(Reflections about success and failure.)
For generations now poverty and wealth success and failure have occupied scholars pundits and politicians who carry pocketknives but have an axe to grind. The theme figures in the blame-game which attributes the underdeveloped Third Worlds condition to successful societies. Even if differences in wealth and life-style have always existed it would be a mistake to contend that the attention to the differences" goes back to the beginning of organized society.
The different endowments in means held up as a problem has a short tradition. Until recently the gap separating the elite from the mass had been depicted as natural and as God willed. This explained away what appears to us to be a problem.
General poverty paired with only a few instances of relative wealth sort of a starvation for all" has been mankinds historical lot. As long as the globe had only static civilizations in which yesterday was like today and tomorrow a copy of the present the matter received little notice. In this pre-determined world sameness prevailed and mobility lacked. By submitting to an eternal order man endeavored to be in harmony with what seemed to be unalterable. Our ancestors reacted to their predestined lot by seeking relief through learning to accept their state and not by improving their condition. Coping with suffering was a virtue wanting to eliminate hardship by overcoming it seemed as irrational as the striving for eternal physical life.
Then in response to deftly exploited accidents came an unforeseen development. In the course of the European Middle Ages the seeds of growth sprouted to lay the intellectual and then the material preconditions for change growth and with that the basis of a new consciously shaped social order. A series of revolutions" such as the industrial revolution thrived on new knowledge its technical application pluralism and the emergence of a new economy. With that a new social order could surface with new classes that had unlike earlier castes easily traversed boundaries.
Breaking with past constraints deprivation was replaced by man-made surplus. Converted into capital it could be invested to generate additional wealth by increasing labors efficiency. Such a system required stability predictability and the rule of law. Thereby rational and democratic systems enjoyed an advantage. As a result the more democratically a land was ruled politically the more materially successful would become its society. Good government know-how education and an enlightened citizenry begot an economically thriving community. An expression of this economic power was military might; it guaranteed the security which is a precondition not only of peace but also of material success.
Ergo good government and economic achievement interconnect. Economically modern nations could let trickle down their produced surplus wealth to their citizens. Participation in wealth creation and wealth use the escape from classical poverty- had a political equivalent. As wealth was created and shared - ideally according to the worth of contributions- the mass partook in the good life". While affluence grew it also became shared to various degrees.
An analogous process unfolded in the political realm. Power once concentrated could be diffused in a process of democratization supported by expanding knowledge that expressed the maturity of a well-off body politic. Democracy proved to beget good economics and affluence served as a foundation for its political order.
Once assets of different kinds land machines knowledge and capital- could be held differences emerged expressed by the worth of holdings. As this evolved and as the importance of the various assets changed differences emerged that demanded an explanation. These could range from luck to exploitation" or they might have emphasized the grace of God who blessed the chosen with diligence. Possibly achievement was attributed to ably exploited knowledge and skills.
Suddenly individuality could assert itself also in majoritarian and persuasion-based politics. In the economic area with the growing role of performance in an expanding market the varied inputs created dissimilar results. Perceived inequality grew and so its cause demanded a rational explanation. Modern parties and movements are the outcome. Their explanations of inequality differ as they range from evil" to reward by merit" yet they all agree on one point. It is that politics respectively some form of collective action of those that make up society can stimulate and regulate equality respectively inequality.
Theories propelled by envy and promising just" redistribution emerged. The unequal efficacy of the interventions that politics proposed became apparent. Accepting well-sounding remedies regardless of their proven performance became common. This came about because leaders favor approaches that maximalize their roles and their leadership. Collectivism-guided equalitarian interventions by elites did not remain a phenomena limited to the internal affairs of nation states.
We find the inequality of participants and the hope to undo its consequences by ordinance duplicated among First World and Third World cultures. As the gap within nations that separated the poorest and the richest grew an analogous process unfolded globally.
In both cases moving from a once nearly uniform condition modernization produced standpatters and achievers. While within communities the hiatus between the new classes grew on the world scene a comparable gap came about between cultures organized as nations. To be noted is that on the individual as well as on the collective level mobility between classes and the rise of nations from poverty to wealth from pre-industrial underdevelopment to economic leadership typifies the process. Moving up has not been systemically denied to individuals due to their inherited status nor has the rise of nations been pre-determined by geography resources location race or religion. Nevertheless advancement is and has been so uneven and it invites comparisons between rockets and snails.
Arguably poverty" is a statistically assigned label. Inevitably a progressive societys free market will produce gaps between its classes. The top tier will be richer than the bottom tenth. This difference not only expresses different inputs but it is also an expression divergent goals pursued as well as of modernization. At the same time the difference" has a useful role as a reward and as a stimulant that encourages striving. Totally equalitarian societies are even in the modern context backward and poor. Only orders that extend equal chances but not equal results can advance and achieve various degrees of the good life.
This suggest a lesson which Left-Liberals who think that backwardness expresses the modernitys original sin" should hear -but will assuredly not heed.
Inequality correlates with progress and that it is therefore not
in all of its forms an expression of injustice. Disparity in wealth is not only an attribute of development but also one of its pre-conditions. Artificially imposed leveling results in poverty that is shared by fiat with an exemption for the managers of the system. The threadbare the rich are becoming richer and the poor become poorer" sounds well but are if generalized untrue. As the rich become richer in the context of freedom the poor" also gain. Thanks to modernity dozens of millions of the once destitute have risen from need into what used to be a middle-class existence. If earlier you did not even have a goat and have a cow now then you should not mind if the neighbor graduates from a Beetle to a Beemer.
