What are our prospects for reducing inequality moving forward? What does history tell us?
Walter Scheidel, Stanford history professor, comes to the sobering conclusion that our prospects are poor, since historically only major violent upheavals have actually leveled the playing field. He writes about the 4 primary levelers- plague, war, revolution, and state collapse. Mr. Sheidel argues that these 4 main levelers have decreased in probability in the modern age.
Our current pandemic doesn’t even come close to a real plague scenario that would be effective at reducing inequality. After the Black Plague, workers were able to command higher wages due to labour shortages.
Peaceful means of reducing inequality such as land reform, debt relief, education, democracy, etc have been ineffective according to the author. In most countries today inequality is on the rise and has been for more than a generation. In the ongoing tug-of-war between capital and labour, capital is winning. Major economic crises do level the playing field but only for a few years.
One criticism I would have is that he misses perhaps the greatest leveler of all- natural disasters, but data on this would be very difficult to estimate for obvious reasons.
Clealy we will need to unleash amazing feats of creativity, innovation, and wisdom in order to transcend our history on a collective level. It will take heroic efforts to avoid the further erosion of freedom and opportunities for the mass of humanity. Modern day slavery and a growing underclass are a persistent problem that technology alone has failed to fix.
