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Redistributing wealth

It should come as no surprised that wealth (money, goods, property) is not distributed equally. Be it around the world, in your country, city or village, there are always some people who are richer than others. There will always be some level of inequality, as it is just impossible (even undesiderable, as well as boring) that everyone has exactly the same as everyone else. That's not the point of redistributing wealth.

But there are different levels of inequality. Acording to some estimations, just 1,5% of the world population owns almost 48% of the world's wealth. And this inequality has increased with economic growth, in other words, as the world produces more wealth, less people are benefiting from it. If you're reading this, most probably you are not one of them.

This huge level of inequality between those who have nothing and those who have almost everything has important consequences. People with more wealth are able to use it to affect politics, effectively destroying democracy. It's possible to see this in many countries. Impoverished people have less access to good education and healthy food, have to worry continuously about providing for themselves and their families, live stressed and often surrounded by violence.

We need to stop growing because of planetary limits. If we do that without redistributing some wealth, then we are condemning those who have little to continue living in poverty, and allowing a few to concentrate the existing wealth even more. It is both a matter of morals, but also of survivial, as extreme inequalities can even lead to societal collapse.

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