> societies without wealth disparity end up poorly for everyone. As in starving.
If this is meant to be a reference to Soviet-style communism, then all that shows is that centrally planned economies run by dictators end up poorly for everyone.
They don't end up without wealth disparity, though. In fact, USSR had the highest wealth disparity at "peak communism" under Stalin, when well-off party bureaucrats and high-ranking professionals hired housemaids - openly and legally - to clean their large apartments and dachas, while attending high school required paying money.
Another way to think about it is that USSR was a society in which capital was still controlled by a small elite, but collectively as a corporation (the Party). A particular apparatchik would be living much better than the average worker for ultimately the same reasons - because his lifestyle was financed by wealth produced by other people who did not have the claim to the wealth they produced under the law. But he didn't own his cars and his dachas personally; he merely used them so long as he retained his rank within the Party (which for many people could be a lifetime thing in practice, purges aside).
Both Jamestown and Plymouth colonies started out with communal agriculture, and starved. The Plymouth colony switched to private farms after the first year, and then prospered. The Jamestown colony failed. The San Francisco Summer of Love lasted, well, one summer, and then collapsed. The Seattle CHAZ lasted 6 weeks. The Woodstock commune lasted 3 days, then left the fields completely covered in trash and poo for others to clean up.
Find a commune that has lasted more than a handful of years. The Israeli kibbutzen don't count because they feed themselves from a government subsidy.
But hey, you don't have to listen to me. Communes in the US are perfectly legal (20,000 of them have been tried). You're free to start one with your friends. Please keep us posted how it goes!
Think about what you wrote, it doesn't make sense even at the first glance. Millions of Americans have a yearly income in excess of $1million, for those people, employing house staff is a trivial expense.
And these people aren't even considered 'rich' by the standards of truly rich people.
True, the Soviet elite, like any elite ever, had great resources at its finger tips, and high ranking bureaucrats had access to perks like luxury resorts reserved for Party officials, better cars and luxury housing, I'm pretty sure no one had the excess wealth of having a hundred million dollar yacht (or equivalent), that today's billionaires (including Russian oligarchs) have.
Edit: I'm not allowed to respond to you, probably some anti-flamewar mechanism (and downvote you, which you obviously did to me), so let my answer stand here.
You wrote:
>USSR had the highest wealth disparity at "peak communism" under Stalin
then in when I refuted your post, you replied:
>Was said inequality less than in capitalist societies? Sure
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Mine was that USSR had blatant and obvious wealth disparity, and so "societies without wealth disparity end up poorly for everyone", as OP wrote, doesn't actually describe any existing society. Was said inequality less than in capitalist societies? Sure. But people were most certainly not equal in day to day quality of life, and in fact the more rabidly totalitarian that society was, the less actual equality it had.
And yes, there was one unique way in which Soviets actually had more stratification than pretty much any capitalist society: access to some things (like special stores with imported goods) was gated not on money, but solely on official position of oneself or a family member. Thus some stuff that was nominally well within the range of what the average worker could afford with some saving was in practice just not for sale to the proles, period. In that sense, it was more reminiscent of those feudal societies in which one's social class determined e.g. what color and material one could use for their clothing.
What I wrote means that USSR had its highest wealth disparity under Stalin (i.e. "peak communism" as usually claimed by both tankies and ancaps). Not that it was the highest wealth disparity in human history; that is so obviously not the case, it hasn't even occurred to me that someone might misread it like that.
And I did not downvote your post. Please don't make so many uncharitable assumptions if you genuinely wish a discussion.
If this is meant to be a reference to Soviet-style communism, then all that shows is that centrally planned economies run by dictators end up poorly for everyone.
They don't end up without wealth disparity, though. In fact, USSR had the highest wealth disparity at "peak communism" under Stalin, when well-off party bureaucrats and high-ranking professionals hired housemaids - openly and legally - to clean their large apartments and dachas, while attending high school required paying money.
Another way to think about it is that USSR was a society in which capital was still controlled by a small elite, but collectively as a corporation (the Party). A particular apparatchik would be living much better than the average worker for ultimately the same reasons - because his lifestyle was financed by wealth produced by other people who did not have the claim to the wealth they produced under the law. But he didn't own his cars and his dachas personally; he merely used them so long as he retained his rank within the Party (which for many people could be a lifetime thing in practice, purges aside).