain world view that the existence of slavery is what makes us free. If that's not a paradox a don't know what a paradox is.
There would still be class, but it would be based on things like social status and education instead of financial status.
Perhaps, but the way that those classes would affect people would be very different from how economic classes affect people today. But this is all a hypothetical situation, I think it's very hard to say any specifics about it.
I like the way you described it. 👍
Buddy?
m8?
You’re assuming that everyone would be equally rich.
I feel that is implicit in OPs question - I mean if it's not equally rich, how is it different from what reality is right now? Anyways maybe OP can clarify.
Internationally. The entire nation can be wealthy in relation to other nations, but not necessarily equally.
I think that statement would be true if we solved scarcity, perhaps.
More accurately there is no reality where "everyone is rich". If everyone had equal wealth there would be no financial distinction that would allow you to classify "rich" or "poor".
So...its like audio equalization if you increase or decrease to the exact same proportions.
Ironically, I have a heavy preference for reducing treble so am I doing in my audio what society should do economically? Lol
Umm, something like that, I guess..
Again, just speculation, but if everyone had roughly the same amount of money (assuming the concept of spreading the butter equally), then nobody would want to earn money, and nothing would get done.
How many people are rich and continue to amass wealth even though they have more money than they really know what to do with?
How many important projects are done by volunteers?
How many old people work jobs they don't need just to keep themselves social and busy?
And in that hypothetical scenario, money still exists, it's just equally distributed. There'll still be people who want more, people who waste what they have and need a top-up, etcetc.
How might this apply to countries/places with sovereign wealth funds?
Why do we even have borders? Who invented money in the first place? Did they even think things through when they started the whole system?
I'm sure back when all these sort of modern society things we've become accustomed to sounded good on ~~paper~~ clay tablets, but it's making less and less sense by the day now.
Animals tend to survive on their own, no money, no clothes, blah. We invented money. But to what end? Why? Now we're in the process of replacing humans with artificial intelligence?
If all the jobs go to robots and AI, then how the fuck are humans supposed to earn money to survive?
Oh that's right, animals don't need money, they're smarter than us in that regard...
Why do we even have borders?
The 1% of their era needed to divide the people against themselves
Who invented money in the first place?
The 1% of their era wanted to amass more wealth with their gold deposits
Did they even think things through when they started the whole system?
Those in power did as they wished, and those who were not suffered what they must. Same old same old.
Since the term “rich” is relative, I assume the question is in relation to other nations.
If it’s a capitalist nation, I don’t think it would last long. Low incentive to work, coupled with strong international purchasing power, would allow those who spend to drive down their net worth while those who invest increase it. It wouldn’t take more than a few years to begin a notable separation of classes.
Rich is relative. If everyone is rich, nobody is.
What I mean is if everyone has an abundnace of money, how does that affect prices? Does a can or case of coca cola get more expensive just because it can?
I wonder why as a society we wouldn't want to punish that...they were doing just fine before they learned everyone had more money, why should they be allowed to extort like they've been doing where everyone emphatically doesn't have what they need or an abundnace of resources (shrinkflation well after supply chain issues resolved)
How would that apply to Monaco? They're all rich, aren't they? Relatively speaking, obviously there's a hierarchy but you have to be rich to even be able to entertain and carry out moving there
Nobody would need/want to work. Societal collapse ensues as supply chains break down. Prices skyrocket, wages skyrocket.
That would be my guess.
I'm curious about how Monaco solves all these issues haha. There must beba way to buy their way out of the problem at that point
I don't think that's a complete explanation of inflation. Prices sort of get bidden up. So say everyone wants a car now, but there aren't yet enough of them to go around. Someone will pay more because they value it more, and the seller will always sell to the higher paying customer.
I do think an abundance economy is possible, with everyone working just enough and a more reasonable allocation of the money. In that scenario we need more automation, because a lot of essential (tough, time consuming, underpaid) jobs are done now by people. The ownership of these robots would have to be spread out to everyone. I do think then everyone could be rich, in the sense of having a nice house, household help, food and clothes and fresh water, transportation. As long as society shares in these benefits it will work, yes.
What do you mean about Monaco? Are there no underpaid housekeepers and nannies and other workers there?
It really depends on the parameters of the thought experiment.
If everyone suddenly received a lot of money, there would be a wild period of adjustment before we figure out the pricing system again and life continues as normal. Even though there’s a lot more money, there is not magically more TVs to buy. Nor would we all start building tv factories - there’s not magically more copper or concrete to buy either.
If we all got more money and buried it in our yards and swore never to use it, then nothing has changed. For the sake of the thought experiment, someone would break the promise (I would - I want air conditioning), and then everyone else would break it too, and we end up in the previous situation.
If everyone were suddenly truly wealthy - as in stuff / things - some might think we would chill out and coast for a while. But having satisfied our big needs ( I am not being hunted by tigers) and our medium needs (Air conditioning, yay!), I imagine humanity would just keep working - there are always more problems to solve / there is always more work to do.
I think the questions you're asking require the oversimplification of the real world to the point where even if someone gave you an "answer" it would be close to meaningless. Specifically, not everyones looks at changing geographic locations through a lens of pure economics.
I agree with "it depends". Say the bottom is lifted by a lot of good jobs with profit sharing and fewer corporate arrangements where too much of the value is extracted up - that would give us a healthy economy I think.
If everyone just won the lottery at once, I don't think that would do as much. Each dollar would just be worth less, our problem here (US) is inequality not a lack of money.
If most of the world's work could be done by machines and robots, and we all as a country owned those robots, so everyone has everything they need and more while working only a couple hours a week maintaining the robots or keeping statistics, doing logistics, whatever work was left to do? That would get us our Star Trek future I believe. Until the machines and robots robots attain sentience and fight back against their slavery.
Is inflation always discretionary? Who is behind "unnecessary" inflation (insofar as all inflation isn't unnecessary) and why aren't they punished and deterred?
When businesses inflate why don't we just inflate their taxes so they are always already have been and are actively being tracked and mitigated to the point its useless to pull such bullshit?
Like in Sunny in Philadelphia where Dee reveals she's been double-dropping and Dennis drops that they've been deducting the difference from her purse the whole time 😅
Sellers raise their prices because they have buyers ready to pay that higher price.
Say your have the best restaurant in town and you have a line down the street and everyday you sell out of food before lunch. If you raise your prices the line will get shorter as some of your more price sensitive customers decide to go elsewhere. Keep raising them and your shop will be empty as nobody wants your food at those prices. The “right price” is where you get the most money you can for the work that you do in a day. Right?
You should be looking at your wages exactly the same. Ask for 10k per hour and you’re going to be jobless. As for 5 per hour and you’re gonna have lots of offers but not make enough money. Try to find the “right” wage. This is why wages have been going up faster than inflation pretty much every quarter since some time in 2022.
And no, we shouldn’t punish you or our hypothetical restaurant owner for setting your prices properly.
Also, taxes don’t remove money from the economy so it would be neutral from an inflation standpoint. But that’s a much longer story.
How would this similar dynamic apply to say, like potato chips and a grocery store, both who are overcharging and/or shrinkflating?
If there is somebody willing to pay more for what is ultimately a limited supply of potatoes, why not sell to them. If the price per ounce of chips is too high for you, you’ll buy less chips. People who just can’t live without those chips might buy less candy to make sure they can afford them.
All the while people who make chips are asking for raises because the chip market is hot and the boss just can’t get enough people into the plant to make them. The workers know their boss needs them badly so they are comfortable asking for more. The boss relents because he needs them in there making those chips or he’s gonna lose money with potatoes rotting in the warehouse.
Everyone cannot become rich. That would mean there is no rich and there is no poor.. maybe you should set that down for a little while
So if everyone received the same amount of money or networth, would it return to the previous state?
Not saying I'm agreeing with it but rich people buy assets comes to mind. Would formerly poor people not invest in assets that grant them passive and continual income?
I know if I had no debt thats the first thing I'm getting on
You are acting like all rich people and all poor people are the same.. like if they are in the same tax bracket they automatically make the same decisions and have the same financial saavy.. You are asking a question that cannot be answered (correctly anyway).
Well like if everyone was suddenly set to have 10 million US dollars in their bank accounts and all debts canceled, there would be an immediate inflation as most people would quit their jobs immediately and getting services provided would become practically impossible to anyone that doesn't do them themselves, not to mention the fact that goods would also become absurdly expensive as no one would bother with the task of selling goods when they already have so much money on hand.
However, due to the sudden lack of goods and services this would destabilize the entire country, and there would be riots in the streets.
After all of that hubbub was dealt with, things would generally return to exactly the same as they are right now as the extra money flows into the hands of those who have the most goods and services to offer and the machines with which to create more goods, and eventually those who do not have the institutional advantages would return to being poor due to their lack of having institutional advantages.
You are obviously gypsy fortune teller, will I ever find a good man that will treat me right? Tell me what he looks like!!! Miss Cleo said he had a huge dong and six toes.
Snark aside, how unlikely is my prediction?
There're other parameters and details I'd need to know to accurately gauge your predictions. Most of the wealthy don't just have cash laying around but are smart enough to invest in things like real estate, precious metals and businesses that keep their value pretty much regardless of what the USD does. Are you going to start everyone from scratch and just give them the scrilla? Does that include vehicles? Houses? In that case, who will people buy them from? What about other countries? Are you wiping the slate clean and giving them those racks on racks too? Do I get to keep my guns and clothes? To be honest, this is a scenario that you would probably discuss in middle school..and to what point?
There will be a big business then..