Om man nu inte är så fräck att man försöker trolla bort vad som händer med utvecklingen på inkomstområdet i USA, kan man ju hävda att det är en naturlag att de rika ska bli rikare och de fattiga fattigare. Hellre förekomma än förekommas: här får ni alltså en dos av "econophysics" - tillämpningen av teorem från fysiken på ekonomiska fenomen:

"It seems that while the rich have Pareto's law to thank, the vast majority of people are governed by a completely different law. Physicist Victor Yakovenko of the University of Maryland in College Park, US, and his colleagues analysed income data from the US Internal Revenue Service from 1983 to 2001."
New Scientist Breaking News: Why it is hard to share the wealth, 12 mars 2005

Vilka data? Jo:

"The rich are getting richer while the poor remain poor. If you doubt it, ponder these numbers from the US, a country widely considered meritocratic, where talent and hard work are thought to be enough to propel anyone through the ranks of the rich. In 1979, the top 1% of the US population earned, on average, 33.1 times as much as the lowest 20%. In 2000, this multiplier had grown to 88.5."

Men det är närmast en naturlag, enligt Yakovenko:

"This, along with research data from other countries, suggests that there are two economic classes. In one, the rich grow richer while in the other the poor stay poor. Yakovenko explains this by going back to the analogy of atoms in a gas.

The atoms assume an exponential distribution of energy when they are in thermal equilibrium, and pushing the gas away from this state takes a lot of energy and it could prove similarly difficult to shift an economy to a different state. (...)

'It suggests that any kind of policy will be very inefficient,' says Yakovenko. It would be very difficult to impose a policy to redistribute wealth 'short of getting Stalin'."

Så nu vet ni. En jämnare inkomstfördelning skulle vara mot naturens egna lagar (åtminstone, antar jag, tills någon lanserar "econo-thermodynamics": enligt den kommer förr eller senare alla tiillgångar att spridas helt likformigt...) - och kräver dessutom minst en Stalin vid rodret.

Jag gillar tvärvetenskapliga ansatser, men får ändå en väldig lust att utbrista i ett "fysiker, bliv vid din läst".


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