Wealth is not a useful measure as it often just means owning shares. Essentially the problem of the poor is not low wealth, not even low income, but low consumption. And even of that, not all consumption, we need a category like "meaningfully redistributable consumption". This is not well defined yet I think. Basically you cannot meaningfully redistribute a gold watch, you can sell it and buy food but it just results in more money pursuing the same amount of food. Meaningfully redistributable consumption would be food, square meter of housing, clothing, fuel, healthcare, schooling and mass-manufactured things.
After this is somehow measured, the next thing to measure is whether there is enough of these, just badly distributed, or not enough. For example horses need a lot of farmland to feed. If the rich have a lot of horses and the poor are hungry, not good. If the rich buy old paintings, that is not an issue because not redistributable meaningfully.
Engels wrote that back that time the British working class was doing badly on these measures too, such as malnutrition. However he later retracted it.
In recent times, the developed world was doing well on these measures. However, recently home prices skyrocketed and even things like healthcare cannot cope well with immigration-related population growth. The nineties look like a golden age now.
Wealth is not a useful measure as it often just means owning shares. Essentially the problem of the poor is not low wealth, not even low income, but low consumption. And even of that, not all consumption, we need a category like "meaningfully redistributable consumption". This is not well defined yet I think. Basically you cannot meaningfully redistribute a gold watch, you can sell it and buy food but it just results in more money pursuing the same amount of food. Meaningfully redistributable consumption would be food, square meter of housing, clothing, fuel, healthcare, schooling and mass-manufactured things.
After this is somehow measured, the next thing to measure is whether there is enough of these, just badly distributed, or not enough. For example horses need a lot of farmland to feed. If the rich have a lot of horses and the poor are hungry, not good. If the rich buy old paintings, that is not an issue because not redistributable meaningfully.
Engels wrote that back that time the British working class was doing badly on these measures too, such as malnutrition. However he later retracted it.
In recent times, the developed world was doing well on these measures. However, recently home prices skyrocketed and even things like healthcare cannot cope well with immigration-related population growth. The nineties look like a golden age now.