cjoll4@lemmy.world 1 week ago They didn’t say it’s impossible to have society without wealth disparity.
They said it’s “really hard” to have the necessary labor distribution for scientific advancement and to digest other civilizations’ works without wealth disparity.
And they’re right. It’s really hard to make those advancements without having people whose full-time jobs are to be scientists, artists, and scholars. It’s really hard to be a full-time scientist, artist, or scholar unless you’re wealthy enough that you don’t have to work all day for basic resources, or have the patronage of someone who is. It’s really hard to be wealthy enough not to work all day for basic resources unless there’s wealth disparity.
Advancements in technology and governance since the modern era have made it significantly less hard, but in the grand scope of history, it’s been really really hard.
Specialisation is a different thing to wealth disparity. Surplus of resources necessary for human survival allows people to work in fields other than farming and the generation of human survival resources is what allows specialization, it doesn’t mean that needs to lead to wealth disparities. Through technological advantages and a fair social system you can have more people taking turns in food generation that yield loads of food and other resources, and the distribution of those goods can be fairly done.
iocase@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I think you get wealth disparities as a result of specialization. Should a surgeon make the same as a ditch digger? They’re both important to society but almost anyone can dig ditches. Not everyone can learn to be a surgeon, and the requirements are strict otherwise people won’t trust surgeons not to kill them, which is a net negative for society if people don’t trust them. As a result it’s a small group of people who can do it, and it takes decades of dedication just to get to “I am a surgeon” levels.
Voila. Wealth disparity.
A healthy amount is fine and normal. We’re at cartoonish levels where even bare mention of the word “wealth disparity” causes anaphylaxis in some people.
I agree with everything you just said but I don’t see how it refutes the statement I wrote:
If “technological advantages and a fair social system” weren’t really hard to implement, then every civilization would have them.