/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>51181140
>>51181383
good lord..

>>49766079
subtle

>>954858

Wealth inequity leads to elitism and aristocracy. In capitalistic systems hereditary wealth is passed from parents to children which grows with each generation to encompass more wealth and assets. Before the age of the internet extreme wealth was not possible within a single generation. It was built up generation after generation, just like hereditary rule in Feudal systems.

The issue with hereditary wealth, just like hereditary rule, is inbreeding. Like the kings and queens of France, England, Spain etc. in the middle ages, Nobles had small social circles and bred within those circles, often with close relatives, leading to inferior off-spring. In many cases noble families fell hard due to weakly bred children who couldn't maintain their position by the poor quality of their genes.

Wealthy families associate with each other and there is a real risk of inbreeding. Not because of lack of genetic material, but the social constructs built up around those families.

You could argue that capitalism is the very essence of natural selection. It is true that wealth and privilege, like environmental adaptations, are gifts passed on by previous generations which provide opportunity and a strengthening of the species, however the theory of natural selection does not take human systems into account.

Humans have surpassed the natural world - to a certain extent. As technology becomes more advanced the issue will only grow worse. Once genetic modification becomes wide-spread and cybernetics a day to day technology, the wealthy will acquire it first and the gap between humans and neo-humans will appear.

Add into that spacefaring technologies and human kind spreading into the stars, do you really want wealth and power centred on a select few to kind humanity into a new stage of evolution.