[namaan (OP)]

Ultimately, the reason I bring all this up is mostly because I am tired of hearing the idea that the inequality across the world is a natural phenomenon and that achieving equality among all humans (in term of have the basic needs of life met; not the socialist ideals of forced equality of wealth) is idealistic thinking of the worst kind and completely unpractical.

Following from the argument I have made thus far, I would argue that it is the current model of extreme accruement of wealth among a small group of individuals that is idealistic and unpractical as it runs counter to natural effects of all equilibriums.

I appreciate all the feedback that I have received.  [O8)]

[DoctorBeaver]

I still cannot agree that equality of wealth is a natural state. With your example of a dam – yes, the water will still try to follow natural laws and seek the lowest point but the physical end result of the dam being there will be different. The ecology above the dam will change. The watercourse could be altered further upstream. This means that even were the dam removed the original state of affairs may not be re-instituted. And the dam may not necessarily be a man-made structure. An avalanche can have a similar effect to thousands of tons of concrete.

Also, the behaviour of water can be fairly simply explained and predicted – there are only a few rules involved. To try that with a society is impossible. We can say that a particular cause is likely to have a particular effect, but it cannot be guaranteed as human behaviour is so complex. Many governments have discovered that.

If you look back through all of recorded history you will see numerous examples of societies – or groups, tribes etc - wishing to impose their will on others. Animals behave in the same way. It could therefore be argued that this is the natural way of things where sentient, and not-so-sentient, beings are concerned.

Also, you say that the Quran states that you should give away that which is excess. So why do some Moslems have huge houses and drive expensive cars while others have next to nothing? I think that demonstrates the true nature of humans. We are naturally greedy and want more than our neighbours. Yes, it could be argued that this is a result of a man-made hype about status symbols etc but I believe it goes deeper than that.

Humans are competitive by nature. That is how we had to be in pre-historic times to survive and the natural instinct is still there. Society has evolved as a result of human instincts and man-made laws (although some would argue that God – or Allah, or Manitou, or Zeus or whoever – played a hand in it). Instinct and societal mores have shaped each other over the centuries to the extent that it is difficult now to work out which has had the larger effect.

To expect that, left to its own devices, wealth would distribute itself more-or-less equally is, in my opinion, wrong. Some kind of social engineering would need to be involved and that would mean that it would not be a natural state of affairs.

[namaan (OP)]

I guess I failed to make the argument clearly; I lost a handle on it and so I can barely recognize your post as a reply to my post. I do not believe that the analogy I gave can be extrapolated beyond what I specifically mentioned and still remain accurate. In other words, I think you're looking too deep into the analogy. I only used it to link the idea of natural laws governing a familiar concept (flow of water) to a not so familiar concept (flow of wealth).

I believe that you have yet to recognize the distinction I made between the tendency for certain events to occur via natural laws and what actually happens as a result of the behavior of animals. In effect, I am saying “wealth tends to equilibrate among individuals”, not “wealth is actually equilibrating among individuals”. It’s like saying that the sun tends to send light to the earth, one may choose to go inside a bunker with no windows and thus receive no sunlight, however, this does not change the fact that the sunlight tends to reach the earth.

I guess part of the reason why recognizing this distinction is difficult is because it appears to leave a rather pointless argument. You may think, “So what? What does wealth tending to equilibrate matter when it’s not actually equilibrating?” Well the reason I am making a seemingly pointless argument is to provide a different lens for viewing the unequal distribution of wealth; to possibly change the form of discourse regarding this issue. So to me, it is the unequal distribution of wealth that is unnatural, unpractical and idealistic thinking that will eventually fail since it will leave the vast majority of world in perpetual poverty.

Also, let me just comment that Muslims do not define Islam; even if 99% of the 1.4 billion "Muslims" in the world were terrorists and killed all non-Muslims, this still would not define Islam. The meaning of what it means to be a Muslim is defined in the Quran. Regardless of what any Muslim does around the world, this is in no way to be a judgment of Islam if their actions run counter to Quranic teachings. So in response to your question:

why do some Moslems have huge houses and drive expensive cars while others have next to nothing?

The simple answer is that they are not Muslims. When the KKK went out in the name of Christianity and brutally lynched and terrorized the black population in the US, should I use that as a judgment of Christianity even though I am sure that their actions are spoken against in the Bible? So when a suicide bomber, the infamous “jihadist", goes out and blows himself up to kill innocent civilians in “the name of Allah” (disgusting), what right does anyone have of judging Islam based on the actions of these people?

Incidentally, the word “jihad” is seldom used in the Quran, and probably only once or twice for military reasons. Every use of the word refers to struggle in the cause of Islam which almost always means to help your fellow human being.

Muslims aren’t an alien species; they are merely human beings who have accepted the Quran as Guidance from a Supreme Being. The fact that the Islamic State is not firmly implemented on earth is not a failing on its part, but rather a failing of humans. Are you willing to spend of your wealth, life and security for your fellow humans? It is not an easy undertaking, but for anyone who has read any shred of accurate history between the Greco-Roman Era and the Era around the 1300's (which is mysteriously missing from Western history textbooks), you will find that not only was such a system implemented, but it worked phenomenally well.

P.S. Please don't ask "if this system is so great then why did it fail" because although I can provide an answer to this question, it would take too long for my liking and would go off topic. You can either trust me that there was a good reason or find out for your self at www.ourbeacon.com.

[Bored chemist]

I still don't think that the idea that wealth should spread itself evenly is valid.
Things don't do that, they go to the place where the engery is lowest. If I knock over a bowl of sugar it falls to the floor, it doesn't distribute itself evenly through the whole volume of the room. I suspect that wealth too tends to congregate in a limited number of places. That is why many religions and many governmental systems support the idea of redistribution of wealth. Christianity did it by tything, Islam too says that you should contribute to the community and most governments have some form of welfare state. If wealth naturally spread out, none of these would be needed.

[namaan (OP)]

Hi Bored chemist,

Things don't do that, they go to the place where the energy is lowest.

Replace "place where the energy is lowest" with "the lowest societal level" and you will notice that this is exactly what I am arguing.

I suspect that wealth too tends to congregate in a limited number of places. That is why many religions and many governmental systems support the idea of redistribution of wealth. Christianity did it by tything, Islam too says that you should contribute to the community and most governments have some form of welfare state. If wealth naturally spread out, none of these would be needed.

I agree, but I never said that wealth is going to equlibrate to infinity. I just said that it tends to equilibrate (presumably as opposed to some non-equilibrated state).

The point of all this is to be able to say that the unequal distribution of wealth around the world is unnatural, unpractical and idealistic. And further more any system that supports the natural tendency for wealth to equilibrate (such as the Islamic commandment to return all excess profits to the central government for redistribution to the poor), will be sustainable in the long term.

[Bored chemist]

We seem to disagree about what the natural equilibrium state for wealth is. So far as I can see you think that the natural (low energy if you like) state is an even distribution. I certainly don't see mmuch money ending up with the poor.. What exactly do you mena by "the lowest societal level"?
I think that a lumpy distribution where the money is with a few plutocrats is, unfortunately, the low energy state. I'm happy to see that Islam, along with many other systems, sees this as a problem and seeks to address it.

[namaan (OP)]

Hi Bored chemist,

I have already explained everything in your post in previous posts and would rather not have to type it again. Please consider some of my previous posts for a response.

Also, by "the lowest societal level", you can think of homelessness, poverty, working more than full time and still not being able to earn a living wage.

As an aside, I found your post to be somewhat confusing, partly because you are claiming I said things that I never actually said. For instance, I never made any claim on some standard "natural equilibrium state" for wealth. I general, and I have said this over and over again, I am only referring to the tendency of wealth to equilibrate among the various societal levels and make no claim on it actually equilibrating. As pointless of an argument as this might seem, the reason that I make it is to be able to say that it is the unequal distribution of wealth as we see today that is unnatural, unpractical and idealistic in nature rather than vice versa.

I guess I ended up rewriting much of what I already said after all... []

[another_someone]

Hi another_someone,

A system that is in equilibrium is without the capacity to change, and such a system is for all practical purposes, a dead system.

This is a meaningless statement as far as context is concerned. This "dead" system would entail equality for all human beings.

In death we are all equal, but is that necessarily a desirable outcome?

OK, I know we are talking about a dead economic/monetary system, rather than directly dead human beings; but it still does beg the question as to whether a dead monetary system serves human society any value?

If, no matter what you or I did, we were to always have the same amount of money as everybody else, then why would we try and do anything to change the amount of money we had, because we would, no matter what we did, be incapable of making any such change.  In that scenario, the primary value of money, to motivate human action, would be nullified.  So what value would money have.  In such a scenario, we would have no money at all, since that which we might now regard as money would no longer function as money, so they would be worthless pieces of paper.

Yes, we could consider a hypothetical economic system that was in its lowest energy state, but such a system would have no dynamic, and thus be useless as an economic system.

Consider my original post again and notice how I specifically did not repeat the part about "lowest energy state" as part of the analogy; the reason being that energy is not as relevant to the context of a state as is societal levels. And considering societal levels instead of energy makes the critical difference.

The term 'energy' has a number of meanings (which can be confusing when one simultaneously talks of conservation of energy and consumption of energy – but they are two different meanings for energy).

In general terms, energy is that which causes action; and something is considered to be at its lowest energy state if it is no longer capable of any further action (at least without an input from an external energy source).  In that respect, a monetary system that is in a stable state of 'equilibrium' should be in a state where it cannot move out of that equilibrium, otherwise we cannot regard that state as stable, but merely transitory.  That is what I meant by being at the lowest energy state.

In that respect, if the monetary system is in a permanently stable state, it follows that it can no longer do any work (i.e. perform a useful function) for society.

In order for a system to perform work, it must have a dynamic, and thus must not be in a state of minimum energy where no more useful work can be done by the system.

Again, I specifically did not mention an economic system being in a state of minimum energy, let alone an economic system as they have nothing to do with the argument. Can you even qualitatively describe to yourself what it means to have high or low energy states in an economic system?

I think that is what I have done above.

Anyway, I was talking about the monetary system, not economic systems which use the monetary system as a medium through which wealth is transferred. As such, this is not so much a critique of capitalism as it is a critique of man-made systems (but I suppose that delves into a topic of its own).

Whether one makes a distinction in the present social context between the monetary or the economic system (since many would regard money as merely a measure of economic value), the underlying fact remains that any system, of whatever nature, is only useful insofar as it is capable of doing work, and once a system ceases to do work, it no longer functions as a meaningful system.

If money does not work for human society, then it ceases to have any useful meaning to human society.

[another_someone]

I think that a lumpy distribution where the money is with a few plutocrats is, unfortunately, the low energy state.

I actually think that money is far more complex than that.  That its natural state is to be unevenly distributed is a reasonable comment, but that money is its own attractor is too much of an oversimplification, and if that were to be the case, the monetary system would long ago have reached such a low energy state, and having reached that state would have lost any dynamic in the system, and thus causing a collapse of the system.

While it is true that the rich get richer, it is also true that the rich can get spectacularly bankrupt - so there are limiting factors that reverse the flow of money, and this is what keeps the system going.

It is also the case that money only has as much value as whatever you buy with it; so a rich man who never spends his money has no money (in any practical sense, since buying nothing with it, the money merely has a theoretical value that is never actually realised).

All of this means that while money will always attract money, there are pulls in both direction, that while causing the system to be lumpy, do not simply creating black holes into which money enters but never leaves.

[DoctorBeaver]

The point of all this is to be able to say that the unequal distribution of wealth around the world is unnatural, unpractical and idealistic. And further more any system that supports the natural tendency for wealth to equilibrate (such as the Islamic commandment to return all excess profits to the central government for redistribution to the poor), will be sustainable in the long term.

Any distribution of wealth is unnatural as humans play a hand in it. What you are putting forward is an ideology, not a natural law. If wealth is returned to the state (society) for re-distribution then it is not a natural state (condition); there is human interference. It's illogical to argue that a man-made condition is a natural 1.

[namaan (OP)]

Hi another_someone,

Although I can't expect everyone to read every post that I write, if you want an engaging discussion, you should consider reading some of my previous posts as they address the central theme of your post.

Basically your understanding is that I am referring to some sort of socialist ideals when I talk about equality of distribution of wealth. Consider some of my previous quotes:

I general, and I have said this over and over again, I am only referring to the tendency of wealth to equilibrate among the various societal levels and make no claim on it actually equilibrating. As pointless of an argument as this might seem, the reason that I make it is to be able to say that it is the unequal distribution of wealth as we see today that is unnatural, unpractical and idealistic in nature rather than vice versa.

Ultimately, the reason I bring all this up is mostly because I am tired of hearing the idea that the inequality across the world is a natural phenomenon and that achieving equality among all humans (in term of have the basic needs of life met; not the socialist ideals of forced equality of wealth) is idealistic thinking of the worst kind and completely unpractical.

Following from the argument I have made thus far, I would argue that it is the current model of extreme accruement of wealth among a small group of individuals that is idealistic and unpractical as it runs counter to natural effects of all equilibriums.

There is a big difference between being able to work for extra wealth and 1% of the world's population owning 40% of economic wealth don't you think? I am not a supporter of socialist principles where everyone should be forced to have exactly equal wealth. In Islam, there is room for ownership, running a business and generating profit and all that good stuff, the only difference being that Muslims are commanded to give back to the community "all that is in excess" via the central government.

P.S. I'm not like keeping a record on the posts or anything  []
I found those posts by simply searching for "socialist" in the reply section.

[namaan (OP)]

Since I am being confused for supporting socialist principles, I think a disclaimer is necessary:

By equality in distribution of wealth, I do not mean forced and exact equality in wealth. So long as the wealth distribution curve does not look like the Eiffel tower or even the pyramids, I have no problem [O8)]

Any distribution of wealth is unnatural as humans play a hand in it. What you are putting forward is an ideology, not a natural law. If wealth is returned to the state (society) for re-distribution then it is not a natural state (condition); there is human interference. It's illogical to argue that a man-made condition is a natural 1.

The assumption was that money (the pieces of paper in your wallet) does not move of its own accord (obviously). Whereas water has a natural driving force (gravity) for moving to its lowest energy state, the pieces of paper in your wallet have no such natural driving force (again, obviously).

However, and I guess I have not really elaborated on this, I mentioned in a previous post that money and wealth are just representations of the raw material attained from economy. There isn’t any particular species towards which food, one type of raw material, gravitates towards. Food naturally becomes available equally for all species. It is this natural tendency for equality in distribution that I am referencing when I say that wealth “wants” to gravitate towards the lower societal levels. While there is no driving force for money, there is a driving force for the raw materials which equally become available to all species which is the natural cycles of the earth.

So, again, I do live on this planet too so please don't think that I have assumed something so illogical as money and wealth themselves magically move around by the wind or something to find poor people. Money and wealth don't have a driving force themselves, however seeing as how they represent raw materials which are meant to, in general, equally present themselves to those who need them, they too can be thought to want to gravitate away from a non-equilibrated state. So, following this logic, the only nation states that can exist in the long term are those that adopt wealth distribution methods that act as driving forces similar to the naturally occuring ones.

[DoctorBeaver]

Food naturally becomes available equally for all species.

Sorry, but I disagree. Species develop to fill niches, to consume available food. If a food source dries up the animals will perish.

[another_someone]

Any distribution of wealth is unnatural as humans play a hand in it. What you are putting forward is an ideology, not a natural law. If wealth is returned to the state (society) for re-distribution then it is not a natural state (condition); there is human interference. It's illogical to argue that a man-made condition is a natural 1.

Are humans outside nature?

What is the meaning of unnatural?  Does it have any more meaning than supernatural?

If it is, how can it be unnatural, unless one judges something as being outside of nature (e.g. God)?

[another_someone]

As an aside, I found your post to be somewhat confusing, partly because you are claiming I said things that I never actually said. For instance, I never made any claim on some standard "natural equilibrium state" for wealth. I general, and I have said this over and over again, I am only referring to the tendency of wealth to equilibrate among the various societal levels and make no claim on it actually equilibrating. As pointless of an argument as this might seem, the reason that I make it is to be able to say that it is the unequal distribution of wealth as we see today that is unnatural, unpractical and idealistic in nature rather than vice versa.

the point is that money has many competing tendencies, which is why it keeps working.

If money had a single, simple, tendency (in any direction – whether it was towards centralism or towards equal distribution), sooner or later it will have all flowed in one direction or another, and would have nowhere else to flow.  Money works, and keeps working, because there are both centralising forces and distributing forces, and these are constantly in tension.

You can debate whether the forces of distribution ought to be stronger, and the forces of centralisation ought to be weaker, but practical observation shows they are not.  If the theory and the practice disagree, it is usually a reasonable assumption to make that the theory is at fault.

[another_someone]

By equality in distribution of wealth, I do not mean forced and exact equality in wealth. So long as the wealth distribution curve does not look like the Eiffel tower or even the pyramids, I have no problem [O8)]

Are we talking here about your preferences, or the natural preferences of the monetary system?

I have no problem with your preferences, but I do have a problem with the notion that because you or I would wish it to be so, thus it must naturally be so.

The assumption was that money (the pieces of paper in your wallet) does not move of its own accord (obviously). Whereas water has a natural driving force (gravity) for moving to its lowest energy state, the pieces of paper in your wallet have no such natural driving force (again, obviously).

Money is not a piece of paper, it is the sentiment (i.e. the trust placed in the value) associated with those pieces of paper.  Today, a piece of paper can buy you a house, while tomorrow that same piece of paper may not even buy you a loaf of bread (I am making assumptions the the relative values of bread and houses are as we see them today, and am only making a statement that the value of the money in your pocket can change, even as the pieces of paper themselves do not move anywhere).

However, and I guess I have not really elaborated on this, I mentioned in a previous post that money and wealth are just representations of the raw material attained from economy.

In an idealised world, this would be so; but in the real world, money is simply a way of measuring power.  Clearly, having control over necessary raw materials is a way of accumulating power, but power distribution has always been more complex than that.  More to the point, there is a natural positive feedback cycle that allows that if you have power, it allows you to assert greater control over essential resources, and the greater control you have over essential resources, so the more power you will accrue.

Long before the days of the modern complex moneyed society, there were kings and there were slaves.  The abolition of each (Kings have not been abolished, but where they do survive, they have tended to lose much of their historic power) has been commensurate with the rise of money (I know that money is much older than that, but its social significance has clearly been amplified over the last few centuries).  As the roles of King and slave have reduced, so money has made its own kings and its own slaves, although they are not called so.

In that respect, money has not really changed very much, except that it has given us a new way to measure that which always was there.

There isn’t any particular species towards which food, one type of raw material, gravitates towards. Food naturally becomes available equally for all species.

Are we talking species here, or individuals within a species (arguments exist for each, but individuals within a given species will inevitably be far more in direct competition over the same resources than would inevitably be the case between species, where different species might utilise different resources).

In both cases, shortages do arise (although they do fluctuate from year to year, from decade to decade, from century to century).

Generally, an animal with more power (the alpha male and his mates) will have access to more, or better, food; while other individuals will be relegated further to the margins.  Clearly, the smaller the social unit, the less capacity there is for social inequality (an ant colony, having millions of members, will have much more inequality between the queen and the workers, than a troop of 30 monkeys).

[DoctorBeaver]

Any distribution of wealth is unnatural as humans play a hand in it. What you are putting forward is an ideology, not a natural law. If wealth is returned to the state (society) for re-distribution then it is not a natural state (condition); there is human interference. It's illogical to argue that a man-made condition is a natural 1.

Are humans outside nature?

What is the meaning of unnatural?  Does it have any more meaning than supernatural?

If it is, how can it be unnatural, unless one judges something as being outside of nature (e.g. God)?

Confusion of semantics again; I'm a psychologist, you're a scientist, so differing terminology. I'm not asserting that humans are outside of nature. When referring to human nature I mean the way humans think & behave.

There are those who argue that all behaviour is predictable; it's just that we don't yet know the rules involved. Personally, I don't concur with that viewpoint. Therefore when I say that human interference is not a natural process I mean there are no universal laws that stipulate that humans will behave in a particular way under particular circumstances. There are certain laws in physics, for instance, that apply equally everywhere - Boyle's law, Hook's law etc - but there are none that can be applied to human behaviour (or, at least, none that we have yet discovered; and I doubt we ever will).

For that reason I consider everything that humans play a part in must be unnatural - it is not inevitable that it happens.

As you rightly pointed out, wealth is not just paper money. Paper money is 1 representation of wealth. Among the Maasai of East Africa wealth & status is measured in cattle. Cattle do not "tend to spread out equally". Left to their own devices they will just wander where they want with a tendency to stick close together.

[Bored chemist]

Namaan,
What you said in the very first post is this
"the system describing the flow of wealth or money will tend towards equilibrium and thus naturally tends towards the lowest societal level available to it "
then you clarified "lowest societal level" thus

"Also, by "the lowest societal level", you can think of homelessness, poverty, working more than full time and still not being able to earn a living wage."

I may have missed the point, but doesn't that mean you think the "lowest" level to which wealth flows is those unfortunates in poverty?
My observation is that it does not, rather the reverse is true and the rich get richer.
If that's not what you meant then please explain.

[namaan (OP)]

First of all, I largely skipped over the arguments about how “money is not paper”. That has nothing to do with this argument and is just a matter of semantics. I have been using the phrase “money and wealth” for a while now so it should be obvious what was meant. For consistency’s sake, I’ll just stop using the word “money” and stick to “wealth”.

the point is that money has many competing tendencies, which is why it keeps working.

If money had a single, simple, tendency (in any direction – whether it was towards centralism or towards equal distribution), sooner or later it will have all flowed in one direction or another, and would have nowhere else to flow.  Money works, and keeps working, because there are both centralising forces and distributing forces, and these are constantly in tension.

This is also a matter of semantics. In my understanding for something to have a tendency to do something means that it naturally does something without regards to external forces. Following this understanding, water has a single tendency as governed by the gravitational force, which is to go down. Even so, you can get water to do many things outside this tendency such as run a steam engine, take part in nuclear power plants, generate electricity in dams and so on. This is done by applying energy to the water which otherwise only has a straightforward tendency to go down.

Similarly, once again considering the following:

Food naturally becomes available equally for all species. It is this natural tendency for equality in distribution that I am referencing when I say that wealth “wants” to gravitate towards the lower societal levels. While there is no driving force for money, there is a driving force for the raw materials which equally become available to all species which is the natural cycles of the earth…. Money and wealth don't have a driving force themselves, however seeing as how they represent raw materials which are meant to, in general, equally present themselves to those who need them, they too can be thought to want to gravitate away from a non-equilibrated state.

I would argue that wealth also has only one tendency, which is to “go down” to the lower societal levels (in possibly more effective terms, to gravitate away from a non-equilibrated state of existence). But you can get this wealth to do many things outside this tendency such as the effects of the “centralizing forces” you mentioned (specifically the actions of the “elite”).

Are we talking here about your preferences, or the natural preferences of the monetary system?

Throughout the entire discussion, I have consistently spoken of the “natural tendency” of wealth to gravitate away from a non-equilibrated state (or at least had a similar meaning). Just because I like this thinking doesn’t change the fact that I refer to this tendency as natural laws just as one would consider gravity to be a natural law. In fact this was the very point of the analogy I made between the laws describing the flow of water and those describing the flow of wealth in my very first post.

In an idealised world, this would be so; but in the real world, money is simply a way of measuring power.  Clearly, having control over necessary raw materials is a way of accumulating power, but power distribution has always been more complex than that.  More to the point, there is a natural positive feedback cycle that allows that if you have power, it allows you to assert greater control over essential resources, and the greater control you have over essential resources, so the more power you will accrue.

So, if the oil companies tomorrow could, for some reason, no longer find a single person to work for them anymore, and thus no more oil (a raw material) can be extracted from the earth, the people running these companies will somehow magically remain in power?

Are we talking species here, or individuals within a species (arguments exist for each, but individuals within a given species will inevitably be far more in direct competition over the same resources than would inevitably be the case between species, where different species might utilise different resources).

In both cases, shortages do arise (although they do fluctuate from year to year, from decade to decade, from century to century).

You responded for me, while there are shortages, there are also surpluses, but while there may be fluctuations, in general, equilibrium is maintained.

Generally, an animal with more power (the alpha male and his mates) will have access to more, or better, food; while other individuals will be relegated further to the margins.

And yet, in general, equilibrium is maintained as all members of a species are fed. This isn’t about how the animals treat each other; frankly that’s not an excuse for comparison to humans anyway with the brain capacity allotted to us.

Clearly, the smaller the social unit, the less capacity there is for social inequality (an ant colony, having millions of members, will have much more inequality between the queen and the workers, than a troop of 30 monkeys).

I never made any claim about a particular species’ capacity to get resources

And Bored chemist,

My observation is that it does not, rather the reverse is true and the rich get richer.

Unfortunately, I have responded to this observation too many times to repeat.

{phew}

I am rather overwhelmed by the amount of interest that this post has generated. Or maybe its because I am spending so much time on the replies that you guys want to have some sympathy and make some response if nothing else []

Anyway, I probably won’t be able to post any replies again for a bit, unless they can be done in a sentence or two.

[another_someone]

This is also a matter of semantics. In my understanding for something to have a tendency to do something means that it naturally does something without regards to external forces. Following this understanding, water has a single tendency as governed by the gravitational force, which is to go down. Even so, you can get water to do many things outside this tendency such as run a steam engine, take part in nuclear power plants, generate electricity in dams and so on. This is done by applying energy to the water which otherwise only has a straightforward tendency to go down.

Sorry, but you are being wholly inconsistent here.

You are:

• for something to have a tendency to do something means that it naturally does something without regards to external forces
• Following this understanding, water has a single tendency as governed by the gravitational force, which is to go down

But is not the gravitational force an external force?

In the absence of any external force, water has a tendency to do nothing at all.

Similarly, once again considering the following:

I would argue that wealth also has only one tendency, which is to “go down” to the lower societal levels (in possibly more effective terms, to gravitate away from a non-equilibrated state of existence). But you can get this wealth to do many things outside this tendency such as the effects of the “centralizing forces” you mentioned (specifically the actions of the “elite”).

When you say 'similarly' – do you mean that you similarly regard a single force as not being an external force at all, and regard all other forces as external forces, and then regard that single force as pertaining to a natural tendency?

So, if the oil companies tomorrow could, for some reason, no longer find a single person to work for them anymore, and thus no more oil (a raw material) can be extracted from the earth, the people running these companies will somehow magically remain in power?

If the oil company is offering people good money to work for them, then you will have to explain why people are refusing to work for them?

It is possible that a government passes legislation that makes it illegal for people to work for oil companies, but that would merely be a demonstration that the power of government still exceeds the power of oil companies, but that too is dependent upon the government not being bankrupt (i.e. a bankrupt government would not be able to afford to pay to police its laws, and so the law would be futile).

Generally, an animal with more power (the alpha male and his mates) will have access to more, or better, food; while other individuals will be relegated further to the margins.

And yet, in general, equilibrium is maintained as all members of a species are fed.

Are you really trying to say that in the wild no animal ever starves?

This isn’t about how the animals treat each other; frankly that’s not an excuse for comparison to humans anyway with the brain capacity allotted to us.

But humans are animals, and beneath the veneer, we still behave as any other animal behaves.

Furthermore, if you are talking about the way a system behaves (and you have consistently referred to the monetary system), then the assumption is that the system has a behaviour that is not under the concious control of humans (you have argued you are not trying to propose a controlled economic system, but are looking at the natural way the monetary system works without explicit controls applied to it).

Clearly, the smaller the social unit, the less capacity there is for social inequality (an ant colony, having millions of members, will have much more inequality between the queen and the workers, than a troop of 30 monkeys).

I never made any claim about a particular species’ capacity to get resources

Neither was I – I was referring to the size of the social unit, without regard to the species that composes that social unit.