{"id":35643,"date":"2017-03-27T16:42:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T23:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/the-lessons-of-violence-and-inequality-through-the-ages"},"modified":"2017-06-04T07:07:30","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:07:30","slug":"the-lessons-of-violence-and-inequality-through-the-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/the-lessons-of-violence-and-inequality-through-the-ages","title":{"rendered":"The lessons of violence and inequality through the ages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-lessons-of-violence-and-inequality-through-the-ages.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>History has shown us that only violence or huge disasters tend to reduce inequality. Which is frightening on it\u2019s own.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>\n<strong>The Great Leveller: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century<\/strong> By Walter Scheidel. <em>Princeton University Press; 504 pages; $35 and \u00a327.95.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>AS A supplier of momentary relief, the Great Depression seems an unlikely candidate. But when it turns up on page 363 of Walter Scheidel\u2019s \u201cThe Great Leveler\u201d it feels oddly welcome. For once\u2014and it is only once, for no other recession in American history boasts the same achievement\u2014real wages rise and the incomes of the most affluent fall to a degree that has a \u201cpowerful impact on economic inequality\u201d. Yes, it brought widespread suffering and dreadful misery. But it did not bring death to millions, and in that it stands out.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21717801-only-catastrophe-truly-reduces-inequality-according-historical-survey-lessons?fsrc=scn%2Fli%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fed%2Fapocalypsethenthelessonsofviolenceandinequalitythroughtheages\">http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21717801-only-c...ughtheages<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>History has shown us that only violence or huge disasters tend to reduce inequality. Which is frightening on it\u2019s own. The Great Leveller: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century By Walter Scheidel. Princeton University Press; 504 pages; $35 and \u00a327.95. AS A supplier of momentary relief, the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":369,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58291,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35643\/revisions\/58291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}