Re: War, Compet., Capitalism, Prosperity, Income Gaps

From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: Re: War, Compet., Capitalism, Prosperity, Income Gaps
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 11:20 PST


FRED P ANDERSON; DEPT OF MGMT & MKTG writes:

 >      Re; Eddy Steenbergen's observation that in the capitalist countries the
 > gap between rich and poor seems to be widening:  Perhaps -- for the great bulk
 > of the population that was not born wealthy -- becoming "rich" involves having
 > good strategies for accumulating wealth (e.g., get an education, marry and stay
 > married to someone similarly educated, take prudent risks, save and invest).
 > It makes sense that such strategies will gather more wealth in a lush environ-
 > ment than in a stricken one; there is simply more there to be scooped up!
 >                                      Fred Anderson
 >                                      Indiana Univ. of PA
 >                                      anderson@grove.IUP.edu

I think(?) it was in Casti that it was pointed out that the
distribution of wealth in a nation has a fractal characteristic, and,
if I remember correctly, it has a "brownian" spectral distribution,
ie., 1/f squared. This distribution seems to be independent of
the fiscal policy of the nation. See:

@book{Casti:C,
    address = "New York, New York",
    author = "John L. Casti",
    publisher = "HarperCollins",
    title = "Complexification",
    year = 1994}

    John

--

John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/



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