When the Forbes first compiled the list of top 400 richest people on earth, their combined net worth was $93 billion, this was in 1982 while todays top richest 400 have combined net worth of around $ 2.3 trillion. That is increase of around 24 times in around 3 decades. While in the same period average houshold income rose only 2.8 times.
This fact gives the answer to the question as yes, the gap is increasing.
Let's do some brainstorming and ask some logical questions-
Q. Is it of any importance to us to think about it?
A. Of course yes, if we don't know where are we in the society and how the society dynamics works then we can not do anything to get to an advantageous position or benifit more from the social dynamics.
We can put our abilities for better use if we know how our society works.
Q. Why is the gap?
A. To answer this question we have to ask more questions-
Q. What does rich people do different than the poor?
A. They generally run the business or are investors or innovators or doing something very productive to the society or solving one or more problems of society. While poor people are doing the job for their employer and spending most or all their hard earned money.
Q. What are the advantages the rich have over the poor?
A. They have access to capital, access to intelligence, access to manpower and most importantly they make better use of these things than the poor does.
Q. Does the rich people deserve the money they earn?
A. Yes, they have earned their money in legal ways. Generally people buy their product because they are providing value. Generally they bring the revolutions or innovations to the society which make the living easy for the society. They provide the jobs for the most of the population. So they do deserve the money after doing all this.
So the gap is because of what people do. The rich do different things than the poor.
So the next question arises.
Q. Why was the gap narrow in the past and expanding since then?
A. Before the industrial revolution the gap was narrow because mostly the performance of everyone was linked to physical strength, which was almost equal. No one performed exceedingly better than other. The difference between the performance of the best performer and the least performer was very thin.
But then few people started using there brain more and invented things that made them perform much better, both in terms of quantity and quality, their efficiency was higher. For example use of steam power instead of muscle power. So obviously they received better compensation than others. And they deserved it.
Now the technology is much evolved and gives leverage to better ideas. Thoughts can now be converted in to reality more quickly than ever. For example if you want a kind of app on your smart phone which is not available on the playstore, and suppose you know how to make an app, then you can quickly make than app and if it is really usefull then quickly it will spread on internet like a wildfire, just like the facebook or twitter or whatsapp got popular quickly. As a result you will definitely get rewarded much more than if you were doing the same thing a century ago. People are also more receptive to change today than ever.
That is why the gap between the rich and poor is increasing. Basically it is the gap between the knowledgable and the average people.
So the most important question-
Q. What is the use of this knowledge of the difference between rich and poor to us?
A. This knowledge gives us the CHOICE, whether to be RICH OR POOR. To be poor you just have to keep doing your job under a boss. Or to be rich, you have to work on your ideas and leverage the one which give value to the society. Then you will be rewarded according to the value you gave.
Or you can also stand by or support good ideas and there by benifit in the success of that idea. For example if you purchase shares of a company providing value to the society with ethical business and ethical management.
There is one more way of leverage which anyone can use from like right now. That is THE POWER OF COMPOUNDING. We will learn about it in later post.
So with this knowledge of choice in our arsenal now we will end this question and answers session. We will meet soon, till then, Have a Nice Day..
Sumit
The POWER is when,
you use ODDS
to get EVEN..
