My idea is that the High and Lordly, occupying the top of the pecking order, have, yes, been getting the best of it since we lived in trees. The biggest gets the nicest hunk of whatever's around. Then progress happens and the little folks can get it too, while their betters have found better themselves. Repeat as required. Common understanding has it that the rich of ancient days never had it so good as an American on minimum wage: Health and medicine, abundance of food, clothing variety, entertainment at hand, rapid travel, chance for bettering oneself. The stuff once reserved for kings now is available to the masses. All good; a beautiful, world-changing concept, this "fairness".
One notices, though, that never before in history or prehistory have the haves had so much more than the havenots - in preclassical Greece, for instance, the landed rich made only a about hundred times more than their lessers. To me, the gap indicates that not only are benefits not trickling down, but that the concentrated power - in the base sense of the ability to cause change - which has always been instrumentality of the elite, has outpaced its balance with that which it changes. Think of a child in "those awkward years" where growth outstrips previously learned reflex and body familiarity, and suddenly coordination and grace fall away, bumps and bruises happen and things get knocked off tables. In a situation where power is concentrated far in excess of its surroundings, minor fluctuations create massive disturbance.
The 'Butterfly Wings' effect is relative to the size of the butterfly.
I personally know a case where an upper manager, combing through figures, realized that imposing niggling, nitpicking restrictions on a distant set of subordinate underlings (amounting to immense hassle and a savings of maybe a whole cent) created a profit large enough to multiply justify his salary. It made his career, especially since the negative consequences wouldn't come home to roost till the next guy's administration. With new position and clout, it was easy to find someone to deflect blame until then. And blame there was, because it was a Bad Idea - which in smaller circumstances wouldn't have been worthwhile, but here made big money, and far bigger problems.
We may not yet have starchambers of priveleged titans who change the face of the world with the wave of their smallest fingers - but that kind of ratio of cause to effect may yet happen by accident. I'd like the gap smaller, please, just for safe's sake.
And, dangit, I want private supersonic jets and anti-agathic treatments for me & my friends, too...
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Date: 2005-09-10 10:47 am (UTC)Wealth not a zero-sum game? That's my point...
My idea is that the High and Lordly, occupying the top of the pecking order, have, yes, been getting the best of it since we lived in trees. The biggest gets the nicest hunk of whatever's around. Then progress happens and the little folks can get it too, while their betters have found better themselves. Repeat as required. Common understanding has it that the rich of ancient days never had it so good as an American on minimum wage: Health and medicine, abundance of food, clothing variety, entertainment at hand, rapid travel, chance for bettering oneself. The stuff once reserved for kings now is available to the masses. All good; a beautiful, world-changing concept, this "fairness".
One notices, though, that never before in history or prehistory have the haves had so much more than the havenots - in preclassical Greece, for instance, the landed rich made only a about hundred times more than their lessers.
To me, the gap indicates that not only are benefits not trickling down, but that the concentrated power - in the base sense of the ability to cause change - which has always been instrumentality of the elite, has outpaced its balance with that which it changes. Think of a child in "those awkward years" where growth outstrips previously learned reflex and body familiarity, and suddenly coordination and grace fall away, bumps and bruises happen and things get knocked off tables. In a situation where power is concentrated far in excess of its surroundings, minor fluctuations create massive disturbance.
The 'Butterfly Wings' effect is relative to the size of the butterfly.
I personally know a case where an upper manager, combing through figures, realized that imposing niggling, nitpicking restrictions on a distant set of subordinate underlings (amounting to immense hassle and a savings of maybe a whole cent) created a profit large enough to multiply justify his salary. It made his career, especially since the negative consequences wouldn't come home to roost till the next guy's administration. With new position and clout, it was easy to find someone to deflect blame until then. And blame there was, because it was a Bad Idea - which in smaller circumstances wouldn't have been worthwhile, but here made big money, and far bigger problems.
We may not yet have starchambers of priveleged titans who change the face of the world with the wave of their smallest fingers - but that kind of ratio of cause to effect may yet happen by accident. I'd like the gap smaller, please, just for safe's sake.
And, dangit, I want private supersonic jets and anti-agathic treatments for me & my friends, too...
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