Jordan Peterson Reveals Why 100 People Have More Money Than Poorest 2.5 Billion Combined — Here’s the ‘Untold Truth’
Jordan Peterson — clinical psychologist, author and online commentator — has suggested the richest 100 people in the world have as much money as the 2.5 billion poorest people. In a YouTube video, Peterson explained that this law “governs the distribution of creative production across all creative domains.” “Something like a natural law,” he added.
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This “untold truth” was compared to a game of Monopoly where by the end of the game, one person ends up with all the money. Peterson explained that this is inevitable when there are multiple trades conducted randomly. He provided an example, suggesting a scenario wherein you take a group of people and give each person $100, then they have to trade with another person by flipping a coin and the winner gets a dollar — and so on, and so forth. Eventually, one person would have all the money while everyone else would have nothing.
According to Peterson, this is a feature of systems of creative production, and a big danger is that all of the resources get funneled to a small group of people at the top. However, he said that by blaming this on the nature of the system, we are underestimating the complexity of the problem. It’s not always the same people who have all the money, but it’s always a small fraction of people who have all the money.
Potential Solutions To Bridge the Wealth Gap
According to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), more than one in four dollars of wealth in the U.S. is held by a small fraction of households with a net worth of over $30 million. ITEP suggested a nationwide tax of 2% on wealth over $30 million could have raised nearly $415 billion if it were in effect, and a similar tax applying only to wealth in excess of $1 billion could have raised $62 billion. This would only affect 1 in 400 households — or 0.25% of the population.
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While this would reduce wealth concentration, others have suggested other solutions, such as bigger investments into federal welfare programs or even a negative income tax. A negative income tax would give people below a certain income threshold a lump sum of money when they file their federal income tax returns.
However, Peterson said simply handing people money isn’t necessarily that helpful. Addiction, money management, scamming — arbitrarily giving certain vulnerable money is like “pouring water in their hands,” Peterson pointed out.
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