There is a small number of people who grew up middle class or poor and are rich. This group is divided into two kinds, the ones who realize that being exceptionally gifted yourself does not mean that we live in a fair society and the ones who believe that we do live in a fair society and all others have to do is try hard and succeed like they did. I grew up middle class, one of 6 kids supported by a university professor and have come to the conclusion that even though I have done very well, the world is somewhere in between in terms of fairness. I do believe that people from any class who are extremely talented at something can do very well in most developed countries, and in that sense at least life in those countries is fair. But what is not fair is that very few people in society are extremely talented at anything and in many cases the life of those who arent is pretty bad. Especially in the USA in which the middle class has not increased its standard of living since the 70s and three quarters of the population has no savings at all. In general I believe that societies should be judged not by how the top 1% lives but by how the bottom 20% lives. Better than having the richest people in the world it is that your country has the least poor. I want to see countries ranked according to how the bottom 20% lives. To me the most successful and fair countries are the ones who have not the richest overal, but the richest poor people in the world. Because if those are not doing so badly, then everyone else is doing better! But I was never able to find a statistic like that.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 18:10:42 +0000