The Sound of Wealth Inequality
February 19th, 2009
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©2008 Working Group on Extreme Inequality
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Using averages greatly MUTES the inequality (pay injustice) - you should take the highest and lowest individual income per hour of work. The inequality ratio is ratio of highest and lowest individual pay per hour of work.
Pay justice is equal pay for equal WORK. You need to go into the point that people are being paid (trillions) for non-work things - their higher pay is being justified falsely by non-work things. Only work produces substantial wealth (goods and services).
Non-work things people are paid for: higher position in hierarchies (not more work), business risk (risk is everywhere; worker risk, which is greater, is not paid or used as justification for higher pay), having studied (study is work, having studied is not), natural gifts (work by nature, not by the individual), owning land (not work), experience (gained with no effort in paid work), skill (natural gift or experience) - and so on.
Pay for no work (overpay, overpower) causes work for no pay (underpay, underpower) - overpay-underpay in theft, causes violence (war and crime), which gets to everyone from richest to poorest. See history. The overpaid (individuals and nations) are attacked by both overpaid and underpaid, both internally and externally.
Fairpay is $40 an hour. Overpay can add no pleasure, because of the physical limits of desires (3000 pairs of shoes and two feet). And danger to overpay is proportional to overpay size, so overpay is always happiness-negative - no extra satisfaction and great danger. Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown. So pay justice is good for everyone.
nigel@orcon.net.nz
March 9th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Great video! Excercising our POLITICAL WILL to organize for better public policy is always worthwhile. Yet, despite public policies, inequality has risen steadily for 30 years, while unionization declines. Even when we legislate ideal policies, they are reversible by the next Administration or Congress.
We need more. We need a Plan B,
which allows us to exercise our ECONOMIC WILL to help reduce inequality ourselves - directly - from within our workplaces, that:
a) can’t be reversed
b) works across economies to reduce inequality globally
c) scales to all levels of endeavor - from self employed individuals to small businesses to large multinationals
d) is technologically based, so it can move and adapt at the speed of business
We’re working on just such an approach at http://www.openyear.org. We call it “Open Pay”, and it allows money to move between people based on relative person to person influence.
We need to exercise both our political and economic wills. Please consider visiting our site and signing up.
Again, great video - think about making a free 1% - 50% ring tone based on it. It would be a great conversation starter.
August 21st, 2009 at 1:35 am
Thanks for a great video. This wealth vs poor issue is killing us. We are now an oligarchy as the wealthy convert their wealth into power and INFLUENCE. aLL THE INFLUENCE RESIDES AT THE TOP.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:22 am
no kidding-
it wasn’t this concentrated even before the Great Depression. Since Nixon, the pendulum has swung backward from the social reforms of the 30’s, and all the crooks and cranks bought their way to power.
A very enlightening metaphor.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
So long as this nation allows legislation to be purchased the current trend of wealth concentration will continue.
No one will ever give a politician $100,000 to do something that is good for the nation as a whole. Politicians are bribed to do what does not benefit the nation but rather the entity paying the bribe. If those who raise large sums of money for political purposes ever hand any benevolent intetions I have yet to see any evidence of it.