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ttosca "It's not in your interest for the majority of the population to suffer financially, emotionally, or any other way."
Firstly, I dispute your figure of 95% being poor in this country.
No, you're right. 95% aren't poor yet. Though the middle-class is shrinking whilst a tiny minority at the very top become unfeasible rich at the expense of the majority. Wealth inequality hasn't been this big since the 1920s.
Secondly, it's also not in my interest to give away half of my families wealth either. If your argument is that an unequal society is a dangerous society then throwing money at the poor, in the hopes that they don't kick off and murder us all in our beds, is no different to the Danegeld of medieval times.
I don't know what Danegeld is, though I'd love to learn. I'm not suggesting you give away half your family wealth. Only that society must be structured in a way that everybody can expect to benefit from the wealth creation that we all produce. Structural adjustments of the past several decades has ensured that most of the income and wealth has gone to a few at the very top.
But in any case, the reality of the situation is that the population will not tolerate being exploited so much for so long. If the situation reaches a critical point - and it will, if things continue along this path - then we're going to see a lot more civil strife, riots, strikes, protests and other forms of resistance.
"This is the kind of society which generates great scientists, artists, poets, authors, playwrites, and entrepreneurs."
No it isn't. The laissez-faire Victorian society produced far more of the above than we are producing today. In modern times, the more libertarian countries have annihilated the more socialist countries of Europe in just about every category you mention.
That's a historically ignorant point. It is true that there were lots of inventions and innovation during the Victorian period. However, this period started before Victorian times. It started with the Enlightenment and Renaissance. This was a time during human history when people were free to inquire without fear of being locked up by religious diktat. It was also a time when people challenged the authority of previous philosophers and 'scientists' like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. The Greek philosophers had been remained unchallenged for thousands of years. Finally, from the 17th Century onward, we saw the development of the scientific method, and from the 18th Century Industrial revolution. These two things contributed greatly to the development and discussion of ideas and technology.
It really wasn't because of 'laissez-faire' economics. What laissez-faire did do was impoverish vast swaths of society, many of whom moved from the country to the city, where they worked in unsafe and unsanitary conditions for 18 hours per day. Many of these workers were children.
It is the reaction to laissez-faire which brought about workers rights and protections, the weekend, 8 hour days, pensions, etc. Society thoroughly rejected laissez-faire over 100 years ago.