The Logic Off Topic list

>
> Call it what you like, in the end it is a matter of relativity...  If
> you have wealthy people, you will, by necessity, have impoverished
> people and those who 'come up' do so at the expense of others.  Look
> around you...
>
>
In point of fact we've seen often (by no means always) that all do benefit
from general prosperity though in some periods the gap between the rich and
the poor has grown (France before the revolution, US pre-depression).  There
seems to be little evidence that the wealthy take from the impoverished
(particularly as they have little to give) but there is enough evidence to
merit a debate as to the extent to which the impoverished are kept at some
distance by the wealthy.  In the modern era, anyway, one of the interesting
components of capitalism is conspicuous consumption.  In order for that
consumption to continue to produce higher profits, more people must be
engaged at greater-than-sustenance levels of production.  You may well
define that "impoverished" itself is a relative term and in those terms
indeed it appears we have no means at our avail in the near future to
socialize our societies to the extent necessary to eliminate improverishment
and wealth, even if one desired to (I do not, at least not in that relative
a terminology).  But it appears we may have enough resources to allow for
the relative enrichment of all to a point, perhaps a point which even
supports the billions on the planet now at a Western standard of living.
Then again, of course there is a theoretical limit in population that can be
supported with current technology, but we don't know that limit and we don't
know what combination of techology, enterprise, politics, and other skills
to apply to solve the problems of rapidly expanding populations against
currently finite resources or political struggles over inequitable resource
allocation.