I mean, you’re not wrong, but it’s worth remembering that the scale of the difference has never been so radical. The wealth gap is wider than it has ever been.
It is. A king could have 5,000 serfs and hey that’s a lot of serfs. But it’s nothing compared to tens of billions of dollars in an economy where most people make 35K a year. And serfs were not hot-swappable cogs like workers effectively are today. Losing a serf was a non-fungible, tangible loss.
It’s apples to oranges comparing medieval feudalism to modern global capitalism, I think it’s folly trying to say one is “better”, but the scale of the latter certainly dwarfs the former into barely perceiveable insignificance.
I mean, you’re not wrong, but it’s worth remembering that the scale of the difference has never been so radical. The wealth gap is wider than it has ever been.
Is it, though? Is it wider than a king’s wealth versus a serf’s? The scale is different I agree, but is the proportion, really?
It is. A king could have 5,000 serfs and hey that’s a lot of serfs. But it’s nothing compared to tens of billions of dollars in an economy where most people make 35K a year. And serfs were not hot-swappable cogs like workers effectively are today. Losing a serf was a non-fungible, tangible loss.
It’s apples to oranges comparing medieval feudalism to modern global capitalism, I think it’s folly trying to say one is “better”, but the scale of the latter certainly dwarfs the former into barely perceiveable insignificance.
Elon Musk’s net worth is about the lifetime earnings of 280,000 people.