{"id":67586,"date":"2024-04-25T18:30:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T23:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67586"},"modified":"2024-04-25T18:30:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T23:30:17","slug":"the-rich-get-richer-and-the-poor-poorer-but-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67586","title":{"rendered":"The Rich Get Richer and the Poor, Poorer – But Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Rich Get Richer and the Poor, Poorer – But Why?<\/a><\/h3>\n

A Brief Digression into Heterodox Economics<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The Parable of Talents, found in Matthew 25:24-30, is perhaps the earliest written statement of this famous aphorism:<\/p>\n

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him, that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because of this verse, the entire phenomenon of \u201cthe rich getting rich and the poor getting poor\u201d is often called the\u00a0Matthew Effect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, the aphorism was first stated in its modern formulation by the great Romantic poet\u00a0<\/em>Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his 1821 book\u00a0A Defence of Poetry,\u00a0<\/em>Shelly criticized the \u201cutilitarians\u201d of his day by remarking that under their administration \u201cthe rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer.\u201d Today the aphorism is commonly expressed in present indicative tense, expressing a seemingly unchanging pattern observed over time: \u201cthe rich get richer and the poor get poorer\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever its source and tense, no one disputes the truth of the Mathew Effect. Indeed, its factuality is in evidenced everywhere!\u00a0The<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/a>Guardian<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/a>reports:<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869bn (\u00a3681.5bn) since 2020, while the world\u2019s poorest 60% \u2013 almost 5 billion people \u2013 have lost money.<\/p>\n

The details come in a report by Oxfam as the world\u2019s richest people gather from Monday in Davos, Switzerland, for the\u00a0annual World Economic Forum meeting<\/a>\u00a0of political leaders, corporate executives and the super-rich.<\/p>\n

The yawning gap between rich and poor is likely to increase, the report says, and will lead to the world crowning its first trillionaire within a decade. At the same time, it warns, if current trends continue, world poverty will not be eradicated for another 229 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor, Poorer – But Why? A Brief Digression into Heterodox Economics The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The Parable of Talents, found in Matthew 25:24-30, is perhaps the earliest written statement of this famous aphorism: For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30680,3548,3550,34369,869],"class_list":["post-67586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-contemplations-on-the-tree-of-woe","tag-poor","tag-rich","tag-the-matthew-effect","tag-wealth-inequality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67587,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67586\/revisions\/67587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}