What is going to happen as financial inequality just gets bigger and bigger?

[FishTankSally]

I can't really wrap my head around it. Things seem to be accelerating in terms of getting worse, both in individual countries like the UK or USA, and then on a global level with climate change.

What is the future going to look like, at local level and on a bigger world scale?

If we are in late capitalism now, how long will things trundle along before getting worse?

I sometimes wonder if getting more women back to full time work would help generate more tax etc. Almost half of the UK female population don't work full time.

Once you needed 3 times your salary to get a mortgage. Then it became 5 and then 5 times two salaries. Although women have been working for centuries all that happens is that the gap becomes wider and wider.

I sometimes wonder if getting more women back to full time work would help generate more tax etc

Almost half of the UK female population don't work full time.

Of the working age population?

Just see all the contracts going to friends via the VIP lane during covid. There are agencies getting paid £2000 per day for each employee a government department hires through them.

We need everyone regardless of finances to have fewer children.

how few?

Have people forgotten Ken Livingstone and BJ advertising London properties to foreign investors?! In the early 2000 on one salary (security guard) you could buy a double-fronted house in some places in London or even outer London and now they cost over a million. I don't know what the current mayor is doing regarding the same matter but you are most welcome to educate me with facts!! I only know from the Economist that the Tories forced him to raise the congestion charge in exchange for funding and then were crying "oh look! People have to pay more now, Labour raising taxes".

I sometimes wonder if getting more women back to full time work would help generate more tax etc. Almost half of the UK female population don't work full time.

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06838/SN06838.pdf

In the UK, 15.66 million women aged 16 and over were in employment in October to December 2022, according to the ONS UK labour market bulletin. This means that 108,000 more women were employed than in the year before. The female employment rate was 72.3%, down from a record high of 72.7% in December 2019 to February 2020. The male employment rate was 79.0%.

There were 9.74 million women working full time, while 5.92 million were working part time. Most part-time employment was by women (38%), compared with 14% of men.

Some of that p/t working will surely be because of caring duties older parents and young kids.

Though we got more mother's than ever working

In April to June 2021, three in four mothers (75.6%) were in work in the UK, reaching its highest level in the equivalent quarter over the last 20 years from 66.5% in 2002. In the same period, 92.1% of fathers were employed. This has also increased from 89.6% in 2002 but has plateaued in recent years.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/familiesandthelabourmarketengland/2021#:~:text=In%20April%20to%20June%202021%2C%20three%20in%20four%20mothers%20(75.6,has%20plateaued%20in%20recent%20years.

Labour will get in at the next election and people will be expecting everything to get exponentially better.

When it doesn't, because basically there is no money, things will go even more rapidly down hill. They will try and squeeze the already out of juice middle, there will be an exodus of talent and money (this is already happening) and the UK will be even less attractive than it is now. Life will not improve/get easier.

An example if this is Labour saying that they are thinking of bringing in a law that states employers cannot contact employees out of hours for any reason. Badly thought out policy and a soft approach.

Migration, due to climate change, will massively impact Europe. By this time people (not just the poor and vulnerable) will not be able cope anymore with poor pay and working conditions, poor housing etc and there will be civil unrest not just here but across Europe.

We never get this argument when it comes to paying executives more so we? It's always 'we need to pay more to get the best people '. Funny that.
People who work full time should be able to have a home and enough to eat. It's hardly revolutionary is it?

I listened to a podcast yesterday in which some economists predicted that millions of jobs globally will disappear over the next 2/3 years thanks to AI. Even if it takes a little longer, Unless some kind of universal basic income is put in place we really are fucked. Even sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, says that this is a necessity. That’s an even shorter time horizon than climate change.

Pre-Roman Empire, when the rich got too rich and the poor too poor, they'd have debt forgiveness and land redistribution. A sort of "reset" if you will.

Some of the logic was that, without this, a relatively few would end up mega wealthy and would use it to control the government and everything and everyone else.

As I say, this was abandoned under Rome and never returned.

Incidentally, there is a quote from some posh person's letters from a few hundred years ago (I forget exactly) where he is moaning that the poor don't want to work as they have everything they need - growing/raising some food on smallholdings and common land etc. Maybe that was the inspiration for further Enclosure Acts, to make people less self sufficient and more reliant on landowners and having to work for them just to have any food or shelter at all.

he is moaning that the poor don't want to work as they have everything they need - growing/raising some food on smallholdings and common land etc. Maybe that was the inspiration for further Enclosure Acts, to make people less self sufficient and more reliant on landowners and having to work for them just to have any food or shelter at all
the poor have to be kept in a constant state of need/dissatisfaction so that they will work and the wealthy can sit back and enjoy the fruits of the labours of the poor

In this day and age the poor go to school. Being poor doesn’t mean you are not able to learn. We just need more to aspire to the better paying jobs and not accept poverty. We were poor. It drove me on!

Also, entrepreneurs take risks. They risk their money and back themselves. DD is self employed and DH was for most of his working life. He still does part time work at 70. Others aspire to retiring at 50. Some people really want to run a business and employ people. If they take the risk, they would like decent returns. Ditto when I invest in pensions. I want the bigger companies to turn a profit so the pension portfolios are secure and pay out!

@cosmiccosmos If employing people becomes too difficult, firms don’t invest. I agree with what you say.

Housing wealth is already tapped for social care and who moans about it? The prospective inheritors.

Housing wealth is already tapped for social care and who moans about it?

It's not tapped for care in the home though is it? which the majority of care is.

This sounds like an episode of Black Mirror.

Aspiration is irrelevant. The current capitalist structures we have in our society require each level "up" to be smaller than the one below it. Invert the system or reduce the base and the whole thing begins to crumble as we're now seeing in the UK, particularly in sectors like care.

For this iteration of capitalism to work you either have to continually grow your foundation or suppress those who occupy that level from moving upwards, both of which create huge societal problems down the line (which unfortunately we are now approaching).

I also don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that someone who takes the risk of setting up a business shouldn't receive a reward for doing so. The issue is the rewards are now disproportionate to the risk and are increasingly funded by the exploitation and detriment of the workforce. It also ignores the fact that in many, many cases those who can afford to take those risks in the first place are already in a position of privilege, and by that I don't simply mean being from a wealthy family or having access to money.

@Thebestwaytoscareatory What a load of rubbish! There are millions of self employed people and small companies employing others entirely fairly! Yes. They do need decent reward. They are taking a risk. They don’t have gold plated NHS or teacher pensions. You would not do it for no return or next to nothing. Would you risk everything and set up a business? Those they do should be respected. Not pilloried.

Aspiration is NEVER irrelevant. It gets younger people out of poverty. If others don’t bother or can’t do it, they inevitably have lower paid jobs but no-one is destined for poverty if they can aspire to better work and match it with qualifications.

Agree.

It won't be long though surely, in order to get carers to come to your home you'll have to agree to mortgage equity release and the money goes to the government.

We already have huge financial inequality. Look at what has happened already.
If this gets worse, because governments refuse to tackle it, I expect we will see violence.
We will have small areas with wealthy people surrounded by a sea of poverty. Perhaps that is the country that people want to see because they keep voting for it.

But surely this is because they feel like this is the best option, and that there is no option that is realistically better for their family?

I don't have children, but can see how women are disproportionately affected in terms of the workplace once they have kids. The mother is often expected to pay all the childcare fees from her salary, so there's nothing left.

It's very hard getting back into the workplace after a long break, I've had issues with this due to illness.