Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

the argument is that increased taxation to fund a war effort plus increased industrial output to produce weapons of war leads to redistribution of wealth from the wealthy (who are disproportionately taxed) to the working class (who work in the factories and related industries to produce the armaments).

That's how communism was supposed to work, and the guys in charge of redistribution took the lion's share for themselves.

Imagine for a moment you are a driven, self-made .00001%er. If you KNEW your profits were taken at the top, would you work hard and innovate? Or would you commit fraud and squirrel away your wealth or not bother. Im sure a few would see it as a 'goal', but stakeholders would doubtlessly disagree. The spirit, I agree with, but not possible to cleanly implement.

Yeah,that and demographic shifts out of the age group whose predominance seems to drive crime rates seem to more-than-explain the drop in crime, violent and otherwise, more than offsetting any effect from rising inequality.

That was an interesting read, it definitely makes me want to read the book for a more detailed analysis.

I've increasingly been wondering about the links between violence/social unrest and inequality, particularly as we enter a period of time were globalization and automation have the potential to be hugely disruptive to the existing work force, even more so than they already have been.

This is only tangentially related, but I've been curious about the link between violent crime in the US and general societal health. Based on much of what I've read, and I could be mistaken here, I've seen a number of stats cited showing that factors like income inequality, purchasing power and very worryingly to me, social mobility, are all on a downward trend in the US. Even harder to quantify areas, like asking parents if they think their kids will be better off than they were, result in answers that skew unfavorably.

At the same time, it is both rather easy to own firearms or other forms of weapons and there are plenty already in circulation, and yet, unless I'm mistaken, violent crime has been on a steady downward trend in the US for the last 30+ years.

I would assume, perhaps niavely, that as social markers such as decreased mobility, inequality, pessimism about the future and distrust of the government and politicians grew, we would see a corresponding rise in violence. But it appears we aren't seeing that.

What could be behind this? Are we simply getting better at controlling people? Are we distracting them? Are we incarcerating them? Are they simply killing themselves? I know suicide rates for certain demographics have been increasing. Or are things not really as bad as they sometimes seem?

I'm definitely not advocating for violence, but I do feel that violence acts as a kind of societal last resort when a population believes they have exhausted all other options. Again, this could be a misguided interpretation of the situation on my part, but I would assume that violence in society would closely follow decreases in the kind of quality of life metrics we're seeing. I'd love to hear other posters' thoughts or if there are any good sources exploring the topic.