Why it's bad for the rich to get richer

I'm seeing quite a lot of stuff lately that seems to suggest that the kinds of inequalities that unrestrained market forces tend to build up are bad for us. Part of that 'badness' is the way that those who have tend to affect the rest.

First have a look at this research on the effect of money on altruism. The net result being

In a series of nine experiments, researchers found that money enhanced people's motivation to achieve their own goals and degraded their behavior toward others.

Then, in this Guardian article, a number of considerations about how increasing affluence for a few actually does not deliver net benefits for the many, rather the reverse.

high pay rises among the top 1% are as inflationary as wage rises among the mass of the population. It's just that this inflation affects assets rather than goods and services. For years our rulers have insisted that one worker's wage rise is another's job loss. It is equally true that one person's fat-cat bonus is another's loss of home ownership prospects. It may be a job loss, too, since the Bank of England's concerns about an overheating housing market may cause it to raise interest rates. ... More important, they can hire the best accountants to minimise or wipe out their tax liabilities. If an increasing proportion of national income and wealth is taken by a tax-avoiding elite, the tax base ultimately shrinks. Increasingly, we must look to the philanthropic efforts of the rich to relieve poverty and to create social assets such as schools and arts centres. That sounds fine in principle, and Victorian philanthropy, free from the stultifying effects of public bureaucracy, is often held up as a model. But the result is a step backwards for democracy, with the super-rich deciding our social priorities. ... there is overwhelming evidence that as inequality grows a country becomes nastier. In The Impact of Inequality, Richard Wilkinson, professor of social epidemiology at Nottingham University, shows rates of violent crime and racism tend to be higher where the gap between rich and poor is greater. So firmly established is the link between homicide rates and inequality, according to Wilkinson, that many criminologists regard it as more important than any other environmental factor.

The comments are interesting too.
The real issue, as ever, becomes 'what do you do about it?'. But at least we have the research to rule out of court the stupidities of trickle-down and 'a rising tide lifts all boats' because the reality is that, retaining the metaphor,

a rising tide only lifts the boats that have already had money spent on them and that haven't been filled with boulders and concrete

or holed!

Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss.
- Proverbs 22:16-16

A return to the politics of envy could serve us well | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited: