Maybe they're scared of police brutality, being sent to prison for resisting arrest, having a felony conviction, being unable to get an honest job and feed their kids, etc.
The status quo allows even the poor in the first world to survive with some basic comforts - that can all be easily taken away.
I think that this may be a case where it will take at least generation to really sink in. A lot of the poor are now on borrowed time. If the debt levels for the poor stay consistent, then when they retire they'll have nothing, or worse - be deep in debt but unable to work and make payments. They will need to rely on kids to take care of them, when they are likely not going to be in a great position to do it.
In the US there is still hope for a poor kid to learn some skills (e.g. how to code) and do alright.
If the balance tips, and the average poor hardworking kid has no hope of working his way out of poverty because of crushing poverty or obligations we're likely to see a revolution.
You can get the poor storming the barricades for a couple of similar, but still very different, reasons. The obvious, as is stated, is that the poor are so bad off that they are desperate. But that is not the case in America (or Western Europe) today. So no surprise, and no cause for alarm on that count.
But another is if the belief fades that things can get better. If I am (relatively) poor, but feel that I can work hard and make things better -- or at least that my children will have a real chance to do better than I have -- that's one thing. But if I feel that we have no chance, whether because we are locked out or merely because we don't have access to the kinds of education which would let us succeed, that is cause for upheaval. And increasingly, in America, that feeling is growing.
Note that it does not matter at all whether the stratification is actually rigid or not. No matter how many examples one comes up with of "poor boy makes good," what actually matters is the perception of the poor about their chances. People will put up with a lot more inequality, in wealth or in income, if they think there is a real prospect for them to do better. But if not..
The premise is so far off, I don't know where to begin. Revolutions have complex causes, so trying to predict it from a one-dimensional value like income inequality doesn't make any sense.
Americans revolted over fairly minor issues. Other people stay under very serious oppression for many generations.
Pardon the snark, but I think that you and that misnamed philosophus dude missed the boat on this one - perhaps you didn't read the entire piece?
The punch-line is that non-participation in shared (public) resources by the wealthy is a more significant problem then disparity. An interesting premise having both plausibility and examples. Somewhere back in HN, within the last year is an interesting study of the exact question focusing (I think) on education systems. But healthcare systems also work.
Perhaps I took "storming the barricades" too literally, but the author kept repeating it.
If the author did mean some kind of violent uprising, then I stand by my point. There is little historical basis to think that the sort of inequality should be expected to lead directly to a revolution.
If that's not what the author meant, what did he mean by "storming the gates"? I guess it was a metaphor, but for what exactly? What purpose did it serve? I guess you can say the real point is elsewhere, and the title was just linkbait.
Regardless, it would almost be a challenge to not read the entire piece. It was incredibly short -- but I double checked just because you asked, and yes, I did make it to the end.
This is transparent left-wing propaganda; not sure how it's relevant to HN.
To address the article's question, a recent poll[1] found that only about 1% of the population answered "inequality" in response to the question "What do you think should be the top priority for President Obama and Congress in 2014?"
"Jobs" was much higher at 16%. Therefore one might conclude that most people don't particularly care what their percentage share of the economy is as long as they feel they are fairly paid and reasonably comfortable. After all, we could achieve equality by making everyone equally poor.
Furthermore, the idea that most people would rather work hard and earn their money, rather than seizing it by force through mob uprisings, does not seem to have occurred to the author. The author is similarly apparently unaware that where this has been tried -- by the likes of Lenin, Mao, and Fidel Castro -- it was a failure, and a rather ... bloody one at that.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 16.8 ms ] threadThe status quo allows even the poor in the first world to survive with some basic comforts - that can all be easily taken away.
In the US there is still hope for a poor kid to learn some skills (e.g. how to code) and do alright.
If the balance tips, and the average poor hardworking kid has no hope of working his way out of poverty because of crushing poverty or obligations we're likely to see a revolution.
But another is if the belief fades that things can get better. If I am (relatively) poor, but feel that I can work hard and make things better -- or at least that my children will have a real chance to do better than I have -- that's one thing. But if I feel that we have no chance, whether because we are locked out or merely because we don't have access to the kinds of education which would let us succeed, that is cause for upheaval. And increasingly, in America, that feeling is growing.
Note that it does not matter at all whether the stratification is actually rigid or not. No matter how many examples one comes up with of "poor boy makes good," what actually matters is the perception of the poor about their chances. People will put up with a lot more inequality, in wealth or in income, if they think there is a real prospect for them to do better. But if not..
Americans revolted over fairly minor issues. Other people stay under very serious oppression for many generations.
The punch-line is that non-participation in shared (public) resources by the wealthy is a more significant problem then disparity. An interesting premise having both plausibility and examples. Somewhere back in HN, within the last year is an interesting study of the exact question focusing (I think) on education systems. But healthcare systems also work.
If the author did mean some kind of violent uprising, then I stand by my point. There is little historical basis to think that the sort of inequality should be expected to lead directly to a revolution.
If that's not what the author meant, what did he mean by "storming the gates"? I guess it was a metaphor, but for what exactly? What purpose did it serve? I guess you can say the real point is elsewhere, and the title was just linkbait.
Regardless, it would almost be a challenge to not read the entire piece. It was incredibly short -- but I double checked just because you asked, and yes, I did make it to the end.
To address the article's question, a recent poll[1] found that only about 1% of the population answered "inequality" in response to the question "What do you think should be the top priority for President Obama and Congress in 2014?"
"Jobs" was much higher at 16%. Therefore one might conclude that most people don't particularly care what their percentage share of the economy is as long as they feel they are fairly paid and reasonably comfortable. After all, we could achieve equality by making everyone equally poor.
Furthermore, the idea that most people would rather work hard and earn their money, rather than seizing it by force through mob uprisings, does not seem to have occurred to the author. The author is similarly apparently unaware that where this has been tried -- by the likes of Lenin, Mao, and Fidel Castro -- it was a failure, and a rather ... bloody one at that.
[1] http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-ins...
I'm sorry, but if one is poor they are not buying $550 fridges from IKEA. They're buying $100 fridges off of Craigslist.