Couldn’t the collective threat that everyone just diasporas mitigate inflation if businesses tried to pull any funny business?
Why does it work for Monaco?
Disclaimer: Theoretical Speculation
If everyone was rich, money would become useless…
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
There will be a big business then…
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?
