November 12, 2024

Wealth and Poverty

 

The fact that there are extremely wealthy individuals does not mean that common workers, the masses as they were once called, are worse off: during Mao's era in China, there may not have been extremely rich people, but common people lived at an infinitely poorer standard of living than today, and millions even died of hunger in the middle of the 20th century. In industrial society, the wealth of some does not imply the misery of others; in fact, great capitalists are found in countries where the masses have a higher standard of living.