Only Catastrophe Truly Reduces Inequality

choi

Violence and inequality l Apocalypse Then; Only catastrophe truly reduces inequality, according to a historical survey. Economist, Mar 4, 2017
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... ical-survey-lessons
(book review on Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler; Violence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press, 2017)

Note:
(a) "he [book author] finds that inequality within countries is almost always either high or rising, thanks to the ways that political and economic power buttress each other and both pass down generations. It [regime] does not, as some have suggested, carry within it the seeds of its own demise.
(b) "Only four things, Mr Scheidel argues, cause large-scale levelling. [1] Epidemics and pandemics * * * [2] the complete collapse of whole states and economic systems * * * [3] Total revolution, of the Russian or Chinese sort, fits the bill. So does the [4] 20th-century sibling of such revolutions: the war of mass-mobilisation.

(c) "Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book is the careful accumulation of evidence showing that mass-mobilisation warfare was the defining underlying cause of the unprecedented decrease in inequality seen across much of the Western world between 1910 and 1970 (though the merry old Great Depression lent an unusual helping hand). By demanding sacrifice from all, the deployment of national resources on such a scale under such circumstances provides an unusually strong case for soaking the rich.  Income taxes and property taxes rose spectacularly during both world wars (the top income-tax rate reached 94% in America in 1944, with property taxes peaking at 77% in 1941). Physical damage to capital goods slashed the assets of the wealthy, too, as did post-war inflations."

soak (vt): "informal  impose heavy charges or taxation on <VAT [acronym for 'value-added tax'] would not soak the rich—it would soak the everyday guy struggling to stay afloat>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/soak
(d) "He [author] follows Max Weber, one of the founders of sociology, in seeing democracy as a price elites pay for the co-operation of the non-aristocratic classes in mass warfare, during which it legitimises deep economic levelling. Building on work by Daron Acemoglu and colleagues, Mr Scheidel finds that democracy has no clear effect on inequality at other times. (A nice parallel to this 20th-century picture is provided by classical Athens, a democracy which also saw comparatively low levels of income inequality—and which was also built on mass-mobilisation, required by the era’s naval warfare.)"

Max Weber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber
(Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber' 1864 – 1920; German)
(e) "since the Industrial Revolution general prosperity, regardless of inequality, has risen."
(f) "if history provides no support for thinking that deep, peaceful reduction of inequality is possible, perhaps progressives should set themselves other tasks."

(g) The painting that comes with the review is:

The Triumph of Death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death
(by Pieter Bruegel the Elder [Dutch]; c 1562)
(i) Pieter is Dutch form of Peter, and pronounced the same. See Pieter Bruegel the Elder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder
(ii) Bruegel
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Bruegel
(pronunciation)