On Feb 23, 2017, at 1:07 AM, grarpamp <[1]grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:

   [2]https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-
   leveler-inequality-violence/517164/
   [3]https://politics.slashdot.org/story/17/02/21/2114240/the-only-thing-
   historically-thats-curbed-inequality-catastrophe
   [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Compression
   The Atlantic has an interesting article on how societies have
   decreased economic equality. From the report: "Calls to make America
   great again hark back to a time when income inequality receded even as
   the economy boomed and the middle class expanded. Yet it is all too
   easy to forget just how deeply this newfound equality was rooted in
   the cataclysm of the world wars. The pressures of total war became a
   uniquely powerful catalyst of equalizing reform, spurring
   unionization, extensions of voting rights, and the creation of the
   welfare state. During and after wartime, aggressive government
   intervention in the private sector and disruptions to capital holdings
   wiped out upper-class wealth and funneled resources to workers; even
   in countries that escaped physical devastation and crippling
   inflation, marginal tax rates surged upward. Concentrated for the most
   part between 1914 and 1945, this 'Great Compression' (as economists
   call it) of inequality took several more decades to fully run its
   course across the developed world until the 1970s and 1980s, when it
   stalled and began to go into reverse. This equalizing was a rare
   outcome in modern times but by no means unique over the long run of
   history. Inequality has been written into the DNA of civilization ever
   since humans first settled down to farm the land. Throughout history,
   only massive, violent shocks that upended the established order proved
   powerful enough to flatten disparities in income and wealth. They
   appeared in four different guises: mass-mobilization warfare, violent
   and transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic
   epidemics. Hundreds of millions perished in their wake, and by the
   time these crises had passed, the gap between rich and poor had
   shrunk."

   The first bubonic plague in England in 1340s led to a huge shortage

   of labor and ultimately contributed to the end of serfdom..

   [5]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_in_England

   wikipedia says:

   The English government handled the crisis well, and the country did not
   experience the extreme reactions that were seen elsewhere in Europe.
   The most immediate consequence was a halt to the campaigns of
   the [6]Hundred Years' War. In the long term, the decrease in population
   caused a shortage of labour, with subsequent rise in wages, resisted by
   the landowners, which caused deep resentment among the lower classes.
   The [7]Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was largely a result of this
   resentment, and even though the rebellion was suppressed, in the long
   term [8]serfdom was ended in England. The [9]Black Death also affected
   artistic and cultural efforts, and may have helped advance the use of
   the vernacular.

References

   1. mailto:grarpamp@gmail.com
   2. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/
   3. https://politics.slashdot.org/story/17/02/21/2114240/the-only-thing-historically-thats-curbed-inequality-catastrophe
   4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Compression
   5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_in_England
   6. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years'_War
   7. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants'_Revolt_of_1381
   8. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom
   9. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death