From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: Re: War, Compet., Capitalism, Prosperity, Income Gaps
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 11:20 PST
FRED P ANDERSON; DEPT OF MGMT & MKTG writes:
> Re; Eddy Steenbergen's observation that in the capitalist countries the
> gap between rich and poor seems to be widening: Perhaps -- for the great bulk
> of the population that was not born wealthy -- becoming "rich" involves having
> good strategies for accumulating wealth (e.g., get an education, marry and stay
> married to someone similarly educated, take prudent risks, save and invest).
> It makes sense that such strategies will gather more wealth in a lush environ-
> ment than in a stricken one; there is simply more there to be scooped up!
> Fred Anderson
> Indiana Univ. of PA
> anderson@grove.IUP.edu
I think(?) it was in Casti that it was pointed out that the
distribution of wealth in a nation has a fractal characteristic, and,
if I remember correctly, it has a "brownian" spectral distribution,
ie., 1/f squared. This distribution seems to be independent of
the fiscal policy of the nation. See:
@book{Casti:C,
address = "New York, New York",
author = "John L. Casti",
publisher = "HarperCollins",
title = "Complexification",
year = 1994}
John
--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/