Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Different kind of wealth sir;
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However you measure it, I think my point still holds. Some people get rich and drag others up with them; some get rich at the expense of others.
(interesting aside....)
A few months ago I saw a graph on TV, but was unable to find it on the net to post. It was global GDP over time, done in columns per century.
All of history up until 1900 - the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, European colonial era, British industrialism etc etc - add up to 25% of all human economic activity ever.
The 20th century had 50%! In just 100 years we did twice as much business as in the last 10,000.
The other 25% has taken place
in the last ten years!!! And it is still accelerating!
Even allowing for the huge increase in population, this is staggering. Mostly, it's bloody awesome. There are more people further from poverty than ever before.
It is also deeply worrying, because every bit of economic activity has
some cost on the planet. This cannot continue for ever.