Luck Run Amok—Part 3
Schumpeter's Hotel
More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle argued that revolutions are usually caused by a widespread perception that the distribution of property is unequal and unfair. The United States checks the unequal box in that its economic inequality exceeds that in Tsarist Russia and the French Ancien Régime before their bloody revolutions.
It has been estimated that in pre-revolutionary Russia, the top 1% received 14% of national income; in the United States, it is now 20%. In pre-revolutionary France, the Roman Catholic Church and the nobility made up 3% of the population and owned 30% of the land. In the United States, the top 1% own 30% of the nation’s wealth.
Why don’t Americans take to the streets?
