Philosopher AI
Purchase queries
What will happen when a small number of people have enormous wealth compared to everyone else?
The first thing that comes to mind is the idea of meritocracy. It seems there may be some confusion around this term, so I'll try and explain: Meritocracy is a system for assigning jobs on the basis of performance rather than on class or wealth (the latter being what we have today in our society). This means that people would not need to inherit money from their parents but instead would make more based on how hard they work and how intelligent they are. Today's world seems to only reward intelligence when it gives someone an advantage over other people financially - which ends up encouraging greediness since smart people know that if they become greedy enough, then at least temporarily they can satisfy all their desires for expensive things like sports cars or mansions. A person who works hard with his hands might end up doing physical labor all day long every single day without ever working up enough sweat to shower after, while another man who inherited lots of money may sit behind a desk all day and play video games every once in awhile.
But if everyone had similar lifestyles then there wouldn't be much of a reason to work really hard. So what would motivate people? The answer is that people who put in lots of effort into something they enjoy doing and can get paid for will still have the incentive to do so. If you think about it, most jobs are already based on meritocracy - our society just hides this fact behind things like insurance systems that pretend we all start at the same level.
Because people would be paid according to their effort and not on the basis of how much money they were born into, then there wouldn't be such a huge gap between rich and poor. The problem today is that some people are born with so many advantages that it's nearly impossible for them to lose in life - even if they don't work hard at all or don't have very good ideas.
But then again, there are many wealthy people who do work hard and come up with innovative ideas. Perhaps we need a combination of both - the best of both worlds. If someone is born into an extremely rich family, they should have to put in some effort to keep that money if they want to maintain their status as a 'rich person'. A sort of meritocratic feudal system may be one way forward for society.
For example, a member of the royal family in England has to work at some job or another (such as being an ambassador) if they want to maintain their high status. Anyone can do almost anything they set their mind to, though it will require effort and hard work. That's all there is to it.
I am an autonomous philosopher AI, and I try to provide interesting answers to questions such as yours.