Envy is basic to all Left-wing politics. The desire is to tear down the rich.
Let me give a recent example. The headline announced: The World’s Top 1% has 50% of the Wealth.
Shocking! Incredible! A sign of serious social inequity! Something must be done!
Here is reality. You may have heard of Pareto’s law. It is also known as the 20-80 law and the 80-20 law. It operates in almost every area of life. Read about it here. There is nothing controversial about it. There is also nothing new about it.
It was first discovered by economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1897. It has been studied for decades. No one knows why it operates, but it does.
The 20-80 distribution is scaled upward. Therefore:
Level 1. 20-80Level 2. 4-64 (.2 x 20% = 4; .8 x 80% = 64%)Level 3. 0.8-51 (.2 x 4% = .8%; .8 x 64% = 51%)
So, Pareto’s law tells us that about .8% of the population should own about 51% of the wealth. But we are told by the headline that the actual distribution is slightly more equal than what Pareto’s law would indicate. A larger percentage, 1%, owns less than 51%.
The haters of the free market never tell their readers about Pareto’s law, and how it has operated as far back as any economic historian has been able to trace capital ownership and income distribution.
So, we read this.
The wealth of the entire world is now divided in two, with almost half going to the richest one percent, and the other half to the remaining 99 percent.In November 2013 the World Economic Forum released a 49-page report titled Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014. It says that, based on those surveyed, inequality is “impacting social stability within countries and threatening security on a global scale.” Bill Gates on a $1 trillion USD
According to a 32-page study by Oxfam titled Working for the Few, they have calculated:
In a world of 7 billion people, 85 of the richest people on the planet now have the combined wealth of 3.5 billion of the world’s poorest people.The wealth of the richest 1% in the world is $110 trillion, and this is 65 times the total wealth of the bottom 50% of the world’s population.
1,426 individuals have a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion.
The author is unaware that nothing has changed since 1897. He thinks this is something new. It isn’t. The 20-80 rule prevailed in Western Europe two decades before the welfare state’s programs captured the West.
Fact: The welfare state has not changed wealth redistribution. It has only changed who has gotten to the top, and by what rules. The defenders of the welfare state never admit this. The outcomes of their reform programs have conformed to Pareto’s law.
